Cultural Transmission (Evolutionary Biology)

Fitness

by Timo Maran

Published in: A More Developed Sign. Interpreting the Work of Jesper Hoffmeyer (Tartu Semiotics Library 10), Favareau, Donald; Cobley, Paul; Kull, Kalevi (eds.), Tartu: Tartu University Press 2012, 147-149.

Cultural transmission, phylogenetics, and the archaeological record

by Jelmer Eerkens

In Mapping Our Ancestors: Phylogenic Methods in Anthropology and Prehistory, ed. by C. P. Lipo, M. J. O'Brien, M. Collard and S. J. Shennan, pp. 169-183. Transaction Publishers, Somerset, NJ.

Having long ignored cultural transmission as an important evolutionary force, archaeology has finally begun to develop... more Having long ignored cultural transmission as an important evolutionary force, archaeology has finally begun to develop models of transmission processes and actively search for archaeological evidence of them. Dual inheritance theory suggests phylogenies will be difficult to obtain, and often misleading, for behaviors largely the product of individual learning and most suitable to behaviors resulting from conformist and indirectly-biased transmission. Simulations and analysis of a very large sample of Great Basin projectile points confirms these expectations and highlights the problems involved in working with artifact classes whose variation is mainly quantitative.

Cultural Transmission Theory and the Archaeological Record: Providing Context to Understanding Variation and Temporal Changes In Material Culture

by Jelmer Eerkens

Journal of Archaeological Research 15:239-274.

Cultural transmission (CT) is implicit in many explanations of culture change. Formal CT models were defined by... more Cultural transmission (CT) is implicit in many explanations of culture change. Formal CT models were defined by anthropologists 30 years ago and have been a subject of active research in the social sciences in the ensuing years. Although increasing in popularity in the social sciences in recent years, CT has not seen extensive use in archaeological research, despite the quantitative rigor of many CT models and the ability to create testable hypotheses. Part of the reason for the slow adoption, we argue, has been the continuing focus on change in central tendency and mode in archaeology, instead of change in dispersion or variance. Interestingly, given its diachronic perspective, archaeological research provides an excellent data source for exploring processes of CT. We review CT research in the anthropological sciences and outline the benefits and drawbacks of this theoretical framework for the study of material culture. We argue that CT can shed much light on our understandings of why material technology changes over time, including explanations of differential rates of change among different technologies. We further argue that transmission processes are greatly affected by the content, context, and mode of transmission and fundamentally structure variation in material culture. Including ideas from CT can provide greater context for explaining and understanding changes in the variation of artifacts over time. Finally, we outline what we feel should be the goals of CT research in archaeology in the coming years.

Practice Makes Within 5% of Perfect: Visual Perception, Motor Skills, and Memory in Artifact Variation

by Jelmer Eerkens

Current Anthropology 41(4):663-668.

Archaeologists make frequent use of measures of variation in artifact assemblages to infer prehistoric behavior. For... more Archaeologists make frequent use of measures of variation in artifact assemblages to infer prehistoric behavior. For example, research in craft specialization frequently uses artifact standardization to assess how specialists and craft production were organized within particular societies. I explore how human visual perception, memory, and motor skills contribute to variability in artifacts as a material is transformed from the raw state into a physical object. Results show that people are only able to reproduce objects to within 5% of the actual size of a standard object, such as a coin or dollar bill. The data have implications for how people of the past may have generated variation in material culture.

Techniques for assessing standardization in artifact assemblages: Can we scale material variability?

by Jelmer Eerkens

American Antiquity 66(3):493-504.

The study of artifact standardization is an important line of archaeological inquiry that continues to be plagued by... more The study of artifact standardization is an important line of archaeological inquiry that continues to be plagued by the lack of an independent scale that would indicate what a highly variable or highly standardized assemblage should look like. Related to this problem is the absence of a robust statistical technique for comparing variation between different kinds of assemblages. This paper addresses these issues. The Weber fraction for line length estimation describes the minimum difference that humans can perceive through unaided visual inspection. This value is used to derive a constant for the coefficient of variation (CV=1.7%) that represents the highest degree of standardization attainable through manual human production of artifacts. Random data are used to define a second constant for the coefficient of variation that represents variation expected when production is random (CV=57.7%). These two constants can be used to assess the degree of standardization in artifact assemblages regardless of kind. Our analysis further demonstrates that CV is an excellent measure of standardization and provides a robust statistical technique for comparing standardization in samples of artifacts.

Cultural transmission, copying errors, and the generation of variation in material culture and the archaeological record

by Jelmer Eerkens

Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 24:316-334.

Archaeologists are adept at analyzing variation in artifacts. The discipline has well-established and tested methods... more Archaeologists are adept at analyzing variation in artifacts. The discipline has well-established and tested methods to track change through time and to evaluate the function of artifacts that depend upon measures of variation in the archaeological record. Although a critical concept, the means by which variation in material culture is generated is not well understood. This paper explores one source of variation, copying errors, and systematically examines how cultural transmission processes act to amplify, reduce, or maintain such variation. Using simple models, we generate expected distributions for the amount of variation that occurs through time under varying circumstances. This variation is caused by small errors that are transmitted from one person to another in the propagation and replication of cultural traits. These baseline values provide useful null models for explaining variation in prehistoric assemblages of artifacts. We use measurements of projectile points from Owens Valley and Woodland ceramics from Illinois to demonstrate the value of this approach.

Point typologies, cultural transmission, and the spread of bow-and-arrow technology in the prehistoric Great Basin

by Jelmer Eerkens

American Antiquity 64:231-242.

Decrease in projectile point size around 1350 B.P. is commonly regarded as marking the replacement of the atlatl by... more Decrease in projectile point size around 1350 B.P. is commonly regarded as marking the replacement of the atlatl by the bow and arrow across the Great Basin. The point typology most widely employed in the Great Basin before about 1980 (the Berkeley typology) uses weight to distinguish larger dart points from smaller, but similarly shaped, arrow points. The typology commonly used today (the Monitor typology) uses basal width to distinguish wide-based dart points from narrow-based arrow points. The two typologies are in general agreement except in central Nevada, where some dart points are light, hence incorrectly typed by the Berkeley typology, and in eastern California, where some arrow points are wide-based, hence incorrectly typed by the Monitor typology. Scarce raw materials and resharpening may explain why dart points are sometimes light in central Nevada. That arrow point basal width is more variable in eastern California than central Nevada likely reflects differences in the cultural processes attending the spread and subsequent maintenance of bow-and-arrow technology in these two localities.

THE MB-LB POTTERY FROM THE EASTERN PALACE OF QATNA. TRADITION AND VARIATION IN THE CERAMIC HORIZON OF A MID SECOND MILLENNIUM SYRIAN METROPOLIS

by Marco Iamoni

Cultural transmission and the analysis of stylistic and functional variation

by Jelmer Eerkens

In Cultural Transmission and Archaeology: Issues and Case-Studies, edited by M.J. O'Brien, pp. 21-38. SAA Press: Washington, DC.

We apply ideas from cultural transmission theory to examine “style” and “function,” concepts that archaeologists have... more We apply ideas from cultural transmission theory to examine “style” and “function,” concepts that archaeologists have much applied but have more rarely defined. Much of the debate over style and function centers on their definition and how they are patterned in the archaeological record. We show how we can devise quantitative models to bypass some of these issues by focusing on metrical variation in artifact assemblages. We argue for different types of style and function as defined metrically, and apply our ideas to quantitative data on projectile points from the Great Basin.

Why Africans do what they do. Arguments, discussions and religious transmission in Angolan Pentecostal churches in Lisbo

by Ruy Llera Blanes

2007. Quaderns del ICA 23 (7), pp. 123-137.

In this article I intend to describe the processes through which senses and ideas of "Africa-ness" are set... more In this article I intend to describe the processes through which senses and ideas of "Africa-ness" are set in discussion within Pentecostal churches of Angolan frequency in Lisbon. I will show how ideas os "Africa"- and, as referential, "Europe"- are invoked in their local sermons in the context of a pedagogy of religious experience, ideological creativity and determination of "cultural memory". In doing so, I will debate current approaches to memory and religious experience (namely the cognitive approach", in order to describe the processes of transmission that build on those ideas of Africa and Europe, and also make a stance for the importance of "arguments" and "discussion" in processes of religious definition and experience. I will argue that, in contexts of migration and ecounter, senses of religiosity are debated throught methods such as "topographical adscription", "epistemological definition" or "translation".

Standing on the shoulders of giants

by Fiona Coward

‘Standing on the Shoulders of Giants’, Science 319 (14th March): 1493-1495

General fitness, transmission, and human behavioral systems

by Michael Barton

2008 C. Michael Barton. In Cultural Transmission, edited by M.J. O’Brien, pp. 112-119. Society for American Archaeology Press, Washington.

The emergence of human uniqueness: the evolution of characters underlying behavioral modernity

by Michael Barton

2009 Kim Hill, C. Michael Barton, & Magdalena Hurtado.
Evolutionary Anthropology, 18(5): 187-200.

Although scientists are aware that humans share the same biological heritage as do all other organisms on the planet,... more Although scientists are aware that humans share the same biological heritage as do all other organisms on the planet, the reliance of Homo sapiens on culture and cooperation has resulted in what can best be described as “a spectacular evolutionary anomaly.”1:11 The extra-somatic adaptations, technological dominance, and success of our species in colonizing every terrestrial habitat have no parallel.2 Moreover, Homo sapiens accounts for about eight times as much biomass as do all other terrestrial wild vertebrates combined,3 an amount equivalent to the biomass of all 14,000+ species of ants,4 the most successful terrestrial invertebrates. Human societies are complex, with more specialized economic niches in the United States than the total number of mammalian species on the planet.5 While some might suggest that only post-industrial humans achieved stunning biological success, data suggest that humans living as hunter-gatherers would have attained a world population of more than 70 million individuals6 and a total biomass greater than that of any other large vertebrate on the planet if agriculture had not been repeatedly invented as they spread.

The multiple roles of cultural transmission experiments in understanding human cultural evolution

by Alex Mesoudi

The cultural transmission of Great Basin projectile-point technology I: an experimental simulation

by Alex Mesoudi

Establishing an experimental science of culture: animal social diffusion experiments

by Alex Mesoudi

The hierarchical transformation of event knowledge in human cultural transmission

by Alex Mesoudi

A bias for social information in human cultural transmission

by Alex Mesoudi

The Cultural Evolution of Adaptive-Trait Diversity when Resources are Uncertain and Finite

by Enrico R. Crema

Lake, M. W. and Crema, E. R., 2012, The Cultural Evolution of Adaptive-Trait Diversity when Resources are Uncertain and Finite, Advances in Complex Systems, 15, 1150013. (Please contact me if you wish to access an electronic copy)

In this paper we seek to build on existing mathematical studies of cultural change by exploring how the diversity of... more In this paper we seek to build on existing mathematical studies of cultural change by exploring how the diversity of adaptive cultural traits evolves by innovation and cultural transmission when the payoff from adopting traits is both uncertain and frequency de- pendent. The model is particularly aimed at understanding the evolution of subsistence trait diversity, since the payoff from exploiting particular resources is often variable and subject to diminishing returns as a result of overexploitation. We find that traits that exploit the same shared resource evolve most quickly when intermediate rates of cultural transmission promote fluctuation in trait diversity. Higher rates of cultural transmission, which promote predominantly low diversity, and lower rates, which promote predomi- nantly high diversity, both retard the adoption of traits offering higher payoff. We also find that the distribution of traits that exploit independent resources can evolve towards the theoretical Ideal Free Distribution so long as the rate of cultural transmission is low. Increasing the rate of cultural transmission reduces trait diversity, so that a more limited number of ‘niches’ are occupied at any given time.

Keywords: Cultural Transmission; Innovation; Cultural Diversity; Subsistence Strategies; Agent Based Modelling.

Review of N. Christakis and J. Fowler (2009), Connected: The Surprising Power of our Social Networks and How they Shape our Lives, New York: Little, Brown and Co.

by Dimitris Xygalatas

Journal of Cognition and Culture, Volume 10, Numbers 3-4, 2010 , pp. 401-403(3)