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DARWINIAN EVOLUTIONARY INSIGHTS INTO POTTERY AS AN ETHNIC MARKER

DAVID BULBECK

School of Archaeology and Anthropology,
The Australian National University

In archaeology, the theoretical explanation of variation in pottery decorations has focused on Information Theory, combined more recently with Agency Theory (Bacus 2004). This paper considers whether the resulting insights can be cast within the framework of Darwinian cultural evolution, examining the specific case of protohistoric and early historical pottery in Luwu, South Sulawesi, Indonesia (Bulbeck and Caldwell 2000). A long-lived contrast between decorated pottery in the north and generally plain pottery along the central coast correlates with different language stocks in these two areas. There are additional short-lived (c. 200 years) phenomena of: (a) the dissemination of "soft pottery" associated with the establishment of a complex chiefdom in Luwu; and (b) idiosyncratic decorative repertoires linked to immigrant groups. The predictions derivable from the hypotheses of biased transmission based on similarity (Boyd and Richerson 2005: Chapter 6), and the niche-construction statements on cooperation and conflict (Odling-Smee et al. 2003:298-301, 359-62), are tested against the Luwu data.

References:

Bacus, E.A. 2004. A consideration of processes underlying Philippine pottery complexes. In V. Paz (ed.), Southeast Asian Archaeology: Wilhelm G. Solheim II Festschrift, pp. 128-57. Quezon City: University of the Philippines Press.

Boyd, R. and P.J. Richerson. 2005. The Origin and Evolution of Cultures. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Bulbeck, D. and I. Caldwell. 2000. Land of Iron: The Historical Archaeology of Luwu and the Cenrana Valley. Results of the Origin of Complex Society in South Sulawesi Project (OXIS). Hull: University of Hull Centre for South-East Asian Studies.

Odling-Smee, F.J., M.W. Feldman and K.N. Laland. 2003. Niche Construction: The neglected Process in Evolution. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

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Explaining Variability in the Importance of Agriculture, While Working Toward a Unified Darwinian Paradigm

 

 

MIKE CANNON

 

California State University, Long Beach

 

Some behavioral ecologists have approached issues relating to the evolution of agriculture by using a model of optimal time allocation, which employs average productive efficiency as a currency.  I discuss an extension of this model that incorporates risk, or variability in gross production, which has long been considered also to be relevant to the evolution of agricultural economies.  This model can be used to develop hypotheses about the causes of variability in the importance of agriculture over space and time, and I discuss tests and potential tests of these hypotheses.  I conclude by addressing the relationship between HBE and selectionist approaches to issues such as the development of agriculture, which not only are complimentary, but which must be integrated in order to build complete evolutionary explanations.

 

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TEMPORAL TRENDS IN THE MORPHOMETRIC VARIATION OF THE LITHIC PROJECTILE POINTS DURING THE MIDDLE HOLOCENE OF SOUTHERN ANDES (PUNA REGION). A COEVOLUTIONARY APPROACH

MARCELO CARDILLO

IMHICIHU-CONICET Instituto Multidisciplinario de Historia y Ciencias Humanas. DIPA. (Departamento de Investigaciones prehistóricas arqueológicas).Saavedra 15. Buenos Aires, Argentina. ARG.


The focus of this paper is to discuss theoretical and methodological issues regarding the study of artifact's morphometric variation, which to some extent can be considered as an outcome of the cultural transmission process and replication error in the archaeological temporal and spatial scales. The methodology proposed here, is based on the application of metrical and non metrical techniques, as geometric morphometrics. The last one, allows us to perform shape and form analysis, treating these two variables independently one from the other. This procedure is almost impossible with traditional morphometric methods. Even when these two elements of artifact's design are highly related, it is analytically possible to discriminate each one, in order to search variation patterns related with cultural learning. This approach could be very useful to expose the traits that were more controlled by learning rules. From the analysis of an small sample of projectile points of the middle Holocene in the South Andes (Puna), we discuss here the potentials and limitations of both methods: the traditional and the geometric morphometrics. Under the later, the performed analysis suggest that while some basic traits of the form and shape have changed in different ways through time, other have tended to endure. This pattern suggest a phylogenetic signal.

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INTERDEMIC SELECTION AND PHOENICIAN PRIESTHOOD. DARWINIAN REFLECTIONS FROM THE SOUTHERN HISPANIC ARCHAEOASTRONOMY.


JOSE LUIS ESCACENA CARRASCO

Departamento de Prehistoria y Arqueología de la Universidad de Sevilla, España.


The most widespread interpretation sees in the religion a mechanism of reproduction of the society and of its internal inequalities. The Marxist positions have reinforced this vision. But the above mentioned approach does not explain why a conduct that only would benefit to the elites is present in all cultures. Also, for the general scorn of the historians towards the biology as instrument for his investigations, the study of religion has not known the evolutionary mechanisms linking faith and the reproduction of individuals and populations.
From Darwinism I push back that the beneficiaries of the religious credence are alone the highest classes, because the hierarchical structuring of a community is related to the competition for the resources between groups, that is to say, for interdemic selection. I support, yet, that the Phoenicians used his priests to organize their own dispersion. This way, they raised the foundation of new enclaves from the astronomical knowledge of the clergy. Without its application, the emplacement of the colonies might have prevented from organizing the commerce of overseas. This explains the link between foundational acts and sacred oracles.
Such aspects are slightly studied, especially for not interpreting many archaeological documents as cosmic symbols or astronomical knowledge. But there has not been explained, especially, the interest of a community to nourish a subpopulation of memetic hipermutants (the priests) exempt from any other obligation.

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EVOLUTIVE CLADOGRAM OF THE BULL SKIN MOTIVES AND ITS IMITATIONS IN THE ARCHAIC MEDITERRANEAN


JOSE LUIS ESCACENA CARRASCO*

DANIEL GARCIA RIVERO*


*Departamento de Prehistoria y Arqueología de la Universidad de Sevilla,España.

Archaeology works reconstructing ancient histories and processes, in many cases on the basis of a much reduced range of material culture. Nevertheless, sometimes a bigger investment in research studies, which in many cases lead to an increase of data, is not correlated with a better explanation of the archaeological problem. In part, this could be due to the insufficiency of the methods being applied, specifically those which deal with the classification of archaeological materials. These and the chronological sequences that archaeologists construct on the basis of these materials are very important in interpretative studies. That is why the introduction of new methodological frameworks such as cladistics potentially allows us to open new perspectives and can help us to tackle some of the common problems of the traditional classification systems. In this paper this method is applied to some testimonies of the ancient Mediterranean -some of them with a ritual character- which seem to imitate the bull skin motive. Thus, the first object is the assessment of the method itself, and the second, an exploration of the phyletic relationships between these archaeological elements.


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FROM CLOVIS POINTS TO BANTU PEOPLES: WHAT DO DIFFERENT CULTURAL PHYLOGENIES MEASURE?


ETHAN E. COCHRANE

Institute of Archaeology,University College London

31-34 Gordon Square,London WC1H 0PY.United Kingdom.


Defining evolutionary relationships between populations is a primary goal of phylogenetic analyses in archaeology. With a phylogeny in hand, scholars can develop explanations for particular patterns of descent, incorporating known chronological relationships and diversity of taxa, as well as spatial, environmental, demographic and other associated population characteristics.

There is, however, an important split among evolutionists pursuing phylogenetic explanations of cultural change: some examine artefact classes, such as projectile point types, as phylogenetically related taxa, while others use cultures, often represented by language groups, as taxa to be placed into a phylogenetic hierarchy. The artefact-type and culture-type approaches to phylogenetic analysis make different assumptions about our ability to recognize human groups and how we measure transmission influenced variation within and between them. Here I argue that for archaeological phylogenetic analyses, the artefact-type approach is preferable when it includes methods linking the construction of artefact types to transmission processes and the definition of human populations. Examples from ceramic research in Fiji exemplify the approach.

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TESTING MODELS OF EARLY PALEOINDIAN ADAPTATION USING BIOLOGICAL PHYLOGENETIC TECHNIQUES


MARK COLLARD*

BRIGGS BUCHANAN*

*Department of Anthropology and Sociology, University of British Columbia, 6303 NW Marine Drive, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, V6T 1Z1.

We examine Early Paleoindian technological traditions using cladistic tree-building techniques from Biology to reconstruct a cultural phylogeny. Projectile point data collected from 26 Early Paleoindian (ca. 11,500-10,500 BP) assemblages recovered from sites located across North America are used in the construction of cladograms. Twelve quantitative, size-corrected characters are coded for cladistic analysis using the gap weighting coding technique. Outgroup selection uses the oldest minimum radiocarbon age associated with an assemblage in the analysis. The resulting cladograms are analyzed using permutation tail probability tests and goodness-of-fit statistics (consistency and retention indices) to examine the degree to which the evolution of point form was a branching process or was blurred through horizontal transmission. The results of this research, derived from a continental-scale database, allow questions concerning routes of migration into North America, subsequent population movements and interaction, and adaptation to regional environments to be addressed.

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PHYLOGENIES OF THULE HARPOON COMPONENTS FROM THE NORTH AMERICAN HIGH ARCTIC


JOHN DARWENT

Inglefield Land Archaeology Project, Department of Anthropology,University of California, Davis, CA 95616-8522

The use of cladistics for reconstructing phylogenies of archaeological phenomena is limited by scale. To demonstrate how scale, or the level of the units of analysis, can affect phylogentic reconstruction I use late prehistoric- to historic-period Thule harpoons (ca. A.D. 1100-1900) from the High Arctic of Alaska, Canada and Greenland as an example. A harpoon is a multi-component hunting implement that typically consists of an endblade, harpoon head, foreshaft, socket, shaft, line, tension piece, and ice pick, and was used primarily for sealing but also to hunt walrus and whale. Although these components are assembled into one harpoon, and thus changes in one part might require changes in another, each component also can change separately from one another. In other words, the components can evolve independently. Using High Arctic harpoons, this analysis underscores the necessity of constructing phylogenies for the smaller-scale components of a composite artifact rather than at a whole-object level.


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CULTURAL AND BIOLOGICAL PHYLOGENETICS WITHIN POPULATIONS: WHAT CAN ONE PROFITABLY TEACH THE OTHER?

JOHN V. DUDGEON

University of Hawaii & IIRMES

We have been looking for specific analogues between biological and cultural evolution for a long time. Early efforts at explaining the archaeological record using models constructed from scientific evolutionary theory relied on adopted vocabulary and broad theoretical concepts, but rarely specified mechanisms and linkages between theory and observation. Recent efforts to generate evolutionary accounts of the archaeological record, while mechanistically sound, still struggle with units (what is being transmitted?), processes (how is it transmitted?), and scale (how much transmission is visible?).

Although robust for explaining biological change, traditional population genetics is ill-equipped to offer falsifiable explanations for cultural change because of manifold differences in fidelity of transmission, and the probability of instantaneous recursion among interacting populations. Graph and network models of transmission hold promise for delimiting analogous mechanisms of biological and cultural change. However, additional parameters such as population-level spatial and compositional variation are necessary to instantiate the models and evaluate their empirical sufficiency. From this basis, we can conceive of domains of variation common to both biological and cultural systems, and evaluate the degree to which they match in terms of units, processes and scale. Such a model system and its implications for geographic and demographic variability are outlined.