Macroevolution in Human Prehistory

by Prentiss, Anna Marie; Kuijt, Ian; Chatters, James C.

• ISBN13: 9781441906816
• ISBN10: 1441906819
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2009-11-01
• Publisher: Springer Verlag

Summary

Cultural evolution, much like general evolution, works from the assumption that cultures are descendent from much earlier ancestors. Human culture manifests itself in forms ranging from the small bands of hunters, through intermediate scale complex hunter-gatherers and farmers, to the high density urban settlements and complex polities that characterize much of today's world. The chapters in the volume examine the dynamic interaction between the micro- and macro-scales of cultural evolution, developing a theoretical approach to the archaeological record that has been termed evolutionary processual archaeology. The contributions in this volume integrate positive elements of both evolutionary and processualist schools of thought. The approach, as explicated by the contributors in this work, offers novel insights into topics that include the emergence, stasis, collapse and extinction of cultural patterns, and development of social inequalities. Consequently, these contributions form a stepping off point for a significant new range of cultural evolutionary studies.

Table of Contents

Introduction	p. 1
Issues in Macroevolutionary Theory
Proximate Causation, Group Selection, and the Evolution of Hierarchical Human Societies: System, Process, and Pattern	p. 23
Landscape Learning in Relation to Evolutionary Theory	p. 51
"The Multiplication of Forms:" Bering Strait Harpoon Heads as a Demic and Macroevolutionary Proxy	p. 73
Macroevolutionary Approaches to Cultural Change
The Emergence of New Socioeconomic Strategies in the Middle and Late Holocene Pacific Northwest Region of North America	p. 111
Testing the Morphogenesist Model of Primary State Formation: The Zapotec Case	p. 133
Evolutionary Biology and the Emergence of Agriculture: The Value of Co-opted Models of Evolution in the Study of Culture Change	p. 157
Cultural Diversification, Stasis and Extinction as Macroevolutionary Processes
A Macroevolutionary Perspective on the Archaeological Record of North America	p. 213
Cultural Stasis and Change in Northern North America: A Macroevolutionary Perspective	p. 235
Niche Construction, Macroevolution, and the Late Epipaleolithic of the Near East	p. 253
Macroevolutionary Theory in Archaeology
Macroevolutionary Theory and Archaeology: Is There a Big Picture?	p. 275
Material Cultural Macroevolution	p. 297
Index	p. 317
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