Evolution can be seen throughout all aspects of life, but for each aspect evolution does not occur in the same process. In his article entitled “Natural Selection, Scale, and Cultural Evolution,” Dunnell emphasizes and explains why evolution has made such a small impact on archaeology. Cultural evolution and biological evolution are not the same. Biological evolution uses theoretical propositions that explain the mechanisms of biological adaptation and evolution. The laws of cultural evolution “are not theoretical propositions but rather empirical generalizations” (Dunnell, 1996: 25). Cultural evolution does not explain the differences among the occurrences cultural phenomena. Dunnell’s main goal is to effectively formulate ways to integrate evolutionary characteristics and anthropological theory (Dunnell, 1996).
Dunnell believed that evolutionary biology is a better method to explain evolution in cultural anthropology and archaeology rather than cultural evolution. The main problem with biological evolution is the dilemma of altruistic behavior in humans, which is the exact opposite of natural selection. Dunnell states that altruistic behavior is “the ultimate of the selfish principles” (Dunnell 1996: 26). The original solution to the issue of altruistic behavior was thought to be to change the scale of which natural selection works from that of the individual to the group. However, Dunnell gives three reasons why this change usually would not work. First, the individual, not the group, is the mean by which the reproductivity occurs. Second, the individual is the mean by which observable characteristics show themselves. Finally, changes in higher levels of ranking in society, such as that of the group, are too slow for ...
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...a “culture” (Dunnell 1988).
After a forty years absence, the cultural evolution method was revived in the mid-twentieth century. At first, many rejected the revival of this method, even though they were still using some aspects of the method, i.e. the stages of a cultures development. The twentieth century cultural evolution method differed from the earlier model in a few ways, but the main difference was in the definition of “progress.” During the nineteenth century, “progress” was broadly defined as “the betterment or similarity to modern European culture” (Dunnell, 1988; pg 176-177). During the twentieth century, however, “progress” took the definition of “ the increase in the amount of energy captured by society” (Dunnell, 1988; pg 177). This simply means that the “least developed” cultures used less energy than “more developed” cultures (Dunnell, 1988).
...ncyclopedia of Archaeology, Ed. Deborah M. Pearsall. Vol. 3. Oxford, United Kingdom: Academic Press, 2008. p1896-1905. New Britain: Elsevier, Inc.
Jared Diamond, author of the Pulitzer Prize Winning, National Best Selling book Guns, Germs and Steel, summarizes his book by saying the following: "History followed different courses for different peoples because of differences among peoples' environments, not because of biological differences among peoples themselves." Guns, Germs and Steel is historical literature that documents Jared Diamond's views on how the world as we know it developed. However, is his thesis that environmental factors contribute so greatly to the development of society and culture valid? Traditions & Encounters: A Brief Global History is the textbook used for this class and it poses several different accounts of how society and culture developed that differ from Diamond's claims. However, neither Diamond nor Traditions are incorrect. Each poses varying, yet true, accounts of the same historical events. Each text chose to analyze history in a different manner. Not without flaws, Jared Diamond makes many claims throughout his work, and provides numerous examples and evidence to support his theories. In this essay, I will summarize Jared Diamond's accounts of world history and evolution of culture, and compare and contrast it with what I have learned using the textbook for this class.
Lewis Henry Morgan (1818-1881) was an American Anthropologist who founded the science of kinship systems. He was famous for his theory of social evolution, which was the belief that people pass through three stages of development: 1. Savagery, 2. Barbarism, 3. Civilization. The different people in the book were also split up into separate stages, two to be in fact: savagery and civilization. The ‘civilized’ were in the BNW and everyone e...
Discussions in the 1970’s and 1980’s within both sides of the debate indicate population change, behavior change and natural processes to be the large determining factors (Attenbrow, 2004). Many archaeologists accepted there was a continuing increase over time in the number of archaeological sites established and used, as well as in the number of artefacts accumulated in individual sites, particularly in the past 5000 years (eg. Johnson 1979:39; Bowdler1981; Morwood 1984:371, 1986, 1987; Ross 1984, 1985:87; Beaton 1985: 16-18; Fletcher-Jones 1985: 282, 286; Lourandos 1985a: 393-411, 1985b: 38; White and Habgood 1985; Hiscock 1986) (Attenbrow, 2004). Population change refers to the changes in number of people or size of the population, behavioural changes referring to changes to activities such as tool manufacturing, subsistence practices as well as the use of space within a site (Attenbrow, 2004). Whilst natural processes include geomorphological and biological process that may have affected the archaeological record (At...
B.M.de Waal, Tree of Origin: What Primate Behavior Can Tell Us about Human Social Evolution. Havard University Press: Massachusets, 2001.
Human civilization is constantly in a state of flux. It is always changing, evolving, and adapting to the ways that humans not only interact with one and other, but also with the earth on which we reside. We often call this evolving interaction progress. Progress can be defined as the destruction and re-building of social, political, and religious norms to promote a more prosperous and equitable society. Perhaps more than any other event in human history the European “discovery” of the New World fundamentally altered the social, political, and religious landscape the world over.
The term, progress, is synonymous with phrases that denote moving forward, growth, and advancement. It seems unorthodox then that Ronald Wright asserts the world has fallen into a progress trap, a paradox to how progress is typically portrayed as it contradicts the conventional way life is viewed: as being a natural progression from the outdated and tried towards the new and improved. Wright posits that it is the world’s relentless creation of innovative methods that ironically contributes to the progress trap rather than to progress itself, the intended objective. Wright’s coinage of the term “progress trap” refers to the phenomenon of innovations that create new complications that are typically left without resolve which exacerbate current conditions; unwittingly then, matters would have been much better if the innovation had never been implemented. In his book, “A Short History of Progress,” he alludes to history by citing examples of past civilizations that collapsed after prospering, and ones that had longevity because they avoided the perilous progress trap. Wright recommends that societies of today should use indispensable resources, such as history, to learn and apply the reasons as to why certain societies succeeded, while also avoiding falling into the pitfalls of those that failed, the ones that experienced the progress trap. This can easily be interrelated with Godrej’s concept of “the overheated engine of human progress,” since humans for centuries have been risking environmental degradation for progress through ceaseless industrialization and manufacturing. This exchange is doomed to prevent improved progress and will lead to society’s inevitable decline since it is unquestionable that in the unforeseeable future, cl...
The cultural innovations analyses presented here illustrate the presence of cumulative cultural evolution in the upper Paleolithic and portray how a steady rate of change continuous with that seen in later human history. This should serve to encourage interests in the internal process of evolution that may tend to produce a smooth curve, including the possible the autocatalytic effects of the increasing technological
Processual Archaeology, was a movement in the archaeological field that began in the 1960‘s and changed the course of archaeology forever. Anthropologists such as Julian Steward were absolutely influential on many archaeologists and anthropologists during the early 1960s with his theories of cultural ecology which established a scientific way of understanding cultures as human adaption to the surrounding environment (Steward, 1955: 36-38). It was approaches such as Stewards that led eventually led to a rejection of culture-historical approaches to the archaeological record and propelled the ideas of cultural evolution and its reaction with the environment. This approach to cultural systems was essentially a rejection of the culture-historical approach of determinism by suggesting that the environment influences culture but is not a deterministic feature and that both culture and the environment were two separate systems that are dependent on each other for change (Steward, 1955: 36).
The textbook defines evolution as the way a species or a population is changing throughout time through the allele frequencies of a gene pool. The gene pool is what makes the species different from others in genetic information carried by the population. The way about the change in species is the explained through the mechanisms of evolution. These mechanisms can be described with these four terms: mutation, gene flow, genetic drift, and natural selection.
This theory also heavily relies on the idea that in order to modernize, the country must Westernize and lose their traditional culture. It is then proposed that although in present day many societies are modern, its does not mean they are all the same.
...x implications for one another. Given their drastically different time scales, we must be careful not to conflate cultural evolution with biological evolution, but a brand of anthropocentrism that will not backfire must negotiate a careful course through both biology and culture.
It also gave us an understanding that human nature is shared across all cultures through specific genetic causes including interest to gossip, status-seeking, and guilt. The Moral Animal by Robert Wright will examine the father of evolution, Charles Darwin, and will illustrative the power of evolutionary biology. Robert Wright takes an interesting route in the book by highlighting Darwin’s ideas on the topics of sex, love, social relations, and morality. He then goes on into current research about these specific topics.
In order to examine the evolutionary approaches of Leslie White and Julian Steward, we must therefore discuss about what the theory of neo-evolutionism is. Neo-evolutionism is a nomothetic theory which is based on using the general principles of evolution to explain how cultures change through time. This theory is a “reformation” of the late nineteenth century evolutionary theory of cultural evolution. (Erickson 1998:116) Cultural evolution explains that all cultures, progress through different evolutionary stages, which starts from a “simple”
With the guidance of Binford, New Archaeology employed scientific approaches for studying and interpreting past cultures and their remains. Traditionally, archaeologists relied on “historical explanation” to interpret the significance of artifacts; however, New Archaeology introduced the concept of implementing a scientific attitude and considering culture as a process (Renfrew and Bahn 41). Deeming culture as a pr...