Macroevolution in human prehistory : evolutionary theory and processual archaeology / Anna Marie Prentiss, Ian Kuijt, James C. Chatters, editors.

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Prentiss, Anna Marie.

Kuijt, Ian

Chatters, James C.

George Clapp Vaillant Book Fund.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Social evolution.

Macroevolution.

Physical Description:

ix, 324 pages : illustrations, maps ; 25 cm

Place of Publication:

New York : Springer, [2009]

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 this 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.

Contents:

Part I Issues in Macroevolutionary Theory

1 Proximate Causation, Group Selection, and the Evolution of Hierarchical Human Societies: System, Process, and Pattern / Michael Rosenberg 23

2 Landscape Learning in Relation to Evolutionary Theory / Marcy Rockman 51

3 "The Multiplication of Forms:" Bering Strait Harpoon Heads as a Demic and Macroevolutionary Proxy / Owen K. Mason 73

Part II Macroevolutionary Approaches to Cultural Change

4 The Emergence of New Socioeconomic Strategies in the Middle and Late Holocene Pacific Northwest Region of North America / Anna Marie Prentiss 111

5 Testing the Morphogenesist Model of Primary State Formation: The Zapotec Case / Charles S. Spencer 133

6 Evolutionary Biology and the Emergence of Agriculture: The Value of Co-opted Models of Evolution in the Study of Culture Change / Melinda A. Zeder 157

Part III Cultural Diversification, Stasis and Extinction as Macroevolutionary Processes

7 A Macroevolutionary Perspective on the Archaeological Record of North America / James C. Chatters 213

8 Cultural Stasis and Change in Northern North America: A Macroevolutionary Perspective / Anna Marie Prentiss, Michael Lenert 235

9 Niche Construction, Macroevolution, and the Late Epipaleolithic of the Near East / Ian Kuijt, Anna Marie Prentiss 253

Part IV Macroevolutionary Theory in Archaeology

10 Macroevolutionary Theory and Archaeology: Is There a Big Picture? / Robert L. Bettinger 275

11 Material Cultural Macroevolution / Niles Eldredge 297.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Local Notes:

Acquired for the Penn Libraries with assistance from the George Clapp Vaillant Book Fund.

ISBN:

9781441906816

1441906819

OCLC:

401159387