The study of archaeological objects is essentially based on the recognition that there are conceptual lineages (= typologies) in material culture: things cannot reproduce, but ideas can, and the latter become fossilized in the former. Yet models of conceptual evolution are almost universally rejected as it seems. My question is twofold: (1) have you also come across this apparent contradiction in your respective field of study and (2) has this cognition altered the way you think about dynamics for change?
I recently addressed this topic within the context of interpreting shipwrecks, published in my article entitled “Conceptual Evolution in Ancient Shipbuilding: An Attempt to Reinvigorate a Shunned Theoretical Framework". Watercraft are some of the most complex structures, yet some peculiar constructional features survive centuries or even millenia, even when they became functionally obsolete. I found concepts within the cognitive sciences very appealing to address these phenomena, like the cultural virus theory or the conformist bias, which will have certainly played a role for shipwright apprentices. Also the way change was brought about is a very „noisy“ process. When other ship designs were copied from visual representations, it was often only the analogous aspects that were reconstructed, while the vessel itself was built in the "same DNA", using the techniques and methods of the own tradition, a process that could be almost described as evolutionary convergence. I found many indications that would support meme-theory, but I am not entirely convinced whether this opens up new avenues of interpretation, as we all were - no doubt - at least subconsciously aware of this dynamic by using typologies.
Its less about rejection of the ideas, and more about the way they appear to portray human beings, and the appropriateness and utility of the explanation.
So the political bit first.
Cultural change mostly has intentional agency involved in the shaping of the patterns of the typology. By intentional agency I mean that there might be conscious decisions making on the part of individuals. So changes in designs are often the results of lots of small incremental improvements made by individuals on previous designs. This is particularly true of functional stuff of course.
These intentionally based explanations portray human beings as active decision makers, consciously shaping their world and their lives .
Something like Cultural virus theory (or Darwinian cultural evolution) can suggest that people are NOT active decision makers. It can end up portraying people as passive bits of meat infected by cultural viruses and driven by their Darwinian drives. Lots of people think that human beings can be more than that.
So that is I think the more political side of things. Its a rejection of this idea of human beings. And lets be honest, such explanations of our behavior can be a bit offensive, and a bit callous at times.
Moreover, sometimes these explanations add nothing but a few buzz words. To say that an idea "spread like a virus" is just a sloppy analogy, and not an explanation. Its shallow. "Its an infectious idea, and probably reflects a conformist bias" isn't actually any better. Why not simply say "it was a long lasting fashion?" The reason saying "it was a fashion" or "it was a meme"is in fact fairly shallow is because we aren't actually pinpointing a mechanism, or providing a explanation, we are just describing a particular sort of pattern.
And this leads us to the really important empirical issue here: Its not always clear that something like Cultural Virus theory is in fact the right choice from a selection of many possible explanations.
Typological patterns can be generated in multiple ways. So for example the stability of a non-functional feature in ship construction might well be explicable by a conformist bias. But it might also be explicable as a spandrel (a by-product) of some other process, particularly a social process such as the pedagogical structure that apprentices work under, or a spandrel of engineering, or a status bias of people who commission ships, or a perceptual bias (as opposed to a conformist bias), or simply cultural inertia
What is required here is a demonstration of why the conformist bias might trump these other factors; ie, show how the psychological bias works on the ground in this particular case, and how that might generate the pattern.
The devil really is in the details here. That is why psychology experiments can end up being very elaborate, and why this stuff can get sloppy and meaningless in an archaeological contexts where often the behavior can only be inferred, and not observed.
In archaeological contexts, too often the mechanism is not shown to be in action, its assumed by the typological pattern. Its is again sloppiness.
Sometimes something like Cultural Virus theory or a Darwinian explanation can really do the business. It can provide mathematical rigor, and the ability to model population movements, transmission rates, etc. There are some really wonderful examples of this kind of work where genuine insight is gained. But too often, people have reached for things like cultural virus theory without any real justification, and they have promised but never really delivered..
And audiences are right to be skeptical of this.
Hi Ben, thanks for taking the time to respond to my question. I am pleased that you provided a counter-argument, because this gives me the opportunity to go into further detail. I took the liberty to extract your core arguments:
BJ: Cultural change occurs mainly as a result of intentional decision making.
DZ: I would argue to the contrary that cultural change is largely an undirected process as individuals barely have an affect on broader cultural trends. Let’s assume you are a pot-maker or a shipbuilder, your artistic repertoire is limited by your experience, skill, , materials, known techniques, examples and inspirations. It’s not so much a free decision making process, as the vast majority of people are not able to think in more abstract terms (that’s why genius-painters are so renowned, as they are able to deconstruct), so their product will be always guided by visual represenations of the culture the maker is immersed in. Obviously, hot spots of cross-cultural contact, such as port towns, provide distinctive visual representations and thus a higher potential for innovation and change. That’s why the expression of material culture is surprisingly constant, especially in closed rural communities...over centuries. This cultural mould, which is maybe the memetic equivalent to alleles, conditions how new influences fall into place, and what influences are likely to be adopted and which ignored. The cultural mould is very subjective in the way differences to other cultural groups are perceived. For instance mouldings (decorative elements in Scandinavian watercraft) disappear around 1200 AD onwards on a broader scale. This is barely the decision making of individuals per se, but expression of a different „cultural climate“ in which other aspects of ship-construction are valued higher, i.e. the importance of ships as socially perceived status symbol decreased, while an economic cost-benefit assessment became more prevalent.
BJ: Conceptional evolutionary theory add nothing to our understanding of cultural change except „buzz words“.
DZ: That’s actually how I feel about many other theoretical frameworks promoted by the „esoterics“ (e.g. soundscapes, phenomenology, gender themes etc). However, I do think there is a more solid base to conceptual evolutionary theory for the reason that typology is at the core of archaeological methodology and that a better understanding of the underlying principles through which typologies are conditioned could hone our understanding of cultural replication processes and thus its manifestations observable in typology.
BJ: Typological patterns can be generated in multiple ways, e.g. conservativism other than a conformist bias.
DZ: Well, and what exactly does conservatism mean? The „conformist bias“ as coined by Boyd & Richerson is a useful analytical tool to address conformity in material culture through social learning (cf. meme-theory), which is probably the main parameter in conformity. Obviously, there could be also other reasons, but I would argue that these will be also bound in some way to conceptual evolutionary laws. But do challenge me on that! Name a case where you think that this may not be the case.
BJ: Psychology experiments can end up being very elaborate, and why this stuff can get sloppy and meaningless in an archaeological contexts where often the behavior can only be inferred, and not observed.
DZ: Agreed, but I think the inference of behaviour could be more exact if the nature of change is understood better. And this would add more meaning to the entire discipline, particularly in the light of repeated claims that we archaeologists (unlike antiquarians) study human development and not merely artefacts.
As far as I know, "Cultural evolution" has his highest recognition in the middle of XX century, mostly in American anthropology, with Julian Steward (1902-1972) and Leslie White (1900-1975) models. In archaeology was famous the enthusiasm created with the work of Morton Fried (1923-1986) and Elman Service (1915-1996), between 1970´s and 1990´s years.
Part of the discussion can compress into a topic: how the "egalitarian" regulation of non complex societies (bands, tribes) was broken and institucionalized? That is not a teleological question. Just a description of a more detailed review of the historical and ethnographic information available (cf. Santiago Mora, Amazonia. Pasado y presente de un territorio remoto. El ámbito, la historia y la cultura vista por antropólogos y arqueólogos, Bogotá: Universidad de los Andes, 2006). Social changed is not oriented by a non historical force, or a necesity of improvement the welfare; those were modern (and fallen) hypotesis not deductions or laws (cf. Perry Anderson, The Ends of History, 1992).
But.... the "post-post-neo-evolutionism" could be less ambitious and grounded. Can help the cognitive orientation, such as: How Things Shape the Mind: A Theory of Material Engagement (Lambros Malafouris and Colin Renfrew, 2013).
A very promising point of view could be this: Why We Cooperate (2009) and A Natural History of Human Thinking, by Michael Tomasello.
If you don´t know this books, may be could help to confront some stereotypes about cultural evolution, his critics and followers.
Perhaps you clould study space stations as ships, versus aircraft as mass-produced ships, versus science fiction spaceships, versus modern ships, versus mature model caravalles.
Regarding new avenues of interpretation of from memes, which is perhaps another word for manifestations of archetypes; and regarding evidence against evolution of cognition, see www.stoneprint.wordpress.com
Technology follows a maturity curve linked to population density. Pots, wheels, ships, metals, etc, all enter use when needed. Technology does not influence the core content of culture (myth, art, ritual, icons), except as texture. The archetype 'boat' is pre-existent. Different versions and sizes and energy applications do not change the archetype.
- Badges
- Science topic
- Similar topics
- Linguistics
- Composition Studies
- Publications