Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Macroevolutionary Theory and Archaeology: Is There a Big Picture?

  • Chapter
  • First Online:
Macroevolution in Human Prehistory

Abstract

In contrast to evolutionary ecology and evolutionary archaeology, macroevolutionary archaeology argues that human evolution is the result of more than just natural selection and selection-shaped decision making acting on individuals and that its broader trajectory is not random but structured. The rugged fitness landscape featured in Sewall Wright’s (1931; 1932) shifting balance theory provides a strong warrant for these arguments; forces other than natural selection are needed to move populations from lower to high fitness peaks. The analogy is particularly apt for humans because the bulk of human behavior is acquired by social transmission and has payoffs that hinge on the result of social interaction, producing many different adaptive equilibria. Groups that make their way to superior equilibria are selected for, resulting in group selection, the pace of which is hastened by cultural transmission.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution
Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 129.00
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 169.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info
Hardcover Book
USD 169.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  • Bettinger, R. L. (1978). Alternative adaptive strategies in the prehistoric Great Basin. Journal Anthropological Research 34(1), 27–46.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bettinger, R. L. (1980). Explanatory-predictive models of hunter-gatherer behavior. Advances in Archaeological Theory and Method 3 (pp. 189–255). New York: Academic Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bettinger, R. L. (1991). Hunter-gatherers: archaeological and evolutionary theory. New York: Plenum Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bettinger, R. L. (1994). How, when, and why Numic spread. In Madsen, D. B. and Rhode, D. R. (eds.), Across the West: Human Population Movement and the Expansion of the Numa (pp. 44–55). Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bettinger, R. L. (1999). What happened in the Medithermal? In Beck, C. (ed.), Models for the Millennium: Great Basin Anthropology Today (pp. 62-74). Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bettinger, R. L. and Eerkens, J. (1999). Point typologies, cultural transmission, and the spread of bow and arrow technology in the prehistoric Great Basin. American Antiquity 64(2), 231–242.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bettinger, R. L., Winterhalder, B. and McElreath, R. (2006). A simple model of technological intensification. Journal of Archaeological Science 33(4), 538–545.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Boyd, R. and Richerson, P. J. (1985). Culture and the Evolutionary Process. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Boyd, R. and Richerson, P. J. (1987). The evolution of ethnic markers. Cultural Anthropology 2, 65–79.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Boyd, R. and Richerson, P. J. (1992). Punishment allows the evolution of cooperation (or anything else) in sizable groups. Ethology and Sociobiology 13, 171–195.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Boyd, R. and Richerson, P. J. (2002). Group beneficial norms can spread rapidly in a structured population. Journal of Theoretical Biology 215, 287–296.

    Article  Google Scholar 

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

    Google Scholar 

  • Clark, D. L. (1968). Analytical Archaeology. London: Methuen.

    Google Scholar 

  • Coyne, J. A., Barton, N. H. and Turelli, M. (1997). Perspective: a critique of Sewall Wright’s shifting balance theory of evolution. Evolution 51(3), 643–671.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Coyne, J. A., Barton, N. H. and Turelli, M. (2000). Is Wright’s shifting balance process important in evolution? Evolution 54(1), 306–317.

    Google Scholar 

  • Darwent, J. and O’Brien, M. J. (2006). Using cladistics to construct lineages of projectile points from northeastern Missouri. In Lipo, C. P., O’Brien, M. J., Collard, M. and Shannon, S. J. (eds.), Mapping Our Ancestors: Phylogenetic Approaches in Anthropology and Prehistory (pp. 185–208). New York: Aldine.

    Google Scholar 

  • Darwin, C. (1859). On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life (1st ed). London: J. Murray.

    Google Scholar 

  • Deetz, J. (1965). The Dynamics of Stylistic Change in Arikara Ceramics. Illinois Studies in Anthropology 4. Urbana: University of Illinois Press

    Google Scholar 

  • Dunnell, R. (1978). Style and function: a fundamental dichotomy. American Antiquity 43, 192–202.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Dunnell, R. (1980). Evolutionary theory and archaeology. Advances in Archaeological Method and Theory 3, 35–99. New York: Academic Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Eldredge, N. (1989). Macroevolutionary Dynamics: Species, Niches, and Adaptive Peaks. New York: McGraw-Hill.

    Google Scholar 

  • Fudenberg, D. and Maskin, E. (1986). The Folk Theorem in repeated games with discounting or with incomplete information. Econometrica 54, 533–556.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ghiselin, M. T. (1995). Perspective: Darwin, progress, and economic principles. Evolution 49(6), 1029–1037.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Giere, R. N. (1988). Explaining Science: A Cognitive Approach. Chicago: University of Chicago.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gingerich, P. D. (1983). Rates of evolution: effects of time and temporal scaling. Science 222(4620), 159–161.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Goodnight, C. J. and Wade, M. J. (2000). The ongoing synthesis: a reply to Coyne, Barton, and Turelli. Evolution 54(1), 317–324.

    Google Scholar 

  • Grayson, D. K. (1991). Alpine faunas from the White Mountains, California: adaptive change in the late prehistoric Great Basin? Journal of Archaeological Science 18, 483–506.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Grayson, D. K. and Delpeche, F. (1998). Changing diet breadth in the early Upper Paleolithic of southwestern France. Journal of Archaeological Science 25, 1119–1129.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Haldane, J. B. S. (1949). Suggestions as to quantitative measurement of rates of evolution. Evolution 3, 51–56.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Henrich, J. (2001). Cultural transmission and the diffusion of innovations: adoption dynamics indicate that biased cultural transmission is the predominate force in behavioral change. American Anthropologist 103(4), 992–1013.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Henrich, J. (2004). Demography and cultural evolution: how adaptive cultural processes can produce maladaptive losses – the Tasmanian case. American Antiquity 69(2), 197–214.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Henrich, J. and Boyd, R. (2001). Why people punish defectors: weak conformist transmission can stabilize costly enforcement of norms in cooperative dilemmas. Journal of Theoretical Biology 208, 79–89.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Henrich, J., McElreath, R., Barr, A., Ensminger, J., Barrett, C., Bolyanatz, A., Cardenas, J. C., Gurvey, M., Gwako, E., Henrich, N., Lesorogol, C., Marlowe, F., Tracer, D. and Ziker, J. (2006). Costly punishment across human societies. Science 312(23), 1767–1770.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Joshi, A. (1999). The shifting balance theory of evolution. Resonance 4 December, 66–75.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kennett, D. J. and Winterhalder, B., Eds. (2006). Behavioral Ecology and the Transition to Agriculture. Berkeley: University of California Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kuhn, T. (1970). Structure of Scientific Revolutions. 2nd ed. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Leonard, R. D. and Jones, G. T. (1987). Elements of an inclusive evolutionary model for archaeology. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 6, 199–219.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lipo, C. P., O’Brien, M. J., Collard, M. and Shennan, S. J., (eds.) (2006). Mapping our ancestors: phylogenetic approaches in anthropology and prehistory. New York: Aldine.

    Google Scholar 

  • Maynard Smith, J. and Szathmary, E. (1995). The Major Transitions in Revolution. Oxford: W.H. Freeman/Spectrum.

    Google Scholar 

  • McElreath, R., Boyd, R. and Richerson, P. (2003). Shared norms and the evolution of ethnic markers. Current Anthropology 44(1), 122–129.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Neiman, F. D. (1995). Stylistic variation in evolutionary perspective: inferences from decorative diversity and interassemblage distance in Illinois Woodland ceramic assemblages. American Antiquity 60, 7–36.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ostrom, E. (1990). Governing the Commons: The Evolution of Institutions for Collective Action. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Price, T., Turelli, M. and Slatkin, M. (1993). Peak shifts produced by correlated response to selection. Evolution 47(1), 280–290.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Richards, R. J. (2005). Darwin and Progress. New York Review of Books 52 (20).

    Google Scholar 

  • Richerson, P. J., Bettinger, R. L. and Boyd, R. (2005). Evolution on a restless planet: were environmental variability and environmental change major drivers in human evolution. In Wuketits, F. M. and Ayala F. J. (eds.), Handbook of Evolution, Vol. 2: Evolution of Living Systems (Including Hominids) (pp. 223–242). Weinheim: Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co KGaA.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Richerson, P. J. and Boyd, R. (2005). Not by Genes Alone: How Culture Transformed Human Evolution. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Richerson, P. J., Boyd, R. and Henrich, J. (2003). The cultural evolution of human cooperation. In Hammerstein, P. (ed.), The Genetic and Cultural Evolution of Cooperation (pp. 357–388). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Rosenberg, M. (1990). The mother of invention: evolutionary theory, territoriality, and the origins of agriculture. American Anthropologist 92(2), 399–415.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Simpson, G. G. (1944). Tempo and Mode in Evolution. New York: Columbia University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Soltis, J., Boyd, R. and Richerson, P. J. (1995). Can group-functional behaviors evolve by cultural group selection? Current Anthropology 36(3), 473–494.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Trivers, R. (1971). The evolution of reciprocal altruism. Quarterly Review of Biology 46, 35–57.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Waters, M. R. and Stafford, T. W. Jr. (2007). Redefining the age of Clovis: implications for the peopling of the Americas. Science 315(5815),1122–1126.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Whallon, R. J. (1968). Investigations of late prehistoric social organization in New York State. In Binford, S. R. and Binford, L. R. (eds.), New Perspectives in Archaeology (pp. 223–244). Chicago: Aldine.

    Google Scholar 

  • Winterhalder, B. (1981). Optimal foraging strategies and hunter-gatherer research in anthropology. In Winterhalder, B. and Smith, E. A. (eds.), Hunter-Gatherer Foraging Strategies: Ethnographic and Archaeological Analyses (pp. 13–35). Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wright, S. (1931). Evolution in Mendelian populations. Genetics 16, 97–159.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wright, S. (1932). The roles of mutation, inbreeding, crossbreeding and selection in evolution. Proceedings of the VI International Congress of Genetrics 1, 356–366.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Anthropology, University of California, 95616, Davis, CA, USA

    Robert L. Bettinger

Authors
  1. Robert L. Bettinger
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Robert L. Bettinger .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Dept. Anthropology, University of Montana, Missoula, 59812, U.S.A.

    Anna Prentiss

  2. Dept. Anthropology, University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, 46556, U.S.A.

    Ian Kuijt

  3. Dept. Earth & Environmental Sciences, California State University, E. San Ramon Ave. 2576, Fresno, 93740-8001, U.S.A.

    James C. Chatters

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2009 Springer-Verlag New York

About this chapter

Cite this chapter

Bettinger, R.L. (2009). Macroevolutionary Theory and Archaeology: Is There a Big Picture?. In: Prentiss, A., Kuijt, I., Chatters, J. (eds) Macroevolution in Human Prehistory. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-0682-3_11

Download citation

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation