Abstract
Evolution involves the operation of chance in producing outcomes, but previously selected for behavioral propensities load the dice to favor, but not determine, certain behavioral outcomes over others. Human beings, having been and still being subject to selection, have such behavioral propensities, which will tend to favor certain kinds of purposive responses to certain environmental conditions over others. Competition is integral to evolution, for without it there would be no selective forces. Competition both triggers behaviors proximally and independently selects from among all behaviors, previously selected for or not, that it triggers. People will engage in or respond to competition in purposive ways, some of which have been selected for in the context of past competitions. These include fissioning, territoriality, and display. Behavioral propensities are knowable scientifically from other disciplines (e.g., Psychology, Ethology) and archaeologically because behavioral propensities are visible at an aggregate level.
“History never repeats itself. Man always does.” (Voltaire).
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- 1.
Perceived functionality affects cultural selection, which can potentially be at odds with sexual or natural selection, which are based on real functionality (once again, refer to the Shaker example).
- 2.
Which includes the social environment
- 3.
The archaeologist’s presumed inability to see information systems is also highly debatable (see the last section of chap. 4), but that issue is both too tangential and too unwieldly to address adequately in the current framework.
- 4.
This raises the secondary question as to whether you can reliably take the individual at their word due to the possibility of self-delusion or outright lying, but that also is a tangential issue.
- 5.
For example, the idea that, if one did not give boys toy weapons to play with, they would not engage in simulated play violence (and thus be less prone to engage in real violence as adults) has been shown to be wrong; they simply used a hand with extended forefinger to simulate a gun or a piece of wood to simulate a sword. This is simply to point out a specific behavioral tendency and perhaps one more so expressed in males than females (e.g., see Wrangham & Peterson, 1996). This is not contradicted by another fact: that the expression of innate tendencies can be checked or made more pronounced to at least some degree by cultural expectations. Culture-bearing individuals are not prisoners of their genes as regards behavior. Both nature and nurture have their roles in shaping it.
- 6.
Just to be clear: this should not be taken as a stereotypical statement (i.e., all X are/do Y). It is a statement of tendency—of bias when confronted with a choice of potential actions. Any given tendency is expressed variably even in individuals of the same species because they are, after all, individuals and thus in part also unique phenotypical products of their individual histories (i.e., nurture).
- 7.
Meaningful is here defined as being a competition having the potential to actually yield perceptible benefits.
- 8.
Competition between groups starts with intragroup competition, because the resultant fissioning is what produces competing groups.
- 9.
Habitable areas to the west, north, or south would likely have been already occupied and moving in those directions to join other groups or carve out a space for themselves in their midst would have just substituted another competition for the one being terminated by means of avoidance and thus usually pointless over the long run. This is because it would have just postponed the dynamic for some relatively short length of time and then reinstituted it within the group so joined or with the groups elbowed somewhat aside to make space for themselves.
- 10.
The history of that conflict indicates that in terms of objective reality they calculated poorly and probably would have been better off taking their chances with human poachers in areas outside the park.
- 11.
E.g., the number of voices in a Howler monkey troop’s main vocalizations.
- 12.
Measured in terms of societal size.
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Rosenberg, M. (2022). Chance, Agency, and Loaded Dice. In: The Dynamics of Cultural Evolution. Studies in Human Ecology and Adaptation, vol 12. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-04863-0_7
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