Abstract
There has been significant debate in paleoanthropology and more recently, archaeology, over the concept of mosaic evolution. Essentially, proponents of the concept argue that different aspects of organisms evolve separately while others argue that organisms evolve as integrated entities. Similarly, archaeologists debate the relevance of cultural evolution as a complex multi-scalar process. In this paper we conduct two cladistic analyses of cultural phenomena focusing on skateboard decks and projectile points from an archaeological site to examine variability in the evolutionary process. We find evidence for mosaic evolution in both studies and conclude that modularity likely is an important factor in cultural evolution, at least at the level of artifact design. We caution future investigators of evolution in ancient stone tools that modularity could have complicating effects on phylogenetic outcomes unless explicitly considered.
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Acknowledgements
We thank Nathalie Gontier for inviting us to participate in the AAA session in San Francisco and to contribute this paper. Bridge River projectile point data derive from excavations funded by the National Science Foundation (BCS-0713013) and conducted via a collaborative partnership between the University of Montana and the Bridge River Band (Xwisten) and St’át’imc Nation. Skateboards in Fig. 1 were drawn by Eric Carlson. We thank Larissa Mendoza Straffon and two peer reviewers for their useful comments.
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Prentiss, A.M., Walsh, M.J., Skelton, R.R., Mattes, M. (2016). Mosaic Evolution in Cultural Frameworks: Skateboard Decks and Projectile Points. In: Mendoza Straffon, L. (eds) Cultural Phylogenetics. Interdisciplinary Evolution Research, vol 4. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-25928-4_6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-25928-4_6
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