TY - JOUR
T1 - Design Space and Cultural Transmission
T2 - Case Studies from Paleoindian Eastern North America
AU - O’Brien, Michael J.
AU - Boulanger, Matthew T.
AU - Buchanan, Briggs
AU - Bentley, R. Alexander
AU - Lyman, R. Lee
AU - Lipo, Carl P.
AU - Madsen, Mark E.
AU - Eren, Metin I.
PY - 2016/6
Y1 - 2016/6
N2 - Tool design is a cultural trait—a term long used in anthropology as a unit of transmittable information that encodes particular behavioral characteristics of individuals or groups. After they are transmitted, cultural traits serve as units of replication in that they can be modified as part of a cultural repertoire through processes such as recombination, loss, or partial alteration. Artifacts and other components of the archaeological record serve as proxies for studying the transmission (and modification) of cultural traits, provided there is analytical clarity in defining and measuring whatever it is that is being transmitted. Our interest here is in tool design, and we illustrate how to create analytical units that allow us to map tool-design space and to begin to understand how that space was used at different points in time. We first introduce the concept of fitness landscape and impose a model of cultural learning over it, then turn to four methods that are useful for the analysis of design space: paradigmatic classification, phylogenetic analysis, distance graphs, and geometric morphometrics. Each method builds on the others in logical fashion, which allows creation of testable hypotheses concerning cultural transmission and the evolutionary processes that shape it, including invention (mutation), selection, and drift. For examples, we turn to several case studies that focus on Early Paleoindian–period projectile points from eastern North America, the earliest widespread and currently recognizable remains of hunter–gatherers in late Pleistocene North America.
AB - Tool design is a cultural trait—a term long used in anthropology as a unit of transmittable information that encodes particular behavioral characteristics of individuals or groups. After they are transmitted, cultural traits serve as units of replication in that they can be modified as part of a cultural repertoire through processes such as recombination, loss, or partial alteration. Artifacts and other components of the archaeological record serve as proxies for studying the transmission (and modification) of cultural traits, provided there is analytical clarity in defining and measuring whatever it is that is being transmitted. Our interest here is in tool design, and we illustrate how to create analytical units that allow us to map tool-design space and to begin to understand how that space was used at different points in time. We first introduce the concept of fitness landscape and impose a model of cultural learning over it, then turn to four methods that are useful for the analysis of design space: paradigmatic classification, phylogenetic analysis, distance graphs, and geometric morphometrics. Each method builds on the others in logical fashion, which allows creation of testable hypotheses concerning cultural transmission and the evolutionary processes that shape it, including invention (mutation), selection, and drift. For examples, we turn to several case studies that focus on Early Paleoindian–period projectile points from eastern North America, the earliest widespread and currently recognizable remains of hunter–gatherers in late Pleistocene North America.
KW - Cladistics
KW - Clovis
KW - Design space
KW - Distance graphs
KW - Geometric morphometrics
KW - Learning
KW - Paleoindian
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84971245110&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1007/s10816-015-9258-7
DO - 10.1007/s10816-015-9258-7
M3 - Article (Academic Journal)
AN - SCOPUS:84971245110
SN - 1072-5369
VL - 23
SP - 692
EP - 740
JO - Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory
JF - Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory
IS - 2
ER -