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Articles 1 - 29 of 29
Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences
Evolution Of Initiation Rites During The Austronesian Dispersal, R. Alexander Bentley, William R. Moritz, Damian J. Ruck, Michael J. O'Brien
Evolution Of Initiation Rites During The Austronesian Dispersal, R. Alexander Bentley, William R. Moritz, Damian J. Ruck, Michael J. O'Brien
History Faculty Publications
As adaptive systems, kinship and its accompanying rules have co-evolved with elements of complex societies, including wealth inheritance, subsistence, and power relations. Here we consider an aspect of kinship evolution in the Austronesian dispersal that began from about 5500 BP in Taiwan, reaching Melanesia about 3200 BP, and dispersing into Micronesia by 1500 BP. Previous, foundational work has used phylogenetic comparative methods and ethnolinguistic information to infer matrilocal residence in proto-Austronesian societies. Here we apply Bayesian phylogenetic analyses to a data set on Austronesian societies that combines existing data on marital residence systems with a new set of ethnographic data, …
Geometric Morphometric Analyses Support Incorporating The Goshen Point Type Into Plainview, Briggs Buchanan, Mark Collard, Michael J. O'Brien
Geometric Morphometric Analyses Support Incorporating The Goshen Point Type Into Plainview, Briggs Buchanan, Mark Collard, Michael J. O'Brien
History Faculty Publications
Recent work has demonstrated that Goshen points overlap in time with another group of unfluted lanceolate points from the Plains, Plainview points. This has raised the question of whether the two types should be kept separate or consolidated into a single type. We sought to resolve this issue by applying geometric morphometric methods to a sample of points from well-documented Goshen and Plainview assemblages. We found that their shapes were statistically indistinguishable, which indicates that Goshen and Plainview points should be assigned to the same type. Because Plainview points were recognized before Goshen points, it is the latter type name …
An Assessment Of Stone Weapon Tip Standardization During The Clovis-Folsom Transition In The Western United States, B. Buchanan, B. Andrews, Michael J. O'Brien, M. I. Eren
An Assessment Of Stone Weapon Tip Standardization During The Clovis-Folsom Transition In The Western United States, B. Buchanan, B. Andrews, Michael J. O'Brien, M. I. Eren
History Faculty Publications
It has long been assumed that Folsom points are more standardized than Clovis points, although an adequate test of this proposition has yet to be undertaken. Here, we address that deficiency by using data from a sample of Folsom and Clovis points recovered from sites across the western United States. We used geometric morphometric techniques to capture point shape and then conducted statistical analyses of variability associated with Clovis and Folsom point bases and blades. Our results demonstrate that Folsom bases and blades are less variable than those on earlier Clovis points, indicating an increase in point standardization during the …
Environment-Induced Changes In Selective Constraints On Social Learning During The Peopling Of The Americas, B. Buchanan, A. Chao, C. H. Chiu, R. K. Colwell, Michael J. O'Brien, A. Werner, M. I. Eren
Environment-Induced Changes In Selective Constraints On Social Learning During The Peopling Of The Americas, B. Buchanan, A. Chao, C. H. Chiu, R. K. Colwell, Michael J. O'Brien, A. Werner, M. I. Eren
History Faculty Publications
The weaponry technology associated with Clovis and related Early Paleoindians represents the earliest well-defined evidence of humans in Pleistocene North America. We assess the technological diversity of these fluted stone points found at archaeological sites in the western and eastern halves of North America by employing statistical tools used in the quantification of ecological biodiversity. Our results demonstrate that the earliest hunters in the environmentally heterogeneous East used a more diverse set of points than those in the environmentally homogenous West. This and other evidence shows that environmental heterogeneity in the East promoted the relaxation of selective constraints on social …
Statistical Analysis Of Paradigmatic Class Richness Supports Greater Paleoindian Projectile-Point Diversity In The Southeast, M. I. Eren, A. Chao, C. H. Chiu, R. K. Colwell, B. Buchanan, M. T. Boulanger, J. Darwent, Michael J. O'Brien
Statistical Analysis Of Paradigmatic Class Richness Supports Greater Paleoindian Projectile-Point Diversity In The Southeast, M. I. Eren, A. Chao, C. H. Chiu, R. K. Colwell, B. Buchanan, M. T. Boulanger, J. Darwent, Michael J. O'Brien
History Faculty Publications
Ronald Mason's hypothesis from the 1960s that the southeastern United States possesses greater Paleoindian projectile-point diversity than other regions is regularly cited, and often assumed to be true, but in fact has never been quantitatively tested. Even if valid, however, the evolutionary meaning of this diversity is contested. Point diversity is often linked to Clovis "origins," but point diversity could also arise from group fissioning and drift, admixture, adaptation, or multiple founding events, among other possibilities. Before archaeologists can even begin to discuss these scenarios, it is paramount to ensure that what we think we know is representative of reality. …
Niche Construction And The Evolution Of Leadership, B. R. Spisak, Michael J. O'Brien, N. Nicholson, M. Van Vugt
Niche Construction And The Evolution Of Leadership, B. R. Spisak, Michael J. O'Brien, N. Nicholson, M. Van Vugt
History Faculty Publications
We use the concept of niche construction - the process whereby individuals, through their activities, interactions, and choices, modify their own and each other's environments - as an example of how biological evolution and cultural evolution interacted to form an integrative foundation of modern organizational leadership. Resulting adaptations are formal structures that facilitate coordination of large, postagrarian organizational networks. We provide three propositions explaining how leadership processes evolve over time within and between organizations in order to solve specific coordination problems. We highlight the balancing act between self-interests and group interests in organizations and show how leadership must regulate this …
Estimating A Path Through A Map Of Decision Making, W. A. Brock, R. A. Bentley, Michael J. O'Brien, C. S. Caiado
Estimating A Path Through A Map Of Decision Making, W. A. Brock, R. A. Bentley, Michael J. O'Brien, C. S. Caiado
History Faculty Publications
Studies of the evolution of collective behavior consider the payoffs of individual versus social learning. We have previously proposed that the relative magnitude of social versus individual learning could be compared against the transparency of payoff, also known as the "transparency" of the decision, through a heuristic, two-dimensional map. Moving from west to east, the estimated strength of social influence increases. As the decision maker proceeds from south to north, transparency of choice increases, and it becomes easier to identify the best choice itself and/or the best social role model from whom to learn (depending on position on east-west axis). …
Phylogenetic Analysis Shows That Neolithic Slate Plaques From The Southwestern Iberian Peninsula Are Not Genealogical Recording Systems, R. D. García, Michael J. O'Brien
Phylogenetic Analysis Shows That Neolithic Slate Plaques From The Southwestern Iberian Peninsula Are Not Genealogical Recording Systems, R. D. García, Michael J. O'Brien
History Faculty Publications
Prehistoric material culture proposed to be symbolic in nature has been the object of considerable archaeological work from diverse theoretical perspectives, yet rarely are methodological tools used to test the interpretations. The lack of testing is often justified by invoking the opinion that the slippery nature of past human symbolism cannot easily be tackled by the scientific method. One such case, from the southwestern Iberian Peninsula, involves engraved stone plaques from megalithic funerary monuments dating ca. 3,500-2,750 B.C. (calibrated age). One widely accepted proposal is that the plaques are ancient mnemonic devices that record genealogies. The analysis reported here demonstrates …
Population Size And Cultural Evolution In Nonindustrial Food-Producing Societies, M. Collard, A. Ruttle, B. Buchanan, Michael J. O'Brien
Population Size And Cultural Evolution In Nonindustrial Food-Producing Societies, M. Collard, A. Ruttle, B. Buchanan, Michael J. O'Brien
History Faculty Publications
Modeling work suggests that population size affects cultural evolution such that larger populations can be expected to have richer and more complex cultural repertoires than smaller populations. Empirical tests of this hypothesis, however, have yielded conflicting results. Here, we report a study in which we investigated whether the subsistence toolkits of small-scale food-producers are influenced by population size in the manner the hypothesis predicts. We applied simple linear and standard multiple regression analysis to data from 40 nonindustrial farming and pastoralist groups to test the hypothesis. Results were consistent with predictions of the hypothesis: both the richness and the complexity …
Cultural Evolutionary Tipping Points In The Storage And Transmission Of Information, R. A. Bentley, Michael J. O'Brien
Cultural Evolutionary Tipping Points In The Storage And Transmission Of Information, R. A. Bentley, Michael J. O'Brien
History Faculty Publications
Human culture has evolved through a series of major tipping points in information storage and communication. The first was the appearance of language, which enabled communication between brains and allowed humans to specialize in what they do and to participate in complex mating games. The second was information storage outside the brain, most obviously expressed in the "Upper Paleolithic Revolution" - the sudden proliferation of cave art, personal adornment, and ritual in Europe some 35,000-45,000 years ago. More recently, this storage has taken the form of writing, mass media, and now the Internet, which is arguably overwhelming humans' ability to …
Statistical Analyses Cannot Be Divorced From Archaeological Theory: A Reply To Potter, A. Mesoudi, Michael J. O'Brien
Statistical Analyses Cannot Be Divorced From Archaeological Theory: A Reply To Potter, A. Mesoudi, Michael J. O'Brien
History Faculty Publications
Potter criticizes our experimental study of the roles played by indirect bias and guided variation in shaping prehistoric Great Basin projectile point variation. His criticisms are technically correct from the standpoint of statistical convention, but he fails to understand the theoretical rationale of our study. Without such an understanding, hi s assertion that our conclusions are questionable is incorrect. Here we point out again (1) how our experimental work bridges the gap between cultural-transmission theory and the empirical record and (2) why our conclusions are indeed valid.
Beveled Projectile Points And Ballistics Technology, C. P. Lipo, R. C. Dunnell, Michael J. O'Brien, V. Harper, J. Dudgeon
Beveled Projectile Points And Ballistics Technology, C. P. Lipo, R. C. Dunnell, Michael J. O'Brien, V. Harper, J. Dudgeon
History Faculty Publications
Explanations for beveled blade edges on projectile points have been debated in North America archaeology since the first systematic description of lithic assemblages in the nineteenth century. Debate has centered around two opposing perspectives. One views beveled edges as features of projectile points that cause them to spin during flight. The other views beveling as a product of edge resharpening that is done unifacially to conserve scarce resources. Here we use a fluid-dynamics model to simulate the effect beveling has on projectiles. Expectations derived from this modeling are evaluated using wind-tunnel experiments. Our findings indicate that beveling produces in-flight rotation …
Genes, Culture, And Agriculture: An Example Of Human Niche Construction, Michael J. O'Brien, K. N. Laland
Genes, Culture, And Agriculture: An Example Of Human Niche Construction, Michael J. O'Brien, K. N. Laland
History Faculty Publications
Theory and empirical data from a variety of disciplines strongly imply that recent human history involves extensive gene-culture coevolution, much of it as a direct result of human agricultural practices. Here we draw on nicheconstruction theory (NCT) and gene-culture coevolutionary theory (GCT) to propose a broad theoretical framework (NCT-GCT) with which archaeologists and anthropologists can explore coevolutionary dynamics. Humans are enormously potent niche constructors, and understanding how niche construction regulates ecosystem dynamics is central to understanding the impact of human populations on their ecological and developmental environments. We use as primary examples the evolution of dairying by Neolithic groups in …
Word Diffusion And Climate Science, R. A. Bentley, P. Garnett, Michael J. O'Brien, W. A. Brock
Word Diffusion And Climate Science, R. A. Bentley, P. Garnett, Michael J. O'Brien, W. A. Brock
History Faculty Publications
As public and political debates often demonstrate, a substantial disjoint can exist between the findings of science and the impact it has on the public. Using climate-change science as a case example, we reconsider the role of scientists in the information-dissemination process, our hypothesis being that important keywords used in climate science follow "boom and bust" fashion cycles in public usage. Representing this public usage through extraordinary new data on word frequencies in books published up to the year 2008, we show that a classic two-parameter social-diffusion model closely fits the comings and goings of many keywords over generational or …
A Morphometric Assessment Of The Intended Function Of Cached Clovis Points, B. Buchanan, J. D. Kilby, B. B. Huckell, Michael J. O'Brien, M. Collard
A Morphometric Assessment Of The Intended Function Of Cached Clovis Points, B. Buchanan, J. D. Kilby, B. B. Huckell, Michael J. O'Brien, M. Collard
History Faculty Publications
A number of functions have been proposed for cached Clovis points. The least complicated hypothesis is that they were intended to arm hunting weapons. It has also been argued that they were produced for use in rituals or in connection with costly signaling displays. Lastly, it has been suggested that some cached Clovis points may have been used as saws. Here we report a study in which we morphometrically compared Clovis points from caches with Clovis points recovered from kill and camp sites to test two predictions of the hypothesis that cached Clovis points were intended to arm hunting weapons: …
An Assessment Of The Impact Of Hafting On Paleoindian Point Variability, B. Buchanan, Michael J. O'Brien, J. D. Kilby, B. B. Huckell, M. Collard
An Assessment Of The Impact Of Hafting On Paleoindian Point Variability, B. Buchanan, Michael J. O'Brien, J. D. Kilby, B. B. Huckell, M. Collard
History Faculty Publications
It has long been argued that the form of North American Paleoindian points was affected by hafting. According to this hypothesis, hafting constrained point bases such that they are less variable than point blades. The results of several studies have been claimed to be consistent with this hypothesis. However, there are reasons to be skeptical of these results. None of the studies employed statistical tests, and all of them focused on points recovered from kill and camp sites, which makes it difficult to be certain that the differences in variability are the result of hafting rather than a consequence of …
Risk Of Resource Failure And Toolkit Variation In Small-Scale Farmers And Herders, M. Collard, A. Ruttle, B. Buchanan, Michael J. O'Brien
Risk Of Resource Failure And Toolkit Variation In Small-Scale Farmers And Herders, M. Collard, A. Ruttle, B. Buchanan, Michael J. O'Brien
History Faculty Publications
Recent work suggests that global variation in toolkit structure among hunter-gatherers is driven by risk of resource failure such that as risk of resource failure increases, toolkits become more diverse and complex. Here we report a study in which we investigated whether the toolkits of small-scale farmers and herders are influenced by risk of resource failure in the same way. In the study, we applied simple linear and multiple regression analysis to data from 45 small-scale food-producing groups to test the risk hypothesis. Our results were not consistent with the hypothesis; none of the risk variables we examined had a …
Adult Learners In A Novel Environment Use Prestige-Biased Social Learning, C. Atkisson, Michael J. O'Brien, A. A. Mesoudi
Adult Learners In A Novel Environment Use Prestige-Biased Social Learning, C. Atkisson, Michael J. O'Brien, A. A. Mesoudi
History Faculty Publications
Social learning (learning from others) is evolutionarily adaptive under a wide range of conditions and is a long-standing area of interest across the social and biological sciences. One social-learning mechanism derived from cultural evolutionary theory is prestige bias, which allows a learner in a novel environment to quickly and inexpensively gather information as to the potentially best teachers, thus maximizing his or her chances of acquiring adaptive behavior. Learners provide deference to high-status individuals in order to ingratiate themselves with, and gain extended exposure to, that individual. We examined prestige-biased social transmission in a laboratory experiment in which participants designed …
Tipping Points Among Social Learners: Tools From Varied Disciplines, R. A. Bentley, Michael J. O'Brien
Tipping Points Among Social Learners: Tools From Varied Disciplines, R. A. Bentley, Michael J. O'Brien
History Faculty Publications
There is a long and rich tradition in the social sciences of using models of collective behavior in animals as jumping-off points for the study of human behavior, including collective human behavior. Here, we come at the problem in a slightly different fashion. We ask whether models of collective human behavior have anything to offer those who study animal behavior. Our brief example of tipping points, a model first developed in the physical sciences and later used in the social sciences, suggests that the analysis of human collective behavior does indeed have considerable to offer.
Schooling Passions: Nation, History, And Language In Contemporary Western India (Book Review), Christopher Bischof
Schooling Passions: Nation, History, And Language In Contemporary Western India (Book Review), Christopher Bischof
History Faculty Publications
Schooling Passions is an anthropological work that explores the everyday production of local, regional, and national senses of belonging in the elementary schools in the locality of Kolhapur near the southern boundary of the state of Maharashtra, India. Kolhapur was an independent kingdom until 1949 and traces its origin to Shivaji Bhosale, a seventeenth-century hero-warrior who founded the Marathi nation. Equipped with a knowledge of Marathi and significant expertise in nationalism, citizenship, education, and gender, Véronique Benei conducted fieldwork at five schools in the late 1990s and early 2000s with the expectation that education would be less nationalistic there than …
The Cultural Transmission Of Great Basin Projectile-Point Technology I: An Experimental Simulation, A. Mesoudi, Michael J. O'Brien
The Cultural Transmission Of Great Basin Projectile-Point Technology I: An Experimental Simulation, A. Mesoudi, Michael J. O'Brien
History Faculty Publications
A Darwinian evolutionary approach to archaeology naturally leads to a focus on cultural transmission. Theoretical models of cultural evolution indicate that individual-level details of cultural transmission can have specific and significant population-level effects, implying that differences in transmission may be detectable in the archaeological record. Here we present an experimental simulation of the cultural transmission of prehistoric projectile-point technology, simulating the two transmission modes-indirect bias and guided variation-that Bettinger and Eerkens (1999) suggested were responsible for differences in Nevada and California point-attribute correlations. Groups of participants designed "virtual projectile points" and tested them in "virtual hunting environments," with different phases …
Publishing Archaeology In Science And Scientific American, 1940-2003, R. L. Lyman, Michael J. O'Brien, M. B. Schiffer
Publishing Archaeology In Science And Scientific American, 1940-2003, R. L. Lyman, Michael J. O'Brien, M. B. Schiffer
History Faculty Publications
Many new, or processual, archaeologists of the 1960s argued that Americanist archaeology became scientific only in the 1960s. The hypothesis that the rate of publication of archaeological research in Science and Scientific American increased after about 1965, as new archaeologists sought to demonstrate to their peers and other scientists that archaeology was indeed a science, is disconfirmed. The rate of archaeological publication in these journals increased after 1955 because the effort to be more scientific attributed to the processualists began earlier. Higher publication rates in both journals appear to have been influenced by an increased amount of archaeological research, a …
What Is Evolution? A Response To Bamforth, Michael J. O'Brien, R. L. Lyman, R. D. Leonard
What Is Evolution? A Response To Bamforth, Michael J. O'Brien, R. L. Lyman, R. D. Leonard
History Faculty Publications
Douglas Bamforth's recent paper in American Antiquity, "Evidence and Metaphor in Evolutionary Archaeology," charges that Darwinism has little to offer archaeology except in a metaphorical sense. Specifically, Bamforth claims that arguments that allegedly link evolutionary processes to the archaeological record are unsustainable. Given Bamforth's narrow view of evolution: that it must be defined strictly in terms of changes in gene frequency: he is correct. But no biologist or paleontologist would agree with Bamforth's claim that evolution is a process that must be viewed fundamentally at the microlevel. Evolutionary archaeology has argued that materials in the archaeological record are phenotypic in …
Chronometers And Units In Early Archaeology And Paleontology, R. L. Lyman, Michael J. O'Brien
Chronometers And Units In Early Archaeology And Paleontology, R. L. Lyman, Michael J. O'Brien
History Faculty Publications
Early in the nineteenth century, geologist Charles Lyell reasoned that successively older faunas would contain progressively more extinct species and younger faunas relatively more extant species. The present, with one-hundred percent extant species, was the chronological anchor. In archaeology a similar notion underpins the direct historical approach: Successively older cultures will contain progressively fewer of the cultural traits found in extant cultures and relatively more prehistoric traits. As in Lyell's scheme, the chronological anchor is the present. When A. L. Kroeber invented frequency seriation in the second decade of the twentieth century, he retained the present as a chronological anchor …
Basic Incompatibilities Between Evolutionary And Behavioral Archaeology, Michael J. O'Brien, R. L. Lyman, R. D. Leonard
Basic Incompatibilities Between Evolutionary And Behavioral Archaeology, Michael J. O'Brien, R. L. Lyman, R. D. Leonard
History Faculty Publications
Schiffer (1996) recently proposed that, despite some incompatibilities, considerable common ground exists between behavioral archaeology and evolutionary or selectionist, archaeology. He concludes that there is no fundamental reason why the two approaches cannot work in concert to explain human behavioral change. There are, however, several important reasons why the two programs, at least as currently conceived, cannot work together in any thoroughly integrated fashion. Although both programs employ inference, behavioral archaeology conflates the distinct roles of configurational and immanent properties, searches for nomothetic answers to questions about human behavior, overlooks historical contingency when inferring and explaining the nature of past …
Seriation, Superposition, And Interdigitation: A History Of Americanist Graphic Depictions Of Culture Change, R. L. Lyman, S. Wolverton, Michael J. O'Brien
Seriation, Superposition, And Interdigitation: A History Of Americanist Graphic Depictions Of Culture Change, R. L. Lyman, S. Wolverton, Michael J. O'Brien
History Faculty Publications
Histories of Americanist archaeology regularly confuse frequency seriation with a technique for measuring the passage of time based on superposition - percentage stratigraphy - and fail to mention interdigitation as an important component of some percentage-stratigraphic studies. Frequency seriation involves the arrangement of collections so that each artifact type displays a unimodal frequency distribution, but the direction of time's flow must be determined from independent evidence. Percentage stratigraphy plots the fluctuating frequencies of types, but the order of collections is based on their superposition, which in turn illustrates the direction of time's flow. Interdigitation involves the integration of sets of …
Parasites, Porotic Hyperostosis, And The Implications Of Changing Perspectives, T. D. Holland, Michael J. O'Brien
Parasites, Porotic Hyperostosis, And The Implications Of Changing Perspectives, T. D. Holland, Michael J. O'Brien
History Faculty Publications
Cribra orbitalia and porotic hyperostosis traditionally have been viewed (at least by archaeologists) as indicators of chronic iron deficiency anemia resulting from a dependency upon maize. Recent interpretations, however, have sought to explain these conditions as an evolutionary, adaptive response to intestinal parasites rather than as a consequence of poor nutrition. Thus diet is eliminated as a contributing factor. This model, however, adopts too simplistic a view of evolution. Furthermore, it concomitantly severs the well-documented link that exists between cranial lesions and cereal-based subsistence. A more realistic approach would be to incorporate both diet and pathogens (bacterial as well as …
The Role Of Adaptation In Archaeological Explanation, Michael J. O'Brien, T. D. Holland
The Role Of Adaptation In Archaeological Explanation, Michael J. O'Brien, T. D. Holland
History Faculty Publications
Adaptation, a venerable icon in archaeology, often is afforded the vacuous role of being an ex-post-facto argument used to »explain» the appearance and persistence of traits among prehistoric groups- A position that has seriously impeded development of a selectionist perspective in archaeology. Biological and philosophical definitions of adaptation- A nd by extension, definitions of adaptedness-vary considerably, but all are far removed from those usually employed in archaeology. The prevailing view in biology is that adaptations are features that were shaped by natural selection and that increase the adaptedness of an organism. Thus adaptations are separated from other features that may …
An Archaeological Survey On The Xoxocotlan Piedmont, Oaxaca, Mexico, R. D. Mason, D. E. Lewarch, Michael J. O'Brien, J. A. Neely
An Archaeological Survey On The Xoxocotlan Piedmont, Oaxaca, Mexico, R. D. Mason, D. E. Lewarch, Michael J. O'Brien, J. A. Neely
History Faculty Publications
Surface survey on the piedmont near the present village of Xoxocotlan, Oaxaca, Mexico, has revealed the pattern of prehistoric settlement around an irrigation canal that distributed water from a dammed reservoir located on the flanks of Monte Alban. Intensive systematic collection techniques have permitted quantitative statements to be made about the density of occupation and the contribution of the irrigation system to the food supply of Monte Alban.