SIGNIFICANCE OF STUDYING CULTURE, SOCIETY AND POLITICSCULTURE "Culture is the sum of all the forms of art, of love, and of thought, which, in the course of centuries, have enabled man to be less enslaved." Culture is the invisible bond which ties people together. It refers to the pattern of human activity. The art, literature, language, and religion of a community represent its culture. Our cultural values and beliefs manifest themselves through our lifestyle. Our moral values represent our culture. The importance of culture lies in its close association with the ways of thinking and living. Differences in cultures have led to diversity in the people from different parts of the world. Culture is related to the development of our attitude. Our cultural values influence how we approach living. According to the behaviorist definition of culture, it is the ultimate system of social control where people monitor their own standards and behavior. Our cultural values serve as the founding principles of our life. They shape our thinking, behavior, and personality. Culture Affects Perception How we perceive things is largely affected by our judgment skills, preconceived notions, attitude, and emotions. These factors are closely linked with our culture. In perceiving something as good or bad, our biases play a role and so does our way of thinking. In judging something as easy or difficult, our attitude and our motivation levels play a key role. Our culture determines the structure of our thinking, which influences our perceptions. People who belong to cultures that promote individualism tend to look at only the main aspects of a situation, while those of a culture that promotes collectivism tend to consider even the minor details. American culture which is predominantly individualistic, promotes giving freedom of choice to children since a young age. The Japanese culture which promotes collectivism, rather encourages the parents/elders to make choices for their children. This is an example of how parenting is perceived in contrasting ways due to the differences in culture. Similarly, people of Eastern cultures perceive success as being a collective effort, while those of the American culture perceive it as the fruit of individual effort. SOCIETY Society can be defined as a group of people who share a common economic, social, and industrial infrastructure. It is an organization of people who share a common cultural and social background. Do you know how the word, 'society' originated? The word is a derivation of the French word societe, which came from the Latin word societas meaning 'a friendly association with others'. Purpose of Society and its Importance Support One of the primary purposes of society is the formation of an organized group of individuals who can support each other in various ways. It is in the difficult times that you realize the importance of being a part of society. It is the members of your social group who come forward to give you the help needed. The support given by society can be of the physical, emotional, financial, or medical form. Formation of Social Groups A society is characterized by social networks. They form an integral part of it. Social networks are defined as the patterns of relationships between people. Relationships give rise to social interactions between people of a society. Individuals who belong to different ethnic groups can come together, thanks to societies. Their interactions give rise to strong social bonds that result in long-lasting relationships. A society gives rise to a family system and an organization of relationships, which are at the heart of any social group. Formation of a Culture Culture is an important element of society. Individuals of a particular society share a common culture that shapes their way of living. Their means of subsistence and their lifestyles are derivatives of their culture. Culture defines the pattern of human activity in a society. It is represented by the art, literature, language, and religion of the individuals who form it. Individuals belonging to a society are bonded by common cultural values, traditions, and beliefs that define their culture. You may like to know why culture is important. POLITICS The importance of politics encompasses a discussion of intricate proportions. Based on the introduction above, one could say that politics is indeed present when there is a collection of people that constitute a community. Politics is said to be a set of actions or occurrences that raises questions on the community or society as a whole. These questions are raised because there is the distinct possibility that the set of actions or occurrences will inevitably have a considerable effect in the general population at a particular time. There are certain actors that are specifically involved in the practice of politics. Normally, one would say that politicians are among the key actors in the practice of politics. This is accurate to some extent. These individuals formulate bills, propose policies and advocate their views on how to enhance the performance of the country’s economy. Nevertheless, they do not have the monopoly of employing politics as a means of carrying out things. Judges and other members of the judiciary similarly engage in politics when they make decisions and verdicts that inevitably affect the general public. Normally, cases are used as precedence in carrying out decisions that involves the same principles of law. Nevertheless, the main mover and the predominant actor in the employment of politics is the people in general. The public is capable of making changes based on their perspectives on how things should be carried out. Simple acts that a single individual like casting a vote or supporting a cause indicate a participation in political practice. All in all, it could be assumed that everyone do take part in the practice of politics, one way or the other. It is characterized as an act that points out the issues that appears to be significant in a society. Basically, it points out whether a specific situation is indeed problem, and eventually presents how it could have an effect on society or the community as a whole. The following discussion will be looking into the discussion of the three individuals regarding the issue of refugees in the state. Moreover, the discussion will also look into the fact on whether it is political to some extent or just basically an empty discussion among friends. RATIONALE FOR STUDYING ANTHROPOLOGY, POLITICAL SCIENCE AND SOCIOLOGY ANTHROPOLOGY The range of variations in human ways of life is staggering. The study of anthropology is holistic -- the study of humans as biological, cultural, and social beings. Anthropologists study alternative ways in which human beings meet their needs and examine overall integration and dissonance within a culture. Refusing to reduce the primary motives of human behavior to any single factor-whether it be biological, economic, structural, political, technological, or geographic-anthropologists analyze the interrelationship of all of these factors in trying to understand human behavior. Anthropologists study the person both as an individual and as a member of society. Anthropologists study, for example, religion and belief systems, the arts, music, gender roles, politics and work. Because of the breadth Whether countries are at war or at peace depends both on what governments do and who supports them. Reading or listening to news. Linguistics is a field of anthropology focusing on analysis of language development and language variations. Multiculturalism and diversity are the very essence of anthropology. in order to get us thinking about the world around us. international organizations. though most of the time we do so unknowingly. solving a homicide case in a forensics lab. it is said. and in turn. The field is not only innately cross-cultural. If you study Political Science. but global in its scope. or talking with friends and family about social issues and values are a few of the many examples of political activity in our every day lives. or why armed conflicts happen in some cases while they are avoided in other cases. The field of archeology has much in common with history. while using a variety of cross-cultural human behavior as a mirror from which we can reflect on the things we do in our own culture. Politics is much more than simply voting in an election or working in government. how rules are made and enforced. Many sociological theories have evolved from anthropological research and vice versa. We all participate in politics. In Political Science. international trade. Anthropologists may be involved in a wide range of activities such as research of evolutionary theory. anthropology teaches respect for other ways of life. such as “power”. and our place in it. why governments and policies differ in different countries. making donations to aid groups. and the public) and the "how" (such as elections. is both a social science and a humanity. “government” or “democracy”. as it uses artifacts from the past to reconstruct the cultural character of a society. including the the availability of education. Citizen participation and engagement occurs because of the nature of the institutions that structure society: we work and live within them. . we study the connections between them in order to better explain political outcomes. What is Political Science? Political science is the study a range of political ideas. actions. such as: why people vote for one political party as opposed to another. Anthropology also has extraordinary disciplinary breadth. advertising. how different governments operate and interact. Other than the broad introductory course. Once that we understand the many concepts. housing and healthcare. POLOTICAL SCIENCE When you study Political Science. It includes both understanding and explaining the world of politics that is all around us. you’ll learn about how political power is distributed. Applied anthropology uses anthropological knowledge to solve contemporary problems ranging from world hunger to AIDS prevention. it shares much in common with each of the other social sciences. and sometimes we rebel against them. anthropology. we discuss basic concepts. addressing gender inequality in society. We share the "big questions" with other disciplines: Who are we? Why are we here? What is our purpose? By looking at other cultures and societies. organizations and norms that determine how people perceive society. jobs. how they interact within it. and public administration). you will look at how and why. Thus. and especially sociology. and institutions. Political Science is concerned with the many institutions. events. You will explore both the "who" of politics (such as politicians. Physical anthropology is very closely aligned with biology.of topical interests. anthropologists are able to reflect on various ways of being human. Politics affects virtually every aspect of our lives. emphasizing physical characteristics of human beings and investigating the evidence for human evolution. political institutions. Socio-cultural anthropology studies culture and the relationship of culture to other aspects of social life. the anthropology courses at Hanover are socio-cultural in focus. museum and historical preservation. • research and analysis skills that are valuable in a range of employment areas • an ability arrive at decisions based on the analysis and synthesis of information and data • an ability to engage with political events and a greater understanding of the processes involved in different political systems around the world. Employers often look for the critical thinking. Students interested in careers in business.not to mention the valuable knowledge that you will gain about government and international politics. SOCIOLOGY Individuality and independence are highly valued in our society. private. The most basic sociological premise is that humans are social beings. as a social advocate. All of us assimilate. shaped in many ways by the groups to which we belong. Perhaps you're intrigued by Newfoundland and Labrador politics and think that you might like to work with a political party and/or in elections. writing and critical thinking. If you’re interested in journalism and the media. complex bureaucratic organizations. the perspectives of these groups and thereby acquire our language. socioeconomic classes. It is sometimes easy to forget that everything we do. values. grows out of or is shaped through our interactions with others. as a lawyer. You will gain expertise and proficiency in the following: • experience working with others and interacting in a diverse community. analysis. Career Options If you're considering a career in the government. then this might be the place to begin. government. at least in part. law. • greater command of reading. or nations. Even if you are unsure about your career plans. Or possibly you're interested in learning how to analyze complex policies as you prepare for graduate studies. Whether we like it or not we are born into groups and spend most of our social lives in those same groups. much of human life is guided by group norms. Many of our graduates go into business or other practices and professions. religious groups. or politics more generally will obtain vital knowledge and skills. beliefs and sense of identity. Much of human life is also consumed with conflicts between groups. education.Where Does Political Science Lead You? Studying political science can open up a wide range of job opportunities in both the public. communications. or perhaps with an international organization like the United Nations. Students can also get practical skills by doing co-ops with government or organizations as part of their education experience. As a discipline. . These are all useful and important skills necessary for a successful career in any field. and not-for- profit private sectors. clubs (such as sororities and fraternities). or perhaps public relations. Whether they be families. These range from two-person interactions to relations between large social institutions. and communications skills that political scientists develop -. attitudes. journalism. Sociology involves the description and explanation of social structures and processes. especially others close to us. then studying Political Science is an obvious choice. athletic teams. such as politics and the economy. including our private thoughts and fantasies. Changes in the social arrangements that people create are of special interest to the sociologist for a number of reasons. Sociology also ranges across time and serves as a useful complement to history. studying Political Science can be a great path. to relations between nations. each of which tries to defend its own self interests. either [sic — should be "each" — TW] of these assumptions is a preferential a priori and cannot be validated in today's state of knowledge. exposure to Sociology opens our minds. its multiple causes and multiple effects. prompts us to review the taken-for-granted. Sociology addresses all of these issues and more. Neither can be directly reduced to terms of the other. derivative from social systems. We need to learn how to collect and analyze representative information about society and its members rather than to rely on information we encounter haphazardly. In these ways Sociology helps us move beyond common sense to describe and explain more accurately the classes of social behavior and the relations between them." if indeed such questions turn out to be meaningful at all. the study of Sociology gives a view of social reality that fosters an understanding of social arrangements. Sociologists tend to see all cultural systems as a sort of outgrowth or spontaneous development. Separating cultural from societal aspects is not a classifying of concrete and empirically discrete sets of phenomena. the order of relationships within one is independent from that in the other. more important. Statements made about relationships within a cultural pattern are thus of a different order from those within a system of societal relationships. Anthropologists are more given to being holistic and therefore often begin with total systems of culture and then proceed to subsume social structure as merely a part of culture. Second.First. Careful attention to this independence greatly increases the power of analytical precision. which can be said now to be a commonplace. and encourages us to entertain alternatives." "correct. and how we are similar to and different from people with different social arrangements. so far as methodological primacy is concerned. Sociology increases our understanding of ourselves and our society by providing us with concepts that describe and explain our social creations and how they influence us. the lack has impeded theoretical advance as to their interrelation. A lack of consensus . social system). and provides us with sets of methods suitable for unraveling the complexities of social life. that. Sociological study helps us to determine which steps are most likely to lead toward a given goal and provides ways of assessing the extent to which a given goal may be realized. it is important to be aware that the organization and institutions of our society evolved through social processes operating in a social environment. that is to say. with both societal and cultural aspects at the same time. they tend to assume determinative primacy for the set of phenomena in which they are more interested. We learn who we are and why. In short. There are still some anthropologists and sociologists who do not even consider the distinction necessary on the ground that all phenomena of human behavior are sociocultural. Sociological research also reveals the multifaceted nature of social reality. It might be suggested that the first differentiation was a division of subject-matter broadly along the . Third. We also need ideas that we can use to classify social behavior systematically and ideas that we can use to explain the trends and relationships observed. but. we feel that the analytical discrimination should be consistently maintained without prejudice to the question of which is more "important. In sum. CULTURE AND SOCIETY AS ANTROPOLOGICAL AND SOCIOLOGICAL CONCEPTS THE CONCEPTS OF CULTURE AND OF SOCIAL SYSTEM There seems to have been a good deal of confusion among anthropologists and sociologists about the concepts of culture and society ( or. It is possible to trace historically two successive analytical distinctions that have increased this analytical precision." or "fundamental.between and within disciplines — has made for semantic confusion as to what data are subsumed under these terms.) Our objective in the present joint statement is to point out. They are distinct systems in that they abstract or select two analytically distinct sets of components from the same concrete phenomena. ("Social anthropology" perhaps represents secession within anthropology that inclines to prefer the sociological assumption. Bu even where they recognize the distinction. In English-speaking countries. the most important reference point is the biologically oriented thinking of the generation following the publication of Darwin's Origin of the Species. Provided that the analytical distinction between them is maintained. with differentiation between anthropology and sociology being carried out not conceptually but operationally. Anthropologists tended to confine their studies to no literate societies and sociologists concerned themselves with literate ones (especially their own. On the other hand. It is often profitable to hold constant either cultural or societal aspects of the same concrete phenomena while addressing attention to the other. On the sociological [p. it has recently come to be increasingly important to discriminate a specifically psychological component from the merely biological. and art from social structure. Secondly. and other symbolic-meaningful systems as factors in the shaping of human behavior and the artifacts produced through behavior. Here the social scientists were concerned with defining a sphere of investigation that could not be treated as simply biological in the then current meaning of that concept. we suggest that the term society — or more generally. ideologies. and of some sociologists in discriminating such categories as values. The ideas of continuity. Such a need has been foreshadowed in the practice of many anthropologists in speaking of social organization as one major segment or branch of culture. In the formative period of both disciplines.lines of the heredity-environment distinction. building on the more precise knowledge thus gained. and transmission of culture independent of biological heredity were the key ones. . ideas. restricting its reference to transmitted and created content and patterns of values. Tylor's concept of culture and Spencer’s of the social as super organic was important attempts to formulate such a sphere. science. In the anthropological tradition. For a considerable period this condensed concept of culture-and-society was maintained. It will undoubtedly be most profitable to develop both lines of thinking and to judge them by how much each increases understanding. then. We suggest that it is useful to define the concept culture for most usages more narrowly than has been generally the case in the American anthropological tradition. of the analytical independence between culture and social system is. To speak of a "member of a culture" should be understood as an ellipsis meaning a "member of the society of culture Y. then.) It did not seem necessary to go much further. we may in time expect to learn in which area each type of conceptualization is the more applicable and productive. by which the social sciences came to be differentiated from the biological. it is therefore idle to quarrel over the rightness of either approach. however. and Weber and Durkheim spoke of society as meaning essentially the same thing that Tylor meant by culture. Where the term organism was once used to designate both biological and psychological aspects. In this way a second analytical distinction has taken (or is taking) shape. Now we believe that knowledge and interests have become sufficiently differentiated so that further distinctions need to be made and stabilized in the routine usage of the relevant professional groups. 583] side. accumulation. social system — be used to designate the specifically relational system of interaction among individuals and collectivities. on the other side of the division outlined above. not to say that the two systems are not related. or that various approaches to the analysis of the relationship may not be used. To speak. Important work has been prosecuted under both of them. creation. culture and society were used with relatively little difference of meaning in most works of major influence." One indication of the independence of the two is the existence of highly organized insect societies with at best a minimal rudimentary component of culture in our present narrower sense. Thus the organism was assigned to the biological sciences and culture-society (as yet more or less undifferentiated) assigned to the sociocultural sciences. Thus the term personality is being widely used as an appropriate or favored term expressive of the distinction. of course. Tylor and Boas used culture to designate that aspect of total human social behavior (including its symbolic and meaningful products) that was independent of the genetic constitutions and biological characteristics of organisms. at least. Parenthetically we may note that a similar analytical distinction has begun to emerge with reference to the older concept of the organism. Comte and Spencer. Clark Wissler's "universal culture pattern" was . The association of traits in a complex may be of a functional and mechanical nature. a way of doing something (weaving). We therefore propose a truce to quarreling over whether culture is best understood from the perspective of society or society from that of culture. each trait is related to other traits. Others later distinguished culture areas in other continents. we should improve our position for increasing understanding of the relations between the two. within the category of culture. and the like.By some such procedure. the use of the horse in bison hunting in the Plains or the method of hunting of sea mammals among the Eskimo. mathematics. the Great Plains. so that we will not have to hold either constant when it is more fruitful not to do so. saddle. and so on. where tribes hunted bison with the horse. cattle. the Pueblo area of the Southwest. and horticulture (with digging stick and hoe) and agriculture (with ox- drawn plow). configurations (art. Less common are trading cultures such as are found in Melanesia or specialized production of some object for trade. All of them have one thing in common. This results in the concept of culture area.S. An understanding of human culture is facilitated.anthropologist Clark Wissler in The American Indian (1917) and Man and Culture (1923). but it was first brought into prominence by the U. characterized by the use of salmon and cedar. As in the famous case of heredity "versus" environment. but as meaningful organizations of traits: areas. are concepts closely related to culture area and culture type. In somewhat the same sense that the atom has been regarded as the unit of matter. Cultural areas The relationship between an actual culture and its habitat is always an intimate one. so the culture trait is generally regarded as the unit of culture. by analyzing "the complex whole" into component parts or categories. The traditional perspectives of anthropology and sociology should merge into a temporary condominium leading to a differentiated but ultimately collaborative attack on problems in intermediate areas with which both are concerned. PERSPECTIVES IN/APPROACHES TO THE STUDY OF CULTURE AND SOCIETY Approaches to the study of culture Viewing culture in terms of patterns and configurations Cultural traits The concept of culture embraces the culture of mankind as a whole. A trait may be an object (knife). bridle. or an attitude (the so-called horror of incest). such as horse. This conception goes back at least as far as the early 19th century. A distinguishable and relatively self-contained cluster of traits is conventionally called a culture complex. such as the acts and attitudes involved in seclusion in a menstrual hut or retrieving a heart that has been stolen by witches. pastoral cultures centred upon sheep. as was the case in Luzon. they view culture not in terms of its individual components. the Northwest coast. bronze axes. and so on. (See primitive culture. or patterns (in whichpsychological factors are the bases of organization). Cultural types Appreciation of the relationship between culture and topographic area suggests the concept of culture type. or traits. He divided the Indian cultures (as they were in the latter half of the 19th century) into geographic cultural regions: the Caribou area of northern Canada. especially the latter. however. quirt. the cell as the unit of life. physics).) Configuration and pattern. or it may lie in conceptional or emotional associations. reindeer. it is no longer a question of how important each is. a belief (in spirits). such as pottery. and therefore one finds a more or less close correlation between kind of habitat and type of culture. such as hunting and gathering or a special way of hunting--for example. or salt. But. but of how each works and how they are interwoven with each other. occupations. plus the backbone. In present-day society. segmentation is a means of maintaining solidarity at the same time that it enlarges the social grouping. lineages. religion. proceeding from the simple to the complex. Production of goods is everywhere followed by distribution and exchange. so to speak. he may be regarded as the first specialist in the history of human society. in the body politic. art. Economic systems Division of labour along occupational lines is rare. As culture evolves. direction. alongsex lines and to division between children and adults. and states. and so on. children and adults. they are special organs. All human societies are divided into classes and segments. widowed. that division of labour along occupational lines becomes extensive. traditional rules. to civil society. Occupational groupings were virtually lacking in all cultural systems of aboriginal North America. the army and the church offer illuminating examples of increased size and sustained solidarity proceeding hand in hand. Tribes become segments in confederacies. although not wholly lacking. to division of function. his father received the ribs on the right side. metalworkers. social organization. pastoralists. married. and so on. The headman is a mechanism of social integration. and above the tribal level.prostitutes. kept the head. The exceptions are headmen and shamans. and divorced. the various parts of the animal went to various classes of relatives in accordance with fixed. and states in its process of segmentation. . though a self-appointed priest or magician. and territorial segments. for example. On more advanced levels of development there are occupational classes. barrios. counties. Segmentation is a cultural process essential to the evolution of culture. and so on. Systems on the lowest stage of development have only two significant kinds of parts: the local territorial group and the family. Segment is defined as one of an indefinite number of groupings all of which are alike in structure and function: families. On this level there are found many kinds of specialists: metalworkers. such as wards. dancers. A tribe could not increase in size beyond a certain point without resorting to segmentation: the formation of lineages. sociocultural systems (like biologic systems) become more differentiated structurally and more specialized functionally. which he exchanges for moccasins made by another specialist. with but few exceptions. the consensus of the band. There is a corresponding minimum of specialization. it is a means of increasing the size of a society or a grouping within a sociocultural system (such as an army) and therefore of increasing its power to make life secure. such as farmers. Viewing culture in terms of institutional structure and functions Social organization A sociocultural system presents itself under two aspects: structure and function. based upon ties of kinship. based upon property relations and territorial distinctions (the state). scribes. and so forth. The word clannish points to one of the functions of segments in general: the fostering of solidarity. and the like. or labour. limited. expressing. eunuchs. however. his mother the ribs on the left side. for example. counties. game was divided and distributed as follows: the hunter who killed a wallaby. artisans. Class is defined as one of an indefinite number of groupings each of which differs in composition from the other or others. clans. and scribes. astrologers. musicians. is also an instrument of society. Guilds of metalworkers are found in some African tribes and specialists in canoe making and tattooing existed in Polynesia.recognition of the fact that all particular and actual cultures possess the same general categories: language. in preliterate societies--despite a widespread notion that one member of a tribe specializes in making arrows. such as men and women. soldiers. demes. without suffering a corresponding loss of effectiveness through diminished solidarity. clans. But it is not until thetransition from preliterate society. and control. The shaman. technology. for example. alchemists. the evolution of civil society employs barrios. Among the Kurnai of Australia. the horticulturalist needs an iron hoe. here again. the land "belongs" to Nature. take place in sociocultural systems where division of labour finds expression in specialization: the ironworker must obtain food. imposes levies upon all households. namely. A band or tribe "holds" the land it occupies. Why. Navajo Indians fell on their knees and kissed the earth when they were returned to their former territory after forcible detention in an alien land. does this form of exchange take place? Two reasons may be distinguished. art objects. one has both an obligation to give and a right to receive on certain occasions and in certain contexts. or charm). utensils." that is. Some economic concepts in modern Western culture do not correspond closely with conceptions and customs in many preliterate societies. receives help from the community ("No household can starve as long as others have corn. Exchange of goods between sociocultural systems is universal and takes place on the lowest levels of cultural development. it might be asked. First. Ownership is a case in point. Here we have an economic system subordinated to the welfare of the society as a whole. and so on--which he then redistributes to thehouseholds of the tribe. utensils. except when they are accepted as guests. It takes the form of bestowing gifts to relatives on all sorts of occasions--such as birth. but the significant thing is not that the outsiders do not own the land but that they pose a threat to those who occupy it. it is tenure rather than ownership that is significant. but more often A givessomething to B who gives A a gift at a later date. thus acquiring a large amount of goods--food. there is no such thing as absentee ownership in primitive society. as already noted above in the discussion of diffusion. There is usually an intimate relationship between the people and "their" land. human labour) must. when its use hasterminated. In some cases there is an exchange of goods on the spot. This widespread and interesting form of redistribution serves the same ends as those served by distribution as a function of the kinship system. people merely hold and use it. due to illness or accident. spell. in preliterate societies (although one might have exclusive rights to a dream. that is. An interesting form of the circulation of goods--usually referred to as redistribution--occurs among more highly developed tribes. then. Exchange or circulation of goods and services (a basket is the material form of "a service. marriage. that is significant. Land is defended against outsiders. But anyone else in the community would have the right to use it when the "owners" (the men who made it) were not using it. The head of the sociopolitical system. death. Complete possession of and exclusive right to use something in an economic context. ornaments. This may take the form and occasion of ceremonies and feasts or distribution may be made in cases of need. fostering solidarity and social security--an equitable distribution that tends to iron out inequalities among households. It is the right to use. In some instances it is the only form of nonhostile communication: in the so-called silent trade the actual exchange takes place in a neutral zone without the presence of the participating parties. rather than exclusive and absolute possession. the chief or priest-chief. and other things that every other household has. for everyone is a relative of everyone else. In some societies it might be said that a boat "belonged" to the men who made it or even to the individual who initiated its construction. a dwelling. one has merely the right to use or occupy a tract of land or a house. The whole process is one of mutual aid and cooperation.Distribution along kinship lines constitutes a system of circulation and exchange within the tribe as a whole. if not wholly lacking." as the Iroquois put it). is rare. anyone can take it over. All this takes place in the network of rights and obligations among kindred. The consequence of this form of distribution and exchange is that the recipient receives kinds of things that he already has. of course. or a boat. such as land. In general. or Mother Earth. initiation. Archaeological evidence shows that intergroup exchange occurred in remote times and over great distances. this system of circulation of goods is in effect a system of social security: a household in need. . this kind of exchange fortifies ties of kinship and mutual aid--as neighbourhood exchange among households in modern American culture initiates friendships that in times of need constitute mutual aid. Second. each household has the same kinds of foods. serfs. By informal education is meant the way a child learns to adapt his behaviour to that of others. or personal. But possession and right were qualified by the rights and obligations of kinship: one had an obligation both to give and to receive within the body of kindred. the chief of which allots plots or tracts to individuals or households for their use. And. it was the noun communism that was resented--if not feared--because of its Marxist connotation. During the latter part of the 19th century there was considerable discussion of "primitive communism. an image of the good or the bad. to become a member of a group. as well as characteristic. things belonged to the body of kindred. based upon kinship and functioning in accordance with the principles of cooperation and mutual aid. without teacher or learner being aware that culture is being transmitted. or ideals and values. as contrasted with modern civilizations. It was extended also to communism in wives and children in some tribes. launched a vigorous attack upon "the doctrine of primitive communism. even emphatic. Therefore an infant Homo sapiens must learn a very great deal and acquire a vast number of conditioned reflexes and habit patterns in order to live effectively. with these polemics well in the past. It is this freedom of access. he relinquished his right to its possession. the land reverts to the tribal domain. Education. to the learner.In some tribes there is a distinct conception that the land held "belongs" to the tribe. the freedom to exploit and to enjoy the resources of nature. enculturation)--the making of a social being out of one that was at birth wholly individualistic and egoistic. Today. possession of goods and use of land were recognized. is the means of excluding others--slaves. were the significant concepts and practices. By formal education is meant the intentional and more or less systematic effort to affect the behaviour of others by transmitting elements of culture to them." This doctrine came to be interpreted as meaning that private property. however. formal and informal. Thus. In some cultures a borrower was not obliged to return an object borrowed. receptive infant. being based upon kinship ties. be it knowledge or belief. or French. One of the most important. the private right to hold or use. certain traits are extolled. The teacher may make his purpose apparent. certain characters are presented as heroes or villains. they are born cultureless. was nonexistent in primitive society. But much education is effected in an unobtrusive way. . a proletariat--from the exploitation and enjoyment of the resources of nature. Education in its broadest sense may properly be regarded as the process by which the culture of a sociocultural system is impressed or imposed upon the plastic. all were free to exploit them. in sharp contrast to civil society in which private ownership by some. Eskimo. the situation with regard to property rights in tribal societies may be summarized as follows. And. on the theory that if a person could afford to lend something. rather than ownership in fee simple. Education In the human species individuals are equipped with fewer instincts than is the case in many nonhuman species. is called socialization (occasionally. The mode of life in preliterate society. did indeed justify the adjective communal." Many ethnologists. others are deplored or denounced. it had fraternity as well. according to specific rules. The impressionable child acquires ideals and values. taken as a whole. that has given primitive society its characteristics of freedom and equality. patterns of behaviour. as already noted. not only in society but in a particular kind of sociocultural system. rights of possession and use were regulated by customs of kinship. be it Tibetan. is the specific means of socialization. this was interpreted to be a vestige of a former stage of "primordial promiscuity. In a de facto sense. It is this process that makes continuity of culture possible. Private. to be like others. of course. These attempts may be overt or covert. or a class. This is. in myths and tales. But when use terminates. is this: no individual and no class or group in tribal society was denied access to the resources of nature. features of the economic life of preliterate societies. This process. Tenure and use." Some of the conceptions of earlier anthropologists--such as group marriage--were shown to be unwarranted in the light of later research. In human society these means are numerous and varied. Another difficulty was the tacit assumption that different entities. Such rituals as confirmation and Bar Mitzvah in modern Western culture belong to the category of puberty rites. into other things and beings.regulation and control in order to persist and function. This philosophy results from man's projection of his own self. Some argued that religion was social (moral) whereas magic was antisocial (immoral). and experiences one wishes to designate with the words religion and magic. religion and magic. that of childhood. exist per se. or a philosophical explanatory device. purpose. he was not worshiped and played no part in the daily lives of the people. but." Women also may belong to sodalities. from elder relatives and. as Tylor pointed out many years ago. or circumcision. In some cultures spirits are virtually innumerable. Very often the ritual is accompanied by explicit instruction in the mythology and lore of the tribe and in ethical codes. These rites vary enormously in emphasis and content. love. however. "the minimum definition of religion. isolation. scarification. In the past there was much discussion--and debate--about the difference between magic and religion. coming-of-age rite. orenda.The growing child is immersed in the fountain of informal education constantly. made the same claim for a belief in impersonal. Religion and belief Man's oldest philosophy is animism. will. and therefore that "correct" definitions of them must exist also (Adam called the animal a horse because it was a horse). Also. events. there has been a tendency toward monotheism in the history of religion. in more advanced cultures. the more important spirits become gods. the formal education tends to be periodic. like other kinds of systems. and so on). First there is infancy. Pubertyrites transform children into men and women. Custom and law Sociocultural systems. the doctrine that everything is alive and possesses mental faculties like those possessed by man: desire." Some later students. magical societies along with men. during which perhaps the most profound and enduring influences of a person's life are brought to bear. Both were deemed expressions of a belief in the supernatural. however. Sometimes they include whipping. secret societies of magic or medicine. Thus.) With marriage come instruction and admonition. has been severely criticized by otherethnologists." according to Edward Burnett Tylor. and in some instances they may become members of secret. after his work was completed. in the course of time. the Supreme Being of some very primitive peoples is an originator god. The German Roman Catholic priest and anthropologist Father Wilhelm Schmidt argued not only that some primitive peoples believe in a Supreme Being but that monotheism was characteristic of the earliest and simplest cultures. Weaning ushers in a new stage. "A belief in spirits is. anger. inanimate and living. appropriate to the occasion. his psyche. The distinction between religion and magic was so beset with exceptions as to render most definitions of these terms logically imperfect. without being aware of this projection. must have means of self. In any case. or mana (manitou. he had no further significance. In some sociocultural systems men may become members of associations or sodalities: men's clubs. during which boys and girls become distinguished from each other. The kinship . accountable only for the existence and structure of the world. supernatural power. Another distinction was that magic was the use of supernatural power divorced from a spiritual being. (See rite of passage. In some cases it is said that in passing through initiation rites a person is "born again. these two elements of religion are virtually worldwide and undoubtedly represent a very early stage in the development of religion. and the like. from priests. warrior societies. Much confusion and debate would have been obviated if it had been recognized (as it generally is now) that there is no such thing as a "correct" definition-- all definitions are man-made and arbitrary--and that the problem is not what religion or magic are but what beliefs. Schmidt's thesis. Many sociocultural systems distinguish rather sharply a series of stages in the education and development of full-fledged men and women. One need not be unduly disturbed by the difficulty of making sharp distinctions among sociocultural phenomena and of formulating definitions. Thus. as most ethnologists would probably agree. and black magic. But even here there is difficulty. not a custom. Custom is the name given to uniformities in sociocultural systems. orderly conduct of social life would not be possible. To have a perspective. in preliterate societies the distinction between the two is not always clear. though instances of sumptuary laws that prohibit the wearing of silk or that limit the length of a garment merge law and custom or reinforce the latter by the former. Generally. Codes of ethics govern the relationship of the individual to the well-being of society as a whole. the nature of the relationships people form in their everyday lives. in marriage the obligation to wed someone within a specified group or class (endogamy) or outside a group or class (exogamy) has been called both law and custom. But in civil societies--that is. the "thing" we are looking at is the social world and. and if man-made concepts and words do not correspond closely with them. however. infractions or violations are punished by an agency. There is little or no difficulty when one is concerned with the extremes of the spectrum of social control. and disagreement with regard to definitions arises. states brought into being by the agricultural revolution and their more recent successors--the distinction is usually sharper and more apparent. therefore. Probably the most useful distinction between custom and law is the following. for example. • Functionalism • Conflict Theory • Interactionism . rather than the historian. we can identify three very broad categories of sociological values (sometimes called "sociological perspectives" or "ways of seeing the social world"). the rule is called custom. miscegenation. gossip. incest. of effecting compliance with itself in order to render effective conduct of social life possible. duties. therefore. and obligations of one class of relatives to another. As in the case of religion and magic. much effort and debate have been spent in attempts to achieve a clean- cut distinction between custom and law. designated by society and empowered to act on its behalf. is a means of social regulation and control. But it is better to do this than to distort real phenomena by trying to force them into artificial concepts and definitions. Custom is a general term that embraces all these mechanisms of regulation and control and even more. Codes of etiquette regulate class structure by requiring individuals to conform to their respective classes. If. are what they are. For sociologists. what we are actually referring to is our particular perception of the range and scope of the relationships that exist between people in any given society.organization specifies reciprocal and correlative rights. by law in another--as in. one may regret the lack of fit. The same kind of offense may be punished by custom in one society. then the rule is called a law. If an infraction of a social rule or deviation from a norm is punished merely by expressions of social disapproval. At the other extreme. SOCIETY A perspective can be broadly defined as "a way of looking at and seeing (or interpreting) something". Uniformities are important because they make anticipation and prediction possible. Custom. who is disturbed by instances of ambiguity with regard to custom and law. But in other situations the distinction is far from clear. a state edict prohibiting the manufacture and sale of alcoholic beverages is a law. in particular. ridicule. or ostracism. For example. like those of the external world in general. when we talk about "society" or "the social world" as if it were something real and alive. The way that a Hopi Indian holds his corn-husk cigarette in his hand is a matter of custom rather than law. It is the ethnologist. without them. means to look at something (whatever that thing might be) in a particular way. The phenomena of culture. adultery. deviance. Merton (1957) expanded the understanding of social functions that society has some more obvious functions than others. Thus. society is seen as a whole body which has different parts or institutions that are seen as coherent. Yet. the paradigm completely ignores that these can also be a source of tension and disorganisation and inequalities that cause conflicts. religion may not always ‘glue' society together but be divisive. (Macionis. family. functionalism as a perspective has been criticised for emphasizing too much on value consensus and collective conscience which some theorists see as impediment to social progress and evolvement of new ideas. this approach emphasizes on inequality and look at the extent to which such factors as race. In sociology there are a range of theories. 2000). Thus. societies tend to be segmentary and are composed of equivalent parts that are held by shared values. To ensure that social solidarity is made possible. functionalist argue that it is necessary that society establish certain social pre requisites (social institutions) such as law. religion that will make it function properly. solidarity and cooperation which provide the source for order and stability in society. a theory tries to give a representation of social life enhance one's understanding of social activity by explaining a particular behaviour or social phenomenon. Merton argued that such dysfunctions are necessary since these fulfill certain other pre requisites like maintaining social stratification system. Manifest functions are intended and recognised by people in society and latent functions are unintended and unrecognised (Macionis. power. For instance. and these function like organisms and work together to maintain and reproduce social equilibrium. It emphasizes on the significance of unity. This is because these social institutions provide the norms and values that are necessary to make society remain in equilibrium. Limitation: However. While the manifest functions of education is to provide skills. On the other hand. common symbols or system of exchanges. delinquency or insubordination at school. school. In short. education and social prestige. the whole system suffers. perspectives "sees" the social world in different ways. 2000). If ever. knowledge and abilities of citizenry. Sociological perspectives are developed to explain various social phenomena within society. religion is a source of conflict and tension. he distinguished between manifest and latent functions. Each of the above. in India. A theory can be broadly defined as a proposed relationship between two or more variables or concepts. . This follows the thought of Durkheim who used the concepts of organic and mechanical solidarity to explain social cohesion and stability. For instance. gender and age are linked to unequal distribution of money. Moreover. despite being socially and culturally different from each other.You should keep in mind the fact that this is only a very brief and simplified introduction to the idea of different perspectives. people need to share certain common values and fell integrated in society. By over emphasizing on the fact that social institutions function to hold society together. modern societies which are characterised by organic solidarity. Bosnia and Northern Ireland. it also creates differentiated achievement that leads to different social classes among members of society or keeping many young people out of the labour market. the dominant ones will be discuss in this unit. marriage. bounded and interdependent. ethnicity. In fact. In a society characterised by mechanical solidarity. The social-conflict theories see society as providing a setting that generates conflicts and change. Structural functionalism initially known as Functionalism attempted to explain social institutions as collective means that meet the individual needs of individuals. one part is affected. many parts are different but are held together to work as a whole. For example. if the family malfunctions. this can have a negative level on society as a whole and be felt in terms of crime. An example to illustrate these functions is through the education system. religion. These people occupy a habitat that is harsh and unproductive. symbolic interactionism explains that individuals make sense of their societal life by categorising it. and importance of the pool of culturally transmitted information that supports human subsistence. meritocracy and equal opportunities.935N. class. elite. However. capitalists) and the proletariat (workers. sophistication. ethnographic studies of the Netsilik and Copper Inuit. conflict theorists put forward that society is about competition for scarce resources. imagine that you are marooned on a beach on the coast of King William Island (68. human are portrayed as actors who interact in meaningful communication with each others. they also overlook the fact that social institutions can bring people out of disadvantages through social mobility. the process of categorisation may vary from group to group and society to society. and their lifeways were simple compared with foragers living on the coasts of Alaska and Greenland. events or actions. by rejecting the fact that society functions to promote solidarity and social consensus. conflict theories try to show that inequalities in power and reward being built into all social structures create conflict of interests rather than adaptation and stability in society. Through language. Limitations: By denying the existence of macro level social structures such as the family. Taking the education system under the conflict views. Being also imbibed by phenomenological perspectives. In fact. THE ROLE OF CULTURE IN HUMAN ADAPTATION Culture Is Essential for Human Adaptation It is easy to underestimate the scope. 98. collectively known as the Central Inuit. they are seen as superior to lower animals since they have cognitive abilities that can interrupt instinctive behaviours and conceive alternative responses to gestures and give meanings to them. symbolic interactionism risk in overlooking important features like culture. To focus your mind on the crucial adaptive challenges. education. drawings. However. signs.89W). give us a sense of the complexity of the adaptations that allow foragers to thrive in the Arctic. The unequal relationships between the bourgeoisie (owners of production. ruling class. For interactionists. even in what seem to be the “simplest” foraging societies. subject class) become obvious with exploited labour and oppression and the bourgeoisie uses its economic power (infrastructure) to control the other parts of the system ( superstructure) like for example. It is November and it is very cold. Thus. it is a subjective process. Their groups were small. Limitation: Social conflict theorists fail to see the stabilities of societies although being prone to constant change. Categorisation also shape types of behaviour and attaches them with reward or punishment.Thus. mass media and politics. The archaeological record makes it clear that modern humans adapted to life above the Arctic Circle early in their expansion but tells us little about their way of life. it is argued that schooling can be held to reproduce inequalities that perpetuate themselves in the class structure from generation to generation. individuals distinguished between different types of objects. This competition is reflected in the social institutions themselves and allows some people and organisations to have more resources and maintain their power and influence in society. Over emphasizing on degree of conflict and instability. In other words. Marx's theory analysis of society from a materialist conception of history and its economic relationship also portrays the deep inequalities that exist within the capitalist society. the desired labour force is prepared at school by transmitting values of the elites and that failure to conform leads to low achievement that create drop out who end up in low skilled jobs and low wage. even by Arctic standards. . Symbolic interactionism is a theoretical approach in the aim of understanding the relationship between humans and society. In short. gender and race. Moreover. they tend to ignore that shared values and interdependence can unify members of a society. family. the hunter struck downward with all his weight. but for most of the year this is not an option in the Arctic. so you will need well-tailored clothes (7). a shallow. scraped. while also allowing moisture to dissipate when the hood is thrown back. The Inuit camped in snowy spots near the seals’ breathing holes.Your first problem is to stay warm. moistened. Caribou skins harvested in autumn have fur that is just the right thickness. which form conical chambers under the ice. Not even the best clothing is enough to protect you from winter storms. with platforms for sleeping. Central Inuit women used fine bone needles that made holes that were smaller in diameter than the thread (16). mainly by ambushing them at their breathing holes. sharp-sided depression was carved from the surface of the stone. At each hole. and a long entrance tunnel below the level of the main room with several low doors to prevent heat loss. and then stretched again to yield pliable skins (18). The hunter carefully covered most of the hole with snow and tethered a bit of down over the remaining opening. made of snow blocks cut with a serrated bone knife. Then. monitoring as many holes as possible. they maintain these openings. You cannot use wood fires because there are no trees. The ice must be covered with snow to prevent the seals from hearing the hunters’ footsteps and evading them. and finally tuqtuqutiq. Parkas were assembled from multiple pieces to create a bell shape that captures heat. Arctic peoples carved lamps from soap stone and fueled them with rendered seal fat. The primary tool was a harpoon approximately 1. Winter footwear was constructed with many layers: first the alirsiik. fur-lined caribou stockings. smelled the interior to make sure it was still in use. During the winter most Inuit lived in substantial driftwood and sod houses. the Central Inuit wore elaborately constructed parkas and pants (16). You need a source of heat and light in your snow house. curtain-like wick made of moss. seals claw a number of breathing holes in the ice within their home ranges. If he speared the seal. sometimes for hours. As the ice thickens. In the winter. curved piece of caribou antler with a rounded nob on one end to investigate the chamber's shape and plan his thrust. If there were no wind and you could remain motionless. When the sea ice begins to freeze. the hunter waited motionless in the frigid darkness. and twisted to make thread. The central room was built above a pit. The sinew had to be cleaned. and the lamp was equipped with a long. scraped. and then used a long. The other end of the harpoon was made from polar bear bone honed to a sharp point. A complicated double stitch was used to make footwear waterproof. living in snow houses. boots with the fur outside. but the Central Inuit wintered on the sea ice. These lamps were made from oblong stones between 30 cm and 1 m long. The walls were usually lined with skins suspended from toggles on the outside of the snow house. During the winter. Clothing was stitched together with fine thread made from sinew taken from around the vertebrae of caribou. heavier stockings with the fur to the outside. When the seal's arrival disturbed the down. the seal soon tired and could be hauled onto the ice (20). On the tip was a detachable toggle harpoon head connected to a heavy braided sinew line. short lightweight stockings with the fur outside. You also need food. shredded. These round vaulted structures were ≈3 m high. This design allowed the snow walls to stay near freezing. Instead. To make these stitches. for cooking and for melting sea ice for water. but this is a windy place and you need to hunt. The best were made from caribou skins harvested in the fall. while the inside of the snow house could reach temperatures of 10−20 °C (19). Plants are easy to gather. thin. then a pair of pinirait. so you need shelter. Both the main shaft and foreshaft were carved from antler. Caribou skins insulate better than seal or polar bear fur because the individual hairs have an unusual air-filled structure. Even well-acclimatized people rapidly succumb to hypothermia below −1 °C. so you need warm clothes. then the ilupirquk. then kamiik. A well-managed lamp burned without producing any soot (16). Several different kinds of stitches were used for different kinds of seams. he held fast to the line connected to his harpoon's point. a cloak would do. Monthly average temperatures in the winter months are between −25 °C and −35 °C. the Central Inuit hunted seals. the hunter opened the hard icy covering using the end of the harpoon. something like bubble wrap (17). Hoods were ruffed with a strip of fur taken from a wolverine's shoulders because its variable length makes it easier to clear the hoarfrost. Inuit hunted in teams.5 m long. . short heavy double-soled boots of caribou skin. Hides were repeatedly stretched. This sampler of Inuit lifeways represents only a tiny fraction of the immense amount of habitat-specific knowledge that is necessary for humans to survive and prosper in the Central Arctic. Moreover. Two different kinds of natural experiments support the intuition that forager adaptations are beyond the inventive capacities of individuals. we have had to omit most of the details necessary to make and use the tools we did mention. whereas the belly (the side closer to the archer) is compressed. Wood. wide near the center. This solution was not available to the Inuit. which might be called “the lost European explorer experiment. We have omitted other crucial tools like kayaks.” has been repeated many times during the past several centuries. the explorers die or suffer terribly owing to the lack of crucial information about how to adapt to the habitat. so the ability of a bow to sustain strong bending forces can be enhanced by adding a material that is strong in tension to the back of the bow. This problem is exacerbated in short bows because the curvature is greater. they made short bows and used every bowyer's trick to increase their power. the back (the side away from the archer) is stretched. build shelters.During the high summer. the Central Inuit used the leister. A bow can be made more powerful by adding wood to the limbs. However. but also treacherous. and kills had to be made from a substantial distance. probably because they had no glues that would work in the moist. building sledges. To stay warm and get enough to eat. recent weather. meaning that the unbraced bow formed a backward “C” shape. making baskets. When a bow is bent. caribou were mainly stalked or driven into ambush. then it should be possible. cold conditions of the arctic (21). there is still much more you have to know to stay alive. understanding the habits of game species. Africa. There are no convincing examples in which social learning allows the gradual cumulative cultural evolution of complex. [Nelson (22) devotes four chapters to ice lore in his book on hunting among the Inupiaq of northern Alaska. the Inuit constructed a unique form of composite bow. It is true that some species have simple traditions. a special three-pronged spear with a sharp central spike and two hinged. The Franklin . Traveling on ice is essential. and of course. In central Asia and western North America. sinew was glued to the back of the bow to strengthen short bows for use on horseback. The first. On land. or combine a handful of elements learned by multiple individuals (23). Eastern North America. and antler available. and there is much to know about how the current temperature. Typically some explorers get stranded in an unfamiliar habitat in which an indigenous population is flourishing. and the color and texture of the ice tell you where and when it is safe to travel. the traditions involve behaviors that individuals can and do learn on their own. If they survive. a geometry that stores more potential energy. and managing dogs—all require extensive knowledge. Despite desperate efforts and ample learning time. to a first approximation. you have to know how to make and use clothes. harpoons. This required a bow with the power to propel a heavy arrow at high velocity. in every case. and in some cases to make tools. horn. this is the only way that other animals have to learn about their environments—they must rely mainly on innate information and individual experience to figure out how to find food. backward-facing points. and Europe. However. snow houses. Could you make it? We don't think so. Instead. leading to catastrophic and dangerous failure. Finally. leisters. Predicting storms. the Inuit made bows that were thin front to back. making the bow thicker increases the stress within the bow. The simplest way to accomplish this is to make a long bow using a dense elastic wood like yew or osage orange. Bracing the bow leads to a compound curve. These bows were also recurved.] So. they shifted to caribou hunting. The Inuit lashed a woven web of sinew to the backs of their bows. and sun goggles. locally adaptive behaviors that individuals could not learn on their own. lamps. who had only driftwood (mainly spruce). and bows. Instead. horn. dog sleds. it is often due to the hospitality of the indigenous population. Later in summer and the fall. and tapering toward the tips. and antler are stronger in compression than tension. a design common in South America. Moreover. probably maintained by learning mechanisms like stimulus enhancement and emulation. to harvest Arctic char in large numbers. here is the question: do you think that you could acquire all of the local knowledge necessary to survive in the arctic on your own? If superior cognitive ability alone is what allows humans to adapt to diverse habitats. although char were plentiful in local streams (28). and reported that the Polar Inuit lacked kayaks. Although advocates of the cognitive niche hypothesis focus on cognition. The expedition spent the winter of 1846 at King William Island. such as canoes. beamy kayaks used by Baffin Island Inuit and not the small sleek kayaks of the West Greenland Inuit. The Polar Inuit lived without these tools until about 1862. and stocked with a 3-y supply of food. The best documented example comes from the isolated Polar Inuit of northwest Greenland. the explorers abandoned their ships and attempted to escape on foot. Amundsen sought out the Netsilik and learned from them how to make skin clothing. failed to learn the skills necessary to subsist in this habitat. suggest that intelligence alone is not enough. When food ran short. the ability to cumulatively learn from others must play a crucial role. and bows and arrows and that their snow houses did not have the long heat-saving entryways that were seen among other Inuit populations. Interestingly. pottery. Results from this lost European explorer experiment. despite being endowed with the same improvisational intelligence as the Inuit and having 2 y to use this intelligence. If this inference is correct it means that for 40 years (nearly two generations) the Polar Inuit could have benefitted from the lost knowledge. Apparently the population was struck by an epidemic in the 1820s that carried away the older. They argue that the ability to learn from others reduces the average cost of acquiring locally adaptive information. It was the best-equipped expedition in the history of British polar exploration. King William Island is rich in animal resources—the main harbor is named Uqsuqtuuq which means “lots of fat. isolated populations. King William Island is the heart of Netsilik territory. The Polar Inuit population declined during this period. the Tasmanian tool kit gradually lost complexity after isolation from mainland Australia at the end of the Holocene (26). and bows and arrows. For a similar discussion of the ill-fated Burke and Wills expedition into the Australian outback. Everyone eventually perished from starvation and scurvy. population size increased. It is also telling that the kayaks used by the Polar Inuit around the turn of the century closely resemble the large. Later he would put these Inuit skills to good use in his race with Scott to the South Pole. but did not know how to make them and could not recreate that knowledge. the Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen spent two winters on King William Island in 1903−1904. Other Pacific island groups have apparently lost useful technologies. (13) write: . and many others. where it became trapped in the ice. a Fellow of the Royal Society and an experienced Arctic traveler. set out with two ships to explore the northern coast of North America and find the North West Passage. There is every reason to believe that these tools would have been useful between 1820 and 1862. and the bow and arrow (27). their possessions had to be buried with them (29). manned by a select crew. see ref. Explorers Elisha Kane and Isaac Hayes wintered with the Polar Inuit in 1853 and 1861. Sir John Franklin. they collectively remembered kayaks. furnished with an extensive library. Barrett et al. 29). He and his crew survived and completed the first successful traverse of the Northwest Passage. 25. knowledgeable members of the group. Moreover. and the tools were immediately adopted once they were reintroduced. For instance. and were unable to harvest arctic char efficiently. They could not hunt caribou. leisters. For example.” The British sailors starved because they did not have the necessary local knowledge and. leisters. perhaps exacerbated by lead poisoning from their tinned food. hunt seals. when they were visited by a group of Inuit who migrated to Greenland from Baffin Island (28. After their introduction. and according to custom. and the Netsilik have lived there for almost a millennium. and manage dog sleds. Over the next half century the Polar Inuit kayak design converged back to the West Greenland design (30). they do not ignore social learning.Expedition of 1845–1846 provides a good example (24). could only hunt seals during part of the year. A second line of evidence comes from the loss of beneficial technologies in small. respectively. Cultural Adaptation Is a Population Process We think that this body of evidence rules out the idea that superior cognitive ability alone explains human adaptability. cultural transmission in humans results in a ratchet-like accumulation of knowledge. As a result. imitators will acquire the locally adaptive behavior with the same probability as individual learners. nonetheless. imitators have higher fitness. these chains extend further. social learning acts to spread the cost of innovations over all who benefit. to understand the evolution of social learning psychology you have to know what is available to learn. The propensity to imitate will continue to increase until this reduction in fitness exactly balances the benefit of avoiding the costs of learning. and the propensity to imitate spreads. some imitate individuals who imitated other individuals. and allowing its cost to be amortized over a much greater number of advantageous events and generations. the propensities to learn and to imitate are part of an evolved psychology shaped by natural selection. and so on until the chain is rooted in someone who extracted the information from the environment. At evolutionary equilibrium. (p 244) On the surface this seems to be a logical argument. there will be no increase in the ability of the population to adapt (31⇓⇓–34). When few individuals imitate. the population has the same average fitness as a population without any imitation. This surprising result emerges from the coevolutionary processes that affect the kinds of behaviors that are available to imitate and the psychology that controls learning and imitation. cultural learning can allow individuals to learn selectively—using environmental cues when they provide clear guidance and learning from others when they . Thinking about the coevolution of the cultural pool of observable behavior and the genes that control the individual and cultural learning suggests that cultural learning can increase average fitness only if it increases the ability of the population to create adaptive information (32). Although this treatment is very simple. leading to an accumulation of knowledge. First. there is a greater chance that the learner who roots the chain learned in a different environment than the current environment. who imitated other individuals. As the number of imitators increases. However. This means that the balance between learning and imitating will be governed by the relative fitness of the two modes of behavior—the average fitness of the population is irrelevant. The second assumption is that the environment varies in time or space. If imitators are simply information scroungers. The upshot is that on average imitators will be less likely to acquire the locally adaptive behavior than learners. It is probably true that learning from others either by teaching or imitation is usually cheaper than learning on your own. and as a result. and this in turn is affected by the nature of the learning psychology. As the fraction of imitators in the population increases. Because they do not pay the cost of learning. However. There will be no increase in the ability to adapt to varying environments. but it may. Unlike other species. it will spread. The primary insight that emerges from these models is that imitation is a form of free riding—imitators scrounge information without producing anything of value. It is like cheating on a test: you do as well as the person you copy from but avoid all that tedious studying. this reasoning is mistaken. others can get it by teaching or imitation at relatively low cost. also benefit the population as a side effect. Innovations accumulate. These evolutionary models of social learning rest on two assumptions. It may be costly for individuals using improvisational intelligence to discover locally adaptive information. then they will spread until selection no longer favors imitation. and cumulative cultural adaptation will not occur. However. Realistic levels of relatedness among models and imitators do not qualitatively change the result (34). We have thought of three ways in which this could happen. either because the environment has changed since then or because someone along the chain migrated from a different environment. distributing the costs of the acquisition of nonrivalrous information over a much greater number of individuals. evolutionary models show that if this is the only benefit of social learning.Cognitive mechanisms underlying cultural transmission coevolved with improvisational intelligence. The propensity to imitate evolves because it is directly beneficial to the individual. The advocates of the cognitive niche hypothesis err because they take it as unproblematic that once a beneficial innovation arises. First. the capacities for imitation will be favored by selection. This means that as chains of imitation get longer. Free riders increase until they destroy the benefits of free riding. the basic result holds in more realistic models. but once it is acquired. The ability to learn or imitate selectively is advantageous because opportunities to learn from experience or by observation of the world vary. the equilibrium threshold is low. an organism capable of cultural learning can afford to be choosy. As a result. However. the population does not keep up with environmental changes as well as a population of individual learners. The ability to learn culturally can also raise the average fitness of a population by allowing acquired improvements to accumulate from one generation to the next. and their offspring must begin . Eventually. even when the environmental cues that they do observe indicate a different behavior than the one they acquire by cultural learning. Individuals with a low information quality threshold rely on even poor cues. 35) that selection can lead to a psychology that causes most individuals to rely on cultural learning most of the time. so that even if small changes are made at random. and culture plays little role. Over their lifetimes. Organisms that cannot imitate must start with whatever initial guess is provided by their genotype. width. Sometimes a long bow with a round cross section is best. cultural learning allows the gradual accumulation of small improvements. Thus. imagine that the environment varies.and less-successful teachers. In contrast. and degree of recurve. Now. They are stuck with whatever information that nature offers. the frequency of imitators also increases. we interpret this logic as predicting that selection should have favored a psychology that causes individuals to rely heavily on cultural learning. the performance surface is approximately flat. most individuals will not observe these cues. individual learning predominates. when it is usually difficult for people to learn individually. the average fitness of the population is higher than in an ancestral population lacking cultural learning. Such rare cues allow accurate low-cost inferences about the environment. when they die these improvements disappear with them. this process can create complex cultural adaptations without any intelligence. We take the evidence on Inuit adaptations as indicating that many of the problems that faced the Inuit are far too difficult for most individuals to solve. a rare chance observation might allow a hunter to associate a particular spoor with a wounded polar bear. However. or to link the color and texture of ice with its stability on windy days just after a thaw. For example. an equilibrium emerges in which individuals deploy both individual and cultural learning in an optimal mix. Organisms that cannot imitate must rely on individual learning.do not. At the same time. Second. so that different bows are optimal in different environments. learning individually when it is cheap and accurate. and if small improvements are cheaper than big ones. As the mean information quality threshold in the population increases. they can learn and improve their bow. perhaps because the kind of wood available varies. and relying on cultural learning when environmental information is costly or inaccurate. save that required to distinguish among more. and most imitate. At this equilibrium. by comparing “teachers” and learning selectively from those that seem most successful. taper. even when it is difficult and error prone. and also simultaneously increases the average fitness of the population relative to the fitness of a population that does not rely on cultural information. “pupils” can acquire adaptive information without making any inferences based on environmental cues. In a small neighborhood in design space. the fitness of learners increases because they are more likely to make accurate or low-cost inferences. As a consequence. Large changes will improve things only if they are in the small cone that includes the distant optimum. It is typically more difficult to make large improvements by trial and error than small ones for the same reasons that Fisher (36) identified in his “geometric model” of genetic adaptation. and thus making the same inference will be much more difficult for them. When most individuals in the population observe accurate environmental cues. cultural learning can reduce the population's learning costs. other times a short flat wide bow is best. We have shown (32. cross section. we expect it to be much harder to design a useful bow from scratch than to tinker with the dimensions of a reasonably good bow. However. whereas individuals with a high threshold usually imitate. Finally. Bows vary in many dimensions that affect performance—such as length. If individuals acquire information from multiple teachers and recombine this information. Many kinds of traits admit successive improvements toward some optimum. half of them will increase the payoff (unless the design is already at the optimum). These models assume that our learning psychology has a genetically heritable “information quality threshold” that governs whether an individual relies on inferences from environmental cues or learns from others. the equilibrium threshold is high. cultural species can learn how to make bows from others after these have been improved by experience. and thus could only use them from land or ice floes. confidence. 38). even though in reality it was just the plaiting that made the difference. plaiting form trait will change so as to increase power. p 27) hid their crude rudders under the waterline. When hunting marine mammals from a kayak. and the fastenings tended to fail. These models predict that an adaptive evolved psychology will often cause individuals to acquire the behaviors they observe used by in others even though inferences based on environmental cues suggest that alternative behaviors would be better. they can transmit those improvements to the grandkids. and attention when choosing who to learn from (43. This did not work very well either—it was noisy. the Inuit found that they could not pick up and aim their guns before the kayak veered off course. Causal understanding is helpful because it permits the exclusion of irrelevant traits like the bow's color. then a propensity to imitate the successful can lead to the spread of traits that are correlated with success. then picked up their harpoon and hurled it directly over the bow. Advertisers clearly know this. Finally. but less tapered. individuals are . As long as there is a reliable statistical correlation between plaiting and power. Even infants selectively attend to knowledgeable adults rather than their own mothers in novel situations (45). However. Nonetheless. By recombining different components of technology from different but still successful individuals. what does Michael Jordan really know about underwear? Recent work in developmental psychology shows that young children readily attend to cues of reliability. if learners can compare the success of individuals modeling different behaviors. Therefore. In contrast. and so on down through the generations until quite sophisticated artifacts evolve. eventually creating the modern form. You copy all three traits. This feature of our cultural learning psychology fits a priori evolutionary predictions. They were not able to produce a quality ayût (the Greenlandic word for both a ship's rudder and a kayak keel). The result could be a better bow than anyone made in the previous generation without anyone inventing anything new. Historians of technology have demonstrated how this step-by-step improvement gradually diversifies and improves tools and other artifacts (37. An Inuit might copy the bow design from the best bowyer in his community but adopt the sinew plaiting used by the best hunter in a neighboring community. but this did not work. Consistent with this. The evolution of kayak keels by West Greenland Inuit provides an instructive example of how innovations arise and spread (41). perhaps owing to his local success and prestige. cultural learners start their search closer to the best design than pure individual learners and can invest in further improvements. When firearms first spread in West Greenland. 40). In 1824. 44). Copying irrelevant traits like thickness or color will only add noise to the process. This is obvious when the scope of traits being compared is narrow. a prominent Inuit hunter named Jens Reimer began to experiment with methods to stabilize kayaks for firearm use. Even “great insights” often result from lucky accidents or the recombination of elements from different technological traditions rather than the work of a creative genius who buckles down and racks his brain (39. even though imitators have no causal understanding of the connection. and out of “bashfulness” (41. In a species capable of acquiring behavior by teaching or imitation. Inuit hunters always paddled their kayak hard toward the prey. laboratory and field evidence suggests that both children and adults are predisposed to copy a wide range of traits from successful or prestigious people (42). causal understanding need not be very precise as long as the correlation is reliable. This increased the momentum transferred to the harpoon and prevented capsizing. and uses a different plait for attaching the sinew. in imitation of the rudders of European ships. without any improvisational insights. Then. He then fastened a partially submerged wooden plate to the kayak's stern. develops early without instruction. and over the next 50 y the ayût underwent a series of further small improvements. success. After all. He tried trailing a line behind the kayak. They soon discovered that this unintentional innovation allowed them to use guns from their kayaks. emerges spontaneously in experiments. a number of younger hunters imitated Reimer.again at the genetically inherited initial guess. copiers can produce both novel and increasingly adaptive tools and techniques over generations. and operates largely outside conscious awareness. You see that your uncle's bow shoots farther than yours and notice that it is thicker. Often individuals will have no idea why certain elements are included in a design. nor any notion of whether alternative designs would be better. observes the behavior. We expect cultural learners to first acquire the local practices and occasionally experiment or modify them. the traditional use of chili peppers in meat recipes likely protected people from food-borne pathogens (54). The cognitive niche hypothesis posits that technologies are adaptive because improvisational intelligence allows some individuals to figure out how they work and why they are better than alternatives. For example. a chemical defense evolved in the genus Capsicum to prevent mammals (especially rodents) from eating their fruits. A subject. At times this will mean that cultural learning will overrule their direct experience. during mixed-age play. in the New World. Nonhuman primates and human infants find . they also observe the behaviors of a sample of their population. Children accurately copy all steps. it was probably important. In some cases elements of causal understanding may be passed along. allowing others to acquire the same causal understanding without costly individual investigation. they can make inferences based on cues from the environment. either a child or a chimpanzee. we argue that cultural evolution operating over generations has gradually accumulated and recombined adaptive elements. an adult performs a behavior like opening a complex puzzle box to get a reward. and as a result local adaptations evolve gradually often over many generations. 50). they mainly skip the unnecessary steps. Chimpanzees do not seem to make this assumption. The anthropological literature on child development (46⇓–48) indicates that children and adolescents acquire most of their cultural information by learning from older individuals who typically discourage questions from young learners and rarely provide causal explanations of their behavior. In contrast. The adult's behavior includes both necessary and unnecessary actions. These acquired understandings of the world are then shared. the models predict that an optimal learning psychology will result in social learning playing a significant but relatively modest role. but some will copy to avoid learning costs. even if they do not understand why. an adaptive psychology will evolve in which most people ignore environmental cues and adopt behaviors that are common in the sample of the population they observe. Many people will rely on their own inferences. except that necessary to master the adult repertoire (49. including steps that direct visual inspection would suggest are unnecessary. often only a minority will be able to solve the adaptive problem on the basis of environmental cues alone. leading them to develop more efficient repertoires than children (53) in these experimental settings. Kids practice adult behaviors. This use of chili peppers is particularly interesting because they are inherently unpalatable. Then. often using toy versions of adult tools. eventually creating adaptive packages beyond the causal understanding of the individuals who use them. Like any other organism. The reliance of young learners on carefully observing and imitating the local repertoires revealed in the anthropological record converges with recent experiments on imitation (51. Peppers contain capsaicin. Evidence for Cultural Adaptation The cultural niche hypothesis and the cognitive niche hypothesis make sharply different predictions about how local adaptations are acquired and understood. and little experimentation is observed. They modify these behaviors rarely. When most individuals can solve the adaptive problem using environmental cues alone. evolved motivations.exposed to two different kinds of cues that they can use to solve local adaptive problems. In these experiments. Several lines of evidence support the cultural learning hypothesis. Children seem to implicitly assume that if the model performed an action. or reliably developing intuitions. Children's performance on such tasks in both western and small-scale societies differs in important ways from that of chimpanzees. because the appropriate environmental cues are rare or the adaptive problem is too complex. However. However. Many examples indicate that people often do not understand how adaptive practices work or why they are effective. if the environment is not too variable. 52). or only at the margin. but this is not necessary. Food taboos targeting these species during pregnancy and lactation prohibit women from eating these species and reduce the incidence of fish poisoning during this period. see ref. people will adopt these ideas as well. Moreover. her behavior may work better in your situation. For example.peppers aversive because capsaicin stimulates pain receptors in the mouth. and little information is exchanged among women save for the taboos themselves (58). For a longer discussion. If she is more similar to you than alternative models. 10. and this may explain the cultural evolution of maladaptive cultural systems in which people risk life and limb to summit icy peaks or achieve spiritual perfection in celibate seclusion (61). For example. However. A model's attributes provide indirect evidence about whether it is useful to imitate her. and these ideas are not patently false or harmful. This means that if there are cognitive or social processes that make maladaptive ideas common. can lead to a “runaway” process analogous to sexual selection (10). and to do this they had to overcome an instinctive aversion that we share with other mammals. or those making credibility-enhancing displays of commitment. The cumulative cultural evolution of complex. Instead. Psychological research indicates that people do not get accustomed to the chemical burning sensation. The taboos are learned and are not related to pregnancy sickness aversions. hard-to-learn adaptations requires individuals to adopt the behavior of those around them even if it conflicts with their own inferences. Analyses of the transmission pathways for these taboos indicate the adaptive pattern is sustained by selective learning from prestigious women. If she is successful. Fijian food taboos provide another example of this process. Although women in these communities all share the same food taboos. Efforts to inculcate a taste for chilies in rats using reinforcement procedures have failed (55). then it is likely to be adaptive because learning increases the frequency of adaptive behaviors. observational learning leads people to reinterpret their pain as pleasure or excitement (57). so we overcome our innate aversion and actually learn to enjoy chilies. The same effect may lead to the spread of false beliefs in natural populations. An evolved cultural learning psychology that incorporates such biases increases the chance of acquiring beneficial beliefs and behaviors. then by imitating her you can increase your chances of acquiring traits that gave rise to her success. this same propensity will cause individuals to acquire any common behavior as long as it is not clearly contradicted by their own inferences. it is clear that several such processes exist. they offer quite different causal explanations for them. Here are a couple of examples. which are particularly dangerous for pregnant women and perhaps nursing infants. Many marine species in the Fijian diet contain toxins. Weak Cognitive Biases Can Favor the Spread of Maladaptive Beliefs or Practices over Generations. So. If her behavior is more common than alternatives. Culture and Maladaptation Cultural adaptation comes with a built-in tradeoff. Laboratory diffusion chain studies clearly document that biases that have undetectable effects on individual decisions can have very strong effects when iterated over “generations” in the laboratory (59). However. human food preferences are heavily influenced by the preferences of those around us (56). Boyer (60) argues that a number of cognitive biases explain the spread of supernatural beliefs and account for the widespread occurrence of folktales about ghosts and zombies. New World peoples learned to appropriately use and enjoy chili peppers without understanding their antimicrobial properties. Adaptive Social Learning Biases Can Lead to Maladaptive Outcomes. Culture Is Part of Human Biology and Has Profoundly Shaped Human Evolution . However. these same biases can sometimes lead to the spread of maladaptive beliefs and practices. the tendency to imitate the prestigious. store. By contrast. and shapes the kind of traits that evolve. but it makes little sense. we argue that individuals are not nearly smart enough to solve the myriad adaptive problems they face in any of their many habitats. hairless chimpanzees. even though both may involve an application of evolutionary ideas to the explanation of cultural phenomena. an evolutionary psychologist might explain the widespread taste among humans for fatty foods in terms of the importance in our species' distant past of consuming as much fat as possible on those rare occasions when the circumstances presented themselves. no species occupies as wide a range of habitats as Homo sapiens. cooking. chimpanzees cannot be socialized to become humans and have little or no cumulative cultural evolution. we are brainy. Tooby and Cosmides 1992) tends to assume that the most important inheritance mechanism in all species—our own included—is genetic inheritance. a fact that may explain the rapid increase in human encephalization over the last 500. The evolution of the psychological capacities that give rise to cumulative cultural evolution is one of the key events in our evolutionary history. As a result. Despite earnest efforts. weapons. teeth. and guts (9). dominating the world's biota like no other creature. Culture has opened up a vast range of evolutionary vistas not available to noncultural species. Nonetheless. Evolutionary psychology regards the human mind as evolving through a conventional process of natural selection acting on genetically inherited variation. The presence of culturally evolved techniques and products— such as fire. In contrast. Beginning early in human ontogeny. Such a hypothesis can also help to explain novel cultural trends: the recent increase in obesity is explained as the result of a novel . This approach contrasts with the common view that culture and biology are in a tug-of-war for control of human behavior. such as theory of mind. muscles. does culture overcome biology? The right question to ask is. a functional understanding of artifacts (62). Of course. High-fidelity cultural learning allows human populations to solve these problems because it allows selective learning and the accumulation of small improvements over time. So it does not make sense to ask. We have a uniquely flexible cognitive system that lets us make causal inferences in a wide range of environments and use that information to create much better tools. culture is as much a part of human biology as our peculiar pelvis. This common view probably taps into a deep vein of Western thought. which itself may be the result of evolved cognitive biases (64). However. Even experts lack a detailed causal understanding of the tools and techniques that permit them to survive. and monkeys are geniuses compared with opossums. On the one hand. organize. the degree of cognitive flexibility varies widely in nature—chimpanzees can solve problems that baffle monkeys. For example.g. selective social referencing (45).000 y and the evolution of specialized cognitive abilities that emerge early in life.We have recounted two contrasting accounts of the nature and origins of human uniqueness. just a lot smarter—in essence. The evolutionary psychologist (e. our psychology allows us to learn from others. sophisticated. overimitation (52). and these differences have allowed us spread across the world. and the use of taxonomic inheritance and category-based induction for living kinds (63). how do genetic and cultural inheritance interact to produce the observed patterns of human psychology and behavior (65)? PROCESSES OF CULTURAL AND SOCIOPOLITICAL EVOLUTION CULTURAL EVOLUTION Theories of cultural evolution need to be distinguished from theories within evolutionary psychology. The ancestral condition in the human lineage is a psychology that does not permit cumulative cultural evolution. flexible cognition is important too. and tools—created new selection pressures acting on our bones. powerfully and unconsciously motivates us to do so. there is a widespread view is that people are like other mammals. The availability of large amounts of valuable cultural information would have favored the evolution of bigger brains equipped to acquire. Nonetheless. there is a sharp break between human cultural learning capacities and those of even our closest relatives. and retrieve cultural information. it is more apt to think of humans occupying a cultural niche than a cognitive niche. (ii) the categories are arranged on a scale of complexity with societies hypothesized to pass through adjacent stages of organization in the direction of increasing socio-political complexity. PCMs can be used to examine the support for evolutionary sequences. it does not matter why offspring resemble parents. This is known asoblique transmission.environmental change—the increased availability of cheap. Chiefdom and State discussed earlier). We also specified two models in which increases are sequential . while Complex Chiefdoms have two levels. The admittance of oblique transmission into evolutionary theory necessitates far more radical revisions to traditional Darwinian models of evolution. the evolution of Carnivore social systems. In Darwin's original presentation of natural selection. in principle. Darwin believed. and thereby come to resemble them behaviourally. Simple Chiefdom to Complex Chiefdom. Once we acknowledge the possibility that learning can underpin natural selection. as do biologists today. From the perspective of natural selection explanations. Acephalous society to State and Simple Chiefdom to State have not). The RECTILINEAR model reflects the idea that only sequential increases in complexity can occur. including adaptive change in a population—may also need to be further expanded to encompass oblique transmission. Therefore. But we do not learn only from our parents—we also learn from peers. SOCIOPOLITICAL EVOLUTION (a) Evolutionary sequences A key feature of Spencerian hypotheses is that changes in human socio-political organization follow evolutionary sequences (e. gustatory preference. the transitions Acephalous society to Simple Chiefdom. which are derived from discussions in the literature. and are commonly used to address questions about evolutionary pathways in biological evolution (e. Such classificatory schemes contain two logically distinct elements: (i) societies are grouped together based on observed similarities in the way they are organized. the village). This view is often attributed to the classical evolutionists such as Spencer and Morgan. only that they do resemble them. authority-figures and so forth. and societies could evolve without having to pass through the same stages in the same order. high-fat foods—acting in concert with a once- adaptive. cultural processes such as learning might. Three of these models reflect the Spencerian hypothesis that change in political organization has been sequential in the direction of increasing hierarchical complexity (i. For our present purposes we can classify political organization into four categories of increasing complexity based on the number of hierarchical decision-making levels in a society. This explanatory schema is largely neutral regarding what mechanism accounts for parent-offspring resemblance. Tribe. it is perfectly possible to classify societies according to some criteria without this classification representing an evolutionary sequence. Darwin's theory of natural selection explains adaptation by appealing to what we now call vertical transmission —the inheritance of parental traits by offspring.g.g. now dangerous.e. Simple Chiefdoms have one permanent level of leadership uniting several villages. direct increases Acephalous society to Complex Chiefdom. offspring might learn skills from their parents. that natural selection can explain the origin of many complex adaptive traits. we also acknowledge that a theory of evolution—a theory which seeks to explain change. As we have seen. This is because oblique transmission opens up the possibility that some traits may spread through a population in spite of the fact that they reduce the fitness of the individuals who bear them. Complex Chiefdom to State have occurred. We have previously evaluated six different models of the evolution of political organization (figure 2). Societies with more than two hierarchical decision-making levels above the local community are labelled ‘States’ (see electronic supplementary material). but the larger. and that offspring resemble their parents in terms of the traits that promote or inhibit these abilities (Darwin 1859). For example.g. he requires that parent organisms differ in their abilities to survive and reproduce. underpin this form of inheritance. Band. Acephalous societies are organized politically only at the level of the local community (e. Whether this classification does in fact represent an evolutionary sequence is an empirical question on which suitable lines of evidence must be brought to bear. UNI. the archaeological and . In the UNILINEAR model. Overall. the complexity of socio-political organization increases over time. Full model. Importantly. Finally.but decreases are also possible. Yet. Unilinear.. Whether increases in complexity have been more common than decreases is dealt with in the next section. and comparisons of inferred number of changes between different forms of organization using paired sample t-tests (d. The FULL model and the reversible version of the ALTERNATIVE TRAJECTORIES model are less well supported. (b) Direction of evolution Another defining feature of the Spencerian hypotheses is that there is a direction to cultural evolution.e. the analyses provide strong support for the type of sequences of political evolution that have formed a core feature of the Spencerian hypotheses of cultural evolution. In contrast. That the archaeological record indicates an overall increase in complexity since the end of the last ice age is not in dispute. RECTILINEAR and non-reversible ALTERNATIVE TRAJECTORIES model) are even poorer fits to the data. Analyses show the UNILINEAR model to be the best supported. = 99 998). while those models that do not allow declines in political complexity (i. Table 1. Relaxed Unilinear. Alternative Trajectories (Reversible)) (adapted from Currie et al. Support for different models of political evolution based on the Akaike Information Criterion (AIC) (REC. FULL. i. they highlight that change has not always been in the direction of increasing complexity. closely followed by the RELAXED UNILINEAR model (table 1). RU. Figure 2. In all comparisons.e. while in the RELAXED UNILINEAR model.f. in the FULL model any change is possible. AT(R). representing the idea that political organization has been completely unconstrained. decreases can occur to any lower level. [ .. Percentage of Stochastic Character Mappings in which increases or decreases in complexity are more common. We specified two models based on the idea that different forms or organization have developed along separate evolutionary pathways having evolved from an acephalous form of organization: ALTERNATIVE TRAJECTORIES (only increases possible) and ALTERNATIVE TRAJECTORIES (REVERSIBLE) (decreases also possible). Rectilinear. decreases occur only to adjacent levels of complexity. in the other three models increasing political complexity does not follow a regular sequence. with innumerable shifts in either direction: 1000 amalgamations for 999 reversals’ [6. Initially any changes in complexity must be in the direction of increased complexity. it also possible for trends to occur even in the absence of such a driving force if the ‘phase space’ in which a trait is evolving is constrained and the trait originally arises near one of the constraints (a so-called ‘passive’ trend). 193 cited in [1. there are a number of large-scale trends that can be witnessed over evolutionary time. the trend of increasing biological complexity could be the result of the earliest single-celled organisms arising near a ‘left-wall’ of minimum complexity. which is supported by the findings described in §2a.e. Richerson & Boyd.g. while Spencer argued that ‘the theory of progression. More recently. the extreme of a distribution. there has. p. been a lack of consensus on this issue. or a measure of its central tendency).g. . is not goal directed. has on the whole been forward’ (Tylor 1870. owing to the competitive advantage that societies hold in competition between groups. Similar mechanisms could explain the trend towards increasing political complexity (figure 3). increases in the maximum degree of biological complexity. and body size—see ref for a summary of the proposed macro-evolutionary trends). However. Tylor proposed that human history ‘is not the history of a course of degeneration. and. increases and decreases are possible. p. greater mobility. more efficient metabolism and homeostasis. while acknowledging that decreases in complexity can and have occurred. arguing that complex social organization is compulsory in the long run. For example. A trend here is defined as a directional shift in a measurement value of some attribute over time (e. in spite of frequent stops and relapses. Despite the fact that biological evolution is not goal-directed. cited in [1. like biological evolution. and decreased predation). p. it has been argued that selection acts as a driving force favouring increased body size owing to the potential advantages that are gained from being large (e. and it is unclear if increases have generally been more common than decreases. 27]). clearly see increases in complexity as more common. advantage in competition over resources. while others seem to hold over the entire history of life on earth (e. in fact. 281]. it is important to understand how such a macro-evolutionary trend can arise if cultural evolution. probable.g. Diamond states that increasing complexity is ‘no more than an average long-term trend. or even of equal oscillations to and fro. seems to me to be untenable…It is possible. Figure 3. For example. 28]). I believe. the trend of increasing brain size in homonins is well-established even if there is much discussion as to the reasons for it. 93. yet over time the maximum degree of complexity will increase. that retrogression has been as frequent as progression’ (Spencer 1890. in its ordinary form. Subsequently. In our own lineage. One explanation for such macro-evolutionary trends is that selection has favoured a consistent directional shift in the trait in question.historical records also indicate periods when societies have decreased in complexity. Additionally. i. Although Spencerian cultural evolutionary theories have been characterized as assuming that increases in complexity have dominated. For example. Some trends are present only in certain clades and over certain time scales. p. p. but of a movement which. it was almost impossible for them to have been any less complex. In traditional social evolutionary theories. We examined whether political organization co-evolves with hereditary social stratification (i. (b) In a driven trend. Here we use a PCM to directly estimate the number of changes between forms of political organization to assess whether increases in complexity have actually been more common than decreases. Chiefdom and State are based on regular hypothesized differences between these categories in such things as subsistence practices. As a first step we inferred the form of political organization in the ancestral Austronesian society under the best-fitting model of evolution from the previous analysis. Figure 1shows the distributions of the estimated numbers of changes from these analyses. We can see that increases in complexity have occurred more frequently than decreases (table 1) (although in the comparison between changes A → sC and sC → A.Alternative trend mechanisms underlying the increase in political complexity over time.e. therefore allowing for more opportunities for increases to occur. However.e.00) (figure 1). which confirms that the maximum degree of hierarchical political organization in Austronesian societies has indeed increased over time. degree of social differentiation. Biologists have employed PCMs to investigate trends in biological evolution. the UNILINEAR model. There has been a lack of quantitative comparative analyses attempting to address this question. as societies are hierarchically related they may have several features in common. . some individuals or groups of individuals within a society are afforded higher social status and have greater influence owing to who their ancestors were). The results suggest that the ancestral Austronesian society was politically acephalous (proportional support for different forms of organization: Acephalous = 0.76.g. As the more complex forms of political organization evolved later. However. State = 0.e. Complex Chiefdom = 0. change is biased with increases in complexity more likely than decreases (this represents an extreme example in which only increases have occurred). An associated idea is that change from one category to another involves the relatively rapid restructuring of these different aspects of social organization. socio-political evolutionary change is punctuational.e. it has been argued that different aspects of social organization do not co-evolve this closely and that societies exhibit too much variation to fit easily into categories such Band.22. but because they have all been inherited from a common ancestral society (e. Bands and Tribes). Phylogenetic comparative analyses can overcome these problems by identifying whether the traits under investigation are co-evolving while controlling for the historical relatedness between societies. Tribe.01. We then used a PCM to infer the number of increases and decreases between levels of complexity under the UNILINEAR model of trait evolution. i. i. Table 2 shows the co-occurrence of these two aspects of socio-political organization in our sample. which suggests that Acephalous societies generally lack hereditary forms of social stratification. Chiefdom and State. most of the Polynesian societies in the sample are organized as chiefdoms and have hereditary social stratification (see electronic supplementary material. while it is generally present in Chiefdoms and States. The final two comparisons are situations where there were equal opportunities for increases or decreases and in these comparisons increases are again significantly greater than decreases. Simple Chiefdom = 0. the significant differences in the first three comparisons could be owing to the fact that more time has been spent in the form of lower complexity. These results suggest that increases in political complexity in Austronesian-speaking societies have generally been more common than decreases.. Chiefdoms and States are thought to be socially stratified along these lines. societies cannot be treated as independent data points in a cross-cultural analysis. figure S2). not because they are functionally linked. inherited inequalities and permanent offices of leadership. . (c) Co-evolution of social and political traits Another aspect of social evolution that has been the subject of considerable debate is the idea that different aspects of social organization are correlated with one another. the mean difference was less than one). while such hereditary ranking is thought to be absent in societies organized politically only at the level of the local community (i. Tribe.. Therefore. which potentially could be owing to either process). classificatory schemes such as Band. the dependent model of evolution fits the data much better than the independent model (figure 4 and electronic supplementary material). Contingency table showing the occurrence of different forms of political organization and the presence or absence of hereditary social stratification in our sample.. Figure 4 shows the estimated rates of change between the different combinations of these variables. which is consistent with the idea that different features of social organization may alter relatively rapidly once other elements have changed. It appears that Acephalous societies lacking hereditary class distinctions can develop either hereditary class distinctions or a chiefdom form of political organization first. Bands or Tribes exhibiting hereditary class distinctions and vice versa) are generally higher than those going towards these intermediate states. Flow diagram showing the estimated rates of change between different combinations of the binary variables of Class Stratification and Jurisdictional Hierarchy under the dependent model of evolution. These results support the hypothesis that political organization. the rates of change away from the intermediate states (i. Figure 4.. This dependent model has a much better fit to the data . the rate of change from Acephalous society to Chiefdom is greater in the presence of hereditary class distinctions. However. as represented by the number of hierarchical jurisdictional levels. figure S1).e. has indeed co-evolved with the wider presence of hereditary social stratification in Austronesian societies. Interestingly.Table 2. . For our sample of Austronesian-speaking societies. while the particular form of political organization does affect the rate at which hereditary class distinctions evolve. and thus shows the most likely pathways of evolution of these traits. This suggests that these intermediate forms of organization are unstable. To formally test whether political organization has co-evolved with the wider presence of hereditary social stratification. we use a PCM to compare two alternative models of trait evolution: (i) a dependent model where the rate of change of one trait is different depending on the state of the other. and (ii) an independent model where the rate of trait change does not vary according to the state of the other (see electronic supplementary material.
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Report "Understanding Culture, Society and Politics"