Anthropology.net

Cultural evolution has been a pretty active and heated topic in the anthropology blogosphere, especially between Martin, afarensis, and I. Afarensis continued the discussion today, returning to this topic but on the projectile point scope.

In some sort of weird coincidence, the professional press has also chimed in — not explicitly on projectile points, but on cultural evolution. I tip my hat to Simon Greenhill, who found these these two relevant pieces and posted about them in his blog HENRY. The first, a review on “Evolution in Archaeology,” by Stephen Shennan­ has been published in the Annual Review of Anthropology journal. The second, this column in Seed Magazine by Paul Ehrlich — who recently published a research paper in PNAS on cultural evolution, as well as a back and forth series of letters with a criticizer of his work.

Shennan is well versed in cultural evolution. He is one of the co-authors of a text titled, “The Evolution of Cultural Diversity: A Phylogenetic Approach.” In his Annual Review of Anthropology review, Shennan describes the history of how people have approached cultural evolution. He brings up the differences in the two analytical camps, ‘one centered on cultural transmission and dual inheritance theory and the other on human behavioral ecology,’ and how they have effected answering evolutionary questions with archaeological data. In summary, he effectively advocates that we need to find and agree on new, consistent ways of using archaeological data to answer evolutionary questions.

Ehrlich’s message starts out on a similar tone. In his second paragraph, he writes how we do not really “understand how cultures evolve.” He pays particular attention to the ambiguous nature of culture — something that “composed of overlapping phenomena from languages, religions, institutions, and socially transmitted power relationships to the information embodied in artifacts ranging from potsherds to jumbo jets,” and how it hard to extract patterns from all these varying sources that seem so bogged down with noise.

But Ehrlich ultimately reconsiles in that culture can be analyzed broadly, and under the same theoretical constraints that we analyze genetic evolution — so long as we through out that cultural evolution is progressive. His piece transitions into a summary of his recent research, but I still recommend you read it because it does a much better job with translating the science than I can, since he was one of the authors behind the piece.

Both are effective pieces in synthesizing evolutionary theory with the concept of culture. It is very problematic for one to discuss both or refute that culture doesn’t evolve without a strong understanding of the theoretical basis of evolution, selection, and change.

News of Neandertal tools from an Early Upper Palaeolithic site called Beedings, north east of Pulborough in West Sussex, United Kingdom is emerging. So far the BBC News is the only major news source running this, but smaller local news papers such as the West Sussex Gazette have also published news on this subject.

Team leader Matthew Pope of Archaeology South East has restarted excavations at the Beedings site. Beedings was first excavated in 1900, over one hundred years ago. Then, over 2,300 stone tools were uncovered as foundations were being dug for what is now the Beedings Castle (which is apparently for sale). Last year Roger Jacobi of the Ancient Human Occupation of Britain project published an analysis of these tools in a paper titled, “A Collection of Early Upper Palaeolithic Artefacts from Beedings, near Pulborough, West Sussex.” From what I can tell, the publishing journal, unfortunately, doesn’t have a working system for people to access the article.

Jacobi understood the tools showed strong resemblances to other tools from northern Europe dating to between 35,000 and 42,000 years ago, putting this site right in the Late Paleolithic. This meant either an early colonization date of Britain by anatomically modern humans or an occupation by technologically advanced and late surviving Neandertals.

The diversity and type of the tools from Beedings is more extensive than any other found in the region. They are mostly all long refined blades or cores where these blades were knapped from. Such tools come from technologically advanced cultures, with an understanding of where to find the raw material, and how to finely knap them.

Because of this advanced tool kit, Pope considers the Neandertals of this area were thriving and far from struggling to survive — which has been proposed by many as one of the reasons why Neandertals went bye-bye. Pope comments,

“Unlike earlier, more typical Neandertal tools these were made with long, straight blades – blades which were then turned into a variety of bone and hide processing implements, as well as lethal spear points…

…We also discovered older, more typical Neanderthal tools, deeper in the fissure. Clearly, Neanderthal hunters were drawn to the hill over a long period time…

The impression they give is of a population in complete command of both landscape and natural raw materials with a flourishing technology – not a people on the edge of extinction.”

Barney Sloane, Head of Historic Environment Commissions at English Heritage added, supporting Pope and Jacobi,

“The tools at Beedings could equally be the signature of pioneer populations of modern humans, or traces of the last Neanderthal hunting groups to occupy the region.

This study offers a rare chance to answer some crucial questions about just how technologically advanced Neanderthals were, and how they compare with our own species.”

How does Pope know for sure that these tools are made by Neandertals? We know there were probably eight major incursions into Britain by humans, and the British people of today are essentially new arrivals – products only of the last influx 12,000 years, indicating the other seven migrations failed… In other words those inhabitants went bye-bye too. Stone tools from a quarry at Lynford, near Norwich indicate Neandertals occupied Britain some 60,000 years ago.

So the hype spun by Pope, and the BBC, you know the enthusiasm that the tools from Beddings prove Neandertals were sophisticated and in ‘ complete command of both landscape and natural raw materials,’ isn’t entirely novel. Neandertals had to be in command of the landscape and materials to cross either the North Sea or the English Channel from mainland Europe and enter Britan. Furthermore they had to have been in command of fashioning functional tools to take down large mammals, like mammoths and woolly rhinoceros — two prey species associated with Neandertal sites in the United Kingdom, which they survived off of for thousands of years.

This reminds me of this other hyped up Neandertal finding which I wrote about in February. Then, the press was going crazy over how some isotope analysis (creative methodology but not a very enlightening result) proved Neandertals were mobile. Again, hardly a novel concept… but I’m wondering why everyone still considers Neandertals as clueless cavemen? We’re far past that understanding. We know their tool set has been ‘advanced,’ they migrated all over Eurasia and the Middle East and had bodies and brains much like ours — if not larger. Given the wealth of archaeological and morphological evidence, it is time to stop spinning this pop-culture representation of Neandertals as dumb bipedal apes.

One last thing, you maybe interested in this 2 minute news video where Matthew Pope simply explains hypes up the tools to the BBC News.