Evolution of Early Thule Material Culture: Cultural Transmission and Terrestrial Ecology

We investigate how evolution proceeds across multiple scales considering culture as species, hierarchically integrated systems, assemblages of many coherent units, and collections of ephemeral entities in order to examine the nature of Early Thule cultural evolution with reference to material cultur...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Human ecology : an interdisciplinary journal 2018-10, Vol.46 (5), p.633-650
Main Authors: Prentiss, Anna Marie, Walsh, Matthew J., Foor, Thomas A.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Anthropology
Biological evolution
Cultural anthropology
Cultural change
Cultural transmission
Culture
Ecological effects
Ecological monitoring
Environmental aspects
Environmental Management
Evolution
Geography
Human geography
Material culture
Social Sciences
Sociology
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Summary:We investigate how evolution proceeds across multiple scales considering culture as species, hierarchically integrated systems, assemblages of many coherent units, and collections of ephemeral entities in order to examine the nature of Early Thule cultural evolution with reference to material culture and adaptive strategies. Results suggest that harpoon heads evolved via cultural transmission processes with little impact from terrestrial ecological context. In contrast, characteristics of architectural features, stone tool assemblages, and combined architecture and stone tools displayed evidence for significant effects of both cultural transmission and select measures of ecological context. There is no evidence that evolution was 'evoked' by ecological context alone.
ISSN:0300-7839
1572-9915
DOI:10.1007/s10745-017-9963-9