ABSTRACT

Evolutionary packages As noted in the introduction to this part of the book, Boyd et al (1997) have identified the existence of a continuum of possibilities regarding cultural coherence. At one extreme, whole cultures may be transmitted from one generation to the next. As Boyd et al point out, this characterisation of the nature of cultural traditions seems implausible, given extensive evidence for the diffusion of information between cultural traditions. At the other end of the spectrum of possibilities we have a situation where there is no spatial or temporal coherence because people always make their own decisions about how to carry out any specific activity on the basis of their own trial-and-error experience and the alternatives to which they are exposed. The temporal coherence we see in the archaeological record, together with the well-documented importance of social learning in generating human behaviour (eg, Boyd and Richerson 1985, Shennan and Steele 1999), indicates that this extreme is also implausible.