ABSTRACT
This chapter explains how conception of multilevel evolutionary models developed in Chapter 4 can be applied to social contexts. It is observed that it can be difficult to distinguish genetically determined behaviors and socially acquired behaviors in practice, and evolutionary models can be developed without knowing how a trait was acquired. The evolutionary account previously developed makes the extension of multilevel selection models to topics in the social sciences straightforward. Most of the chapter therefore gives an extended demonstration of how to develop a multilevel model of cultural evolution. This is done via an explanation and critique of a hypothesis proposed by the historian and evolutionary theorist Peter Turchin. Turchin attempts to explain a phenomenon of egalitarian social structures first declining and then increasing, with the inflection occurring during the first millennium prior to the Common Era. It is shown how a simple interaction between higher and lower level cultural traits can explain this pattern. A multilevel model of cultural evolution that formalizes this interaction is then systematically developed and analyzed in order to demonstrate the general applicability of the book’s neodynamical approach to evolutionary models.
