ABSTRACT
This and the following chapter form a pair. Because it may be unfamiliar to many readers, I need to introduce in this chapter the cultural evolutionary framework within which I believe that we can make sense of the archaeology of the previous chapters. Most of this chapter is about advances in cultural evolutionary theory, cultural niche construction theory, and the human cultural capacity for cultural cumulation. There follows a shorter section about materiality and the idea of ‘the extended mind’, which are essential for helping us to understand how and why the material archaeology of the Epipalaeolithic and Neolithic communities embodied cultural meaning and constructed social memory and identity.
