ABSTRACT
Within the traditions of archaeology and anthropology, a common set of oppositions is that between the biological and the social. The putative contrast between what is biological and what is social has led to explanations for patterns of variation in human behaviour and in prehistory which are seen as competitive or mutually exclusive. The growth of ‘social’ archaeology, for example, might easily be seen as an alternative to the more ecological approaches that dominated in previous decades. If we are to investigate biologically based approaches to the evolution of social behaviour, it is clear that against this background it is necessary to find a way through a number of conflicting concepts and definitions of the term ‘social’.
