Technology as human social tradition : cultural transmission among hunter-gatherers

425 Pages·2015·14.8 MB·English

by  Peter David Jordan

Technology as Human Social Tradition
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origins of human behavior and culture
Edited by Monique Borgerhoff Mulder and Joe Henrich
1. B ehavioral Ecology and the Transition to Agriculture, edited by Douglas J. Kennett
and Bruce Winterhalder
2. P attern and Process in Cultural Evolution, edited by Stephen Shennan
3. T he Hadza: Hunter-Gatherers of Tanzania, by Frank W. Marlowe
4. L ife Histories of the Dobe !Kung: Food, Fatness, and Well-Being over the Life Span,
by Nancy Howell
5. F riendship: Development, Ecology, and Evolution of a Relationship, by Daniel J.
Hruschka
6. E mergence and Collapse of Early Villages: Models of Central Mesa Verde Archaeol-
ogy, edited by Timothy A. Kohler and Mark D. Varien
7. T echnology as Human Social Tradition: Cultural Transmission among Hunter-Gath-
erers, by Peter Jordan
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Technology as Human
Social Tradition
Cultural Transmission among
Hunter-Gatherers
Peter Jordan
university of california press
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University of California Press, one of the most
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Origins of Human Behavior and Culture, No. 7
University of California Press
Oakland, California
© 2015 by The Regents of the University of California
CIP data for this title is on fi le at the Library of Congress.
isbn 978-0-520-27692-5 (cloth)
isbn 978-0-520-27693-2 (pbk.)
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Contents
Preface vii
Acknowledgments viii
Note on Data Sets xi
1. Introduction 1
2. Methodology 64
3. Northwest Siberia 110
4. Pacifi c Northwest Coast 218
5. Northern California 277
6. Conclusions 341
Appendix: Mantel Matrix Correlations 375
References 383
Index 403
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Preface
This book examines three interlocking topics that are central to all archae-
ological and anthropological inquiry: the role of technology in human
existence, the reproduction of social traditions, and the factors that gener-
ate cultural diversity and change. The overall aim is to outline a new kind
of approach for researching variability and transformation in human mate-
rial culture; the main argument is that these technological traditions exhibit
heritable continuity: they consist of information stored in human brains
and then passed on to others through social learning. Technological tradi-
tions can therefore be understood as manifestations of a complex transmis-
sion system; applying this new perspective to human material culture
builds on, but also largely transcends, much of the earlier work conducted
by archaeologists and anthropologists into the signifi cance, function, and
social meanings associated with tools, objects, and vernacular architecture.
In this new study, the main focus is on exploring how multiple mate-
rial culture traditions are propagated through social learning, the fac-
tors that promote coherent lineages of tradition to form, and the extent
to which these lineages have historical congruence with one another
and with language. Chapters work through hunter-gatherer case studies
set in Northwest Siberia, the Pacifi c Northwest Coast, and Northern
California, generating cross-cultural and comparative insights on how
and why different kinds of material culture traditions evolve and change.
Overall, the analyses and approaches presented in this book promise
new ways of exploring human cultural diversity, both in the deeper past
and through to the present.
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Acknowledgments
The research presented in this book has taken shape slowly, over a
number of years. The work spans academic appointments in London,
Sheffi eld, Aberdeen, and Groningen, as well as sabbaticals in Oslo and
in Kyoto, and ethnoarchaeological fi eldwork in Northwest Siberia. All
this means that I have many friends, academic colleagues, and local
communities to thank for all their encouragement, advice, practical
assistance, hospitality, and general support along the way.
It all started with a postdoctoral research fellowship at the new Cen-
tre for the Evolutionary Analysis of Cultural Behavior (CEACB), Insti-
tute of Archaeology, University College London (UCL), which was
funded by the UK Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) and
directed by Stephen Shennan. This period at UCL provided an enor-
mously stimulating and yet also highly supportive intellectual environ-
ment in which to start exploring the general theme of cultural transmis-
sion, particularly in relation to Californian hunter-gatherer ethnography
and the Western North America Databases.
I am very grateful for having had the chance to exchange ideas and
establish contacts with many UCL staff, especially Andy Bevan, Mark
Collard, James Connolly, Fiona Jordan, Stephen Shennan, James Steele,
and Jamie Tehrani. Further funding from the AHRC led to the CEACB
becoming the Centre for the Evolution of Cultural Diversity (CECD).
This was a more extended research network led by James Steele, and it
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Acknowledgments | ix
provided further context, direction, and practical support for the
research that has eventually become this book.
The Siberian chapter draws on materials collected during a two-year
Leverhulme Trust Special Research Fellowship (SRF/2002/0218), which
was hosted at UCL and later at the Department of Archaeology, Univer-
sity of Sheffi eld. I am grateful to Peter Ucko, John Barrett, and the UK
Leverhulme Trust for supporting this fellowship. In Siberia, I thank N. V
Lukina, Konstantin Karacharov, and Andrei Filtchenko for their input,
and I am also deeply grateful to all the Eastern Khanty communities I
visited dur ing ethnoarchaeological fi eldwork, especially the families at
Achimovy 1 and Achimovy 2, and also V. S. Kogonchin and Aleks Riskin
for their logistical support in the remote fi eld settings.
Many of the deeper insights into the importance of kinship and social
institutions, and the contrasting ways in which they structure cultural
inheritance, started to emerge only after sustained immersion in the
Californian, Pacifi c Northwest Coast, and Siberian ethnography during
a wonderful year spent at the Centre for Advanced Study (CAS) in Olso;
these understandings functioned as comparative insights in the collabo-
rative project on Early Networking in Northern Fennoscandia, led by
Charlotte Damm.
Over the years that this book has taken shape, I recall fondly many
insightful conversations with Marek Zvelebil (1952–2011) about the
general theme of intergenerational cultural inheritance and its deeper
relevance to the archaeology and anthropology of hunter-gatherers. I
am also thankful to Sean O’Neill, CECD PhD candidate, for pointing
out many novel features of Northwest Coast architecture, such as the
modular design of the Coast Salish longhouses. The research was also
presented in various conferences, symposia, and lectures, and the core
ideas and conclusions were enriched, clarifi ed, and strengthened thanks
to many comments and questions received along the way. Specifi c con-
versations with Bob Bettinger, Olivier Gosselain, Brian Hayden, and
Mike O’Brien all helped crystalize important ideas and questions during
this period. I’m also grateful to Junzo Uchiyama for arranging stimulat-
ing research visits to the Research Institute of Humanity and Nature
(RIHN) in Kyoto, where further progress was made.
As ideas for a more extended comparative analysis of hunter-gather-
ers, technology, and cultural transmission started to take clearer shape,
Joe Henrich and Monique Borgerhoff Mulder encouraged me to pub-
lish this book in their new series with the University of California Press.
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