Demography and Cultural Innovation
A Model and its Implications for the Emergence of Modern Human Culture
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 6045009 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Shennan (0000-0001-6605-064X, University College London, corresponding author), Stephen Shennan |
| Year | 2001 |
| Volume | 11 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 5-16 |
| Publication date | 2001-04-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Cambridge Archaeological Journal (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0959-7743 • E-ISSN: 1474-0540 |
| Publisher | Cambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1017/s0959774301000014 |
| OpenAlex | W2127150322 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 298 |
| References cited | 13 |
In recent years there has been a major growth of interest in exploring the analogies between the genetic transmission of information from one generation to the next and the processes of cultural transmission, in an attempt to obtain a greater understanding of how culture change occurs. This article uses computer simulation to explore the implications of a specific model of the relationship between demography and innovation within an evolutionary framework. The consequences of innovation appear far more successful in larger populations than in smaller ones. In conclusion, it is suggested that the model has major implications for the origins of modern human culture in the last 50,000 years, which may be seen not as the result of genetic mutations leading to improved cognitive capacities of individuals, but as a population consequence of the demographic growth and increased contact range which are evident at this time. It is also proposed that the model may be of general relevance for understanding the process of cultural evolution in modern and pre-modern humans
Biology · Cultural transmission in animals · Economic geography · Epistemology · Evolutionary biology · Geography · Human culture · Political science · Population · Population growth · Sociocultural evolution · Sociology · Anthropology · Demography · Evolution and Science Education · Evolutionary Game Theory and Cooperation · History · Language and cultural evolution · Law · Philosophy
Quantifying cultural macro-evolution
An experimental demonstration of the effect of group size on cultural accumulation
Cultural complexity and demography
The dynamics of culture lost and conserved
Defining Behavioral Modernity in the Context of Neandertal and Anatomically Modern Human Populations
Embodiment in Evolution and Culture
Modernos y Neandertales en la transición del Paleolítico Medio al Superior en Europa
Las Conductas Simbólicas en El Paleolítico. Un Intento De Comprensión Y Análisis Desde El Estructuralismo Funcional
La conducta moderna en el Paleolítico Superior Inicial
A Place Full of Whispers
Autism, the Integrations of ‘Difference’ and the Origins of Modern Human Behaviour
Cultural Innovations and Demographic Change
Demography and Cultural Evolution
Behavioral Modernity and the Cultural Transmission of Structured Information
Factors Limiting the Number of Independent Cultural Traits That Can Be Maintained in a Population
Cultural Transmission, Genetic Models and Palaeolithic Variability
Art Origins
Experimental Studies of Cumulative Culture in Modern Humans
Arid Paradises or Dangerous Landscapes
Cultural Evolution in Africa and Eurasia During the Middle and Late Pleistocene
Art Origins
Theoretical Framework
Simulating Geographical Variation in Material Culture
Cultural Evolution
Dual-inheritance theory
Technology, Evolution of
Complex Behavior at the Acheulian Site of Gesher Benot YA‘Aqov, Israel
Origins of Human Innovation and Creativity
North African Origins of Symbolically Mediated Behaviour and the Aterian
Upper Paleolithic
African Genesis
Invention, Reinvention and Innovation
Isolation, Exploration or Seasonal Migration? Investigating Technological Organization in the Late Middle Palaeolithic of Britain During Marine Isotope Stage 3
Personal Ornaments and Symbolism Among the Neanderthals
Climate, Creativity and Competition
The transition to foraging for dense and predictable resources and its impact on the evolution of modern humans
Population size does not explain past changes in cultural complexity
Modern human origins
The cultural evolution of shamanism
Older age becomes common late in human evolution
Cultural Evolution
Innovation rate and population structure moderate the effect of population size on cumulative technological culture
Impact of technical reasoning and theory of mind on cumulative technological culture
The role of population size in folk tune complexity
Cultural innovation, aspirations and success among smallholders in former homelands of the Eastern Cape province of South Africa
Stone tool use as an adaptive technology
Did the mid-Holocene environmental changes cause the boom and bust of hunter-gatherer population size in eastern Fennoscandia
Inventions, innovations and the origins of spelt wheat
From Pleistocene to Holocene
An evolutionary theory of human knowledge progress
The Consequences of Human Behavior
A large-scale view on ‘small-scale societies’
Statistical Physics for Humanists
Mountaineering or Ratcheting? Stone Age Hunting Weapons as Proxy for the Evolution of Human Technological, Behavioral and Cognitive Flexibility
Cultural Evolution During the Middle and Late Pleistocene in Africa and Eurasia
Embodied archaeology
The Lower to Middle Paleolithic Transition in South Asia and Its Implications for Hominin Cognition and Dispersals
Introduction to “Learning Strategies and Cultural Evolution During the Palaeolithic”
The Transmission of Technological Skills in the Palaeolithic
Cultural Evolution in Africa and Eurasia During the Middle and Late Pleistocene
The emergence of modern human behavior in South Asia
Cultural Transmission, Institutional Continuity and the Persistence of the Mousterian
Transmission of Cultural Variants in the North American Paleolithic
Analytical Approaches to Palaeolithic Technologies
Mobility and Cultural Diversity in Central-Place Foragers
Reflections on Hunter-Gatherer Social Learning and Innovation
The Walandawe Tradition from Southeast Sulawesi and Osseous Artifact Traditions in Island Southeast Asia
Osseous Projectile Weaponry from Early to Late Middle Stone Age Africa
Technological Change and the Importance of Variability
Brother or Other
Style, Function and Cultural Transmission
Neanderthal Technoeconomics
Aliens from Outer Time? Why the “Human Revolution” Is Wrong, and Where Do We Go from Here
The Hoabinhian of Southeast Asia and its Relationship to Regional Pleistocene Lithic Technologies
Language in Prehistory
Cultural Evolution in the Digital Age
Where innovations flourish
Long-Term Demographic Trends in Prehistoric Italy
The Northern Fringe of the Swiderian Technological Tradition
Reading the Past
A Predictive Model for the Non-Destructive Assessment of Stone Age Silcrete Heat Treatment Strategies
The Levallois Flaking System in Nesher Ramla Upper Sequence
Transport Patterns as Heuristic Testing Variables for the Social Coherence of Taxonomic Units at Different Spatial Scales
A Tale of Two Species
Clovis Colonization of Eastern North America
An Icar spatial model to reconstruct regional geographic variations in arrival times
On the tool use behavior of the bonobo‐chimpanzee last common ancestor, and the origins of hominine stone tool use
Tool use behavior in three wild bonobo communities at Kokolopori
Fire, temperature control, and silcrete heat treatment at Diepkloof and Mertenhof Rock Shelters, West Coast, South Africa
Transformation via multiple processes
Quantifying the Scientific Revolution
The Korean Early Palaeolithic
Numerosity Structures the Expression of Quantity in Lexical Numbers and Grammatical Number
Scale Matters
Neandertals and moderns mixed, and it matters
Multiple Optima in Hoabinhian flaked stone artefact palaeoeconomics and palaeoecology at two archaeological sites in Northwest Thailand
Cultural transmission, language, and basketry traditions amongst the California Indians
The accumulation of stochastic copying errors causes drift in culturally transmitted technologies
Hunter–gatherer movement patterns
Storied landscapes makes us (Modern) Human
Dating and Context of Three Middle Stone Age Sites with Bone Points in the Upper Semliki Valley, Zaire
Cultural Transmission and Evolution
Stylistic Variation in Evolutionary Perspective
The Human Symbolic Revolution
Mode 3 Technologies and the Evolution of Modern Humans
Aurignacian lithic economy and early modern human mobility
Exploitation of large bovids and seals at Middle and Later Stone Age sites in South Africa
Late Pleistocene human population bottlenecks, volcanic winter, and differentiation of modern humans
Cultural Transmission Among Aka Pygmies
The Genetic Structure of Ancient Human Populations
| Unique citing works | 298 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 12,42 |
| Citation span | 2002 - 2026 (25) |
| Citation velocity | current |
| Highly cited | Yes |
| Citation types | Neutral: 286 |