THE ORIGINS OF AGRICULTURE An Evolutionary Perspective

• Main Author: Rindos, David
• Format: Book
• Language: English
• Published: Orlando Academic Press 1984
• Subjects: Social evolution; Agriculture > Origin
• Online Access: Click Here to View Status and Holdings.
• Item Description: Includes index
• Physical Description: xvii, 325 pages illustrations 24 cm
• Bibliography: Bibliography: p. 286-310
• ISBN: 0125892802

The study of human cultural change is an exercise in the explanation of variation, not speciation. Speciation requires significant genetic isolation and is usually associated with morphological change and genetic divergence. Human cultural change has occurred and proceeds independently of any significant genetic isola tion or morphological change. This does not imply, however, that the variation in human lifeways resulting from cultural change has had no significant effects upon our species. Most of the errors made in the name of evolution in the study of cultural change have arisen from a lack of appreciation for the distinction between varia tion and speciation. Sociobiologists have argued from variation (a precondition) to genetic change (a resultant state) on the basis of an analogy between cultural change and the speciation process. Cultural evolutionists have argued from a misplaced analogy between cultural change and phyletic evolution. They have confused the tree of life" with the thicket of human behaviors. Cultural ecolo gists have attempted to describe the functional and adaptive significance of human behavior. Because speciation is frequently accompanied by the adaptive colonization of a new niche, cultural ecologists have projected a similar concept into the analysis of cultural change. And although these cultural physiologists have contributed much to our understanding of the variety of human experiences, they have improperly confused function (a "how" question) with evolutionary causation (a "why" question).