Why do hot countries have spicy food? The challenges of testing evolutionary hypotheses using cross-cultural analysis
Lindell Bromham (ANU)
Why is spicy food associated with hot countries? One prominent hypothesis is that spicy food is an example of Darwinian gastronomy, or the cultural evolution of cuisine. Since spices can have antimicrobial properties, spicy food might be an adaptation to higher risk of foodborne infection in warmer regions. This hypothesis has been supported by a significant correlation between average spices per recipe and both temperature and infection risk, but these associations are driven by phylogenetic non-independence and spatial autocorrelation (i.e. “Galton’s problem”). Nearby and related cultures tend to share many aspects of culture, including cuisine, and also have similar environments, including temperature and parasite load, generating incidental association between the cultural and environmental variables. So how do we explain why spicy foods are associated with hotter countries, and recipes from cold countries tend to use fewer spices? We analysed 33750 recipes from 70 cuisines from around the world, containing over 90 different spices. We show that, like most cultural variables, spiciness of food correlates with so many different aspects of culture that it is difficult to disentangle covariation, but that infection risk does not provide a convincing explanation for global patterns of spice use, nor does climatic variation, human population distribution, nor biological, cultural, botanical or agricultural diversity. Instead, spice use varies with general socioeconomic indicators, including a wide range of poor health outcomes. This study illustrates the challenges of testing hypotheses about the drivers of cultural evolution, because it is difficult to disentangle meaningful relationships from incidental associations caused by proximity, relatedness and covariation.
Rachael Brown & Catherine Frieman (ANU)
TBA
Beyond Scenarios: Norms and Their Evolution
Carl Brusse & Kim Sterelny (ANU)
This paper is mostly the prospectus for a research project rather than a report of success. The topic is norms: a distinctive feature both of human social organisation (as each of us has strong instrumental reasons to recognise and take note of the distinctive norms of our community) and of human psychology. For most of us have significant intrinsic, non-instrumental motivation to conform to most of these norms ourselves, and respond adversely to violations by others. A project of understanding the evolution of human social life therefore requires an incremental account of the emergence of norms. Almost all views see a critical connection between the evolution of normative guidance and the distinctive character of human cooperation. This paper presents three contemporary versions of this general approach. All have claims to initial plausibility, with some positive evidential support (especially Sterelny’s). But in the end, these are all plausibility arguments. The project aims to push beyond plausibility arguments through a combination of giving these narrative explanations a more explicit causal structure, game theoretic modelling, and cultural phylogenetic analysis. We conclude by charting some of the obstacles here: the problems of operationalisation and cross-cultural comparison in applying phylogenetic techniques, and the inevitable simplifications imposed by game theoretic modelling.
How WEIRD is cognitive archaeology?
Anton Killin & Ross Pain (ANU)
In their landmark paper, Heinrich et al. (2010) outlined a serious methodological problem for the behavioural sciences. Most of the studies produced in the field use people from Western, Educated, Industrialised, Rich and Democratic (WEIRD) societies, yet inferences are often drawn to the species as a whole. As such, researchers implicitly assume that either there is little variation across human populations, or that WEIRD populations are generally representative of the species. Yet neither of these assumptions is justified. In the years since the article was published, attention has focused on the implications this result has for research on extant human populations. Here we extend those implications to the study of ancient humans and their hominin forbears. We assess a range of key studies in the cognitive archaeology literature, and demonstrate that there is plenty of WEIRDness operating in the discipline. We outline some WEIRD problems that are specific to the historical sciences, and sketch some potential solutions to these problems.
From objects to evolution: Inference in stone tool archaeology
Sam Lin (UoW)
There is a long history to the use of the evolutionary concept in archaeology. However, it was not until the 1980s when archaeologists began to employ an explicit Darwinian evolution framework to explain cultural change. The two main approaches to evolution commonly seen today in stone artefact archaeology is Human Behavioural Ecology and Duel-Inheritance Theory. The former infers evolutionary selection by seeing past behaviour as adaptive strategies to changing social-ecological conditions; the latter sees cultural variation as outcomes of transmission processes that are conditioned by the structure and history of past populations. However, despite their obvious differences, both approaches derive their units of selection on the basis of artefact form, with an implicit assumption that complexity translates to intentional design or adaptive strategy. In this presentation, I argue that such a focus on artefact form as the basis for archaeological inference construction is problematic because of the dynamic formational nature of the archaeological record. Specifically, archaeological patterning represents emergent phenomena that are difficult, if not impossible, to translate back to micro-level events. As such, behavioural ‘content’ under evolutionary selection and transmission may not be directly observable from the artefact form alone, but instead need be considered as parts of a complex system of dynamic formation at varying scales.
Intrinsic empirical problems with explanations of human behavioural evolution
Alex Mackay (UoW)
Perceptions of human cultural evolution as directional and cumulative have been historically pervasive. Expectations arising from these perceptions fostered post-hoc explanations linking classes of finds in the archaeological record with behavioural complexity in the past. With improvements in the quantity and quality of data from Middle and Late Pleistocene contexts a pattern emerges in which these apparent markers of complexity exhibit a spatial and temporal distribution that is initially patchy, often becoming entrenched long after their first appearance. New explanations have been developed to accommodate cultural change in such terms. It is possible – even likely – that neither the ‘directional and cumulative’ nor ‘episodic then entrenched’ patterns are meaningful with respect to behavioural change, but instead reflect intrinsic properties of the archaeological record. Here I describe three problems – resolution, sample size, and preservation – that confound most explanations of human behavioural evolution. I focus in particular on the last problem, using examples from the late Pleistocene archaeology of southern Africa.
Social Dynamics in the Deserts: adapting theoretical approaches to understanding stylistic diversity, mobility and territoriality
Jo McDonald (UWA)
Ongoing theoretical debates for desert archaeology revolve around explaining stochastic hunter-gatherer cultural trajectories. How do humans move into arid lands – and how to they adapt to increased aridification? Fluctuating dietary breadth, risk, hyper-mobility and changes to territoriality through time are critical themes for understanding how people became arid-zone hunter-gatherers. Bringing rock art analysis to this debate allows us to re-envisage information exchange theory through the lens of human behavioural ecology. By examining how arid-zone hunter-gatherers manage – and depict – their social identities, we can model for how rock art and other symbolic behaviours increase the predictability of landscapes and reduce the communication stresses related to widely dispersed social groups. Symbolic behaviour seen as a measure for hyper-mobility is the exemplar for understanding Great Basin and Western Desert hunter-gatherer social networks. The paper attempts to get an empirical grip on cultural groups by employing evolutionary principles and comparing the social dynamics of arid zone peoples in Australia and North America.
The social practicalities of population dynamics and potential implications for the evolution of mortuary practices
Clare McFadden (ANU)
Mortuary practices are a complex cultural activity with varied and often multiple motivations, spanning biological and environmental practicalities (e.g. the decaying corpse and its potential to attract scavengers, etc.) and sociocultural factors (e.g. identity, religion/beliefs, status, etc.). This paper discusses the potential influence of population dynamics, including fertility, mortality and age structure, on the practicalities of mortuary practices in past populations. I will outline the methods used to estimate past population growth/decline proxies, some common models of population processes, and how proxies can be directly compared with archaeological evidence of mortuary practice. I will offer some examples of modern and historical major mortality events and how mortuary practices have been adapted to the rate and cause of death in these instances. I will discuss a case study of complex mortuary practice in a past population and the practical implications of these activities for the members of the population. I will then propose some hypothetical models of how and under what conditions we may expect population dynamics to influence changes to established mortuary practices, concluding with suggestions for future research on this topic.
Understanding social change requires social change: Critically exploring how we investigate prehistoric society in Southeast Asia
Stacey Ward (ANU)
Understanding the causes, nature, and timing of social change in prehistoric Southeast Asia has been a long-term focus of archaeological investigation in the area, but researchers have only achieved limited consensus regarding these issues to date. This lack has been attributed to an over-reliance on outdated and untested theoretical assumptions, descriptive frameworks and explanatory models which bear little resemblance to archaeological reality in the region. Meanwhile, bioarchaeologists have continued to build on this contested archaeological information to identify how social change impacted the lived experiences of ancient Southeast Asians. Recent, regionally-specific explanatory models partially address the theoretical and conceptual holes in our research, but as these models are still hindered by the lack of robust information on ancient society, as well as how this relates to economic and environmental change, they are unable to advance research in the area of social change. A recent bioarchaeological exploration of the relationship between identity, ‘health’, and ‘wealth’ at the late prehistoric village of Non Ban Jak (300-800CE) in northeast Thailand is presented to illustrate both advances and lingering limitations in understanding social change in the region. New bioarchaeological approaches to understanding society, as well as possibilities for the revitalisation of aspects of old approaches, are then outlined to show how we can take control of our theoretical destinies.
What new research in stone tool technology tells us about human behavioural evolution
Jayne Wilkins (Griffith)
The Middle and Late Pleistocene African archaeological record provides much of the earliest evidence for complex Homo sapiens behaviours. Stone tool technology from this time provides rare empirical evidence of early human behavioural change, because it is durable, ubiquitous, and is often the only surviving record of past human actions. Thus, this record of past human behaviour plays a critical role in the development of models for human social and cultural evolution. New data and perspectives in stone tool research challenge traditional models and model-building approaches. First, counter to narratives that emphasize top-down knowledge transmission and homogeneity, the archaeological record of early Homo sapiens suggests that learner-driven innovation and bottom-up social learning processes also influenced the success of past human societies. Second, researchers are recognizing that the traditional industrial affiliations often relied on (such as Howiesons Poort and Still Bay) are undertheorized, and probably not effective for defining ‘cultures’ or evaluating social connectedness. Stone tool technology indicates that early Homo sapiens’ behavioural evolution was complex, non-linear, and involved many different agents of innovation across the African continent.
Centre for Philosophy of the Sciences
School of Philosophy, RSSS
Australian National University
School of Philosophy, RSSS
Australian National University