Particularism and the retreat from theory in the archaeology of agricultural origins

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America

Volumn 111, Issue 17, 2014, Pages 6171-6177

  Gremillion, Kristen J ^a   Barton, Loukas ^b   Piperno, Dolores R ^c,d  

^a OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY   (United States)

^b UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH   (United States)

^c DEPARTMENT OF PALEOBIOLOGY   (United States)

^d SMITHSONIAN TROPICAL RESEARCH INSTITUTE   (Panama)

Author keywords

Behavioral ecology; Evolutionary theory

Indexed keywords

ADULT; AGRICULTURE; ARCHEOLOGY; BEHAVIOR; CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK; CULTURAL FACTOR; ECOLOGY; ENVIRONMENTAL CHANGE; EVOLUTION; HISTORY; HUMAN; ORIGINS OF AGRICULTURE; PREDICTION; PRIORITY JOURNAL; REVIEW; SOCIAL BELIEF;

BEHAVIORAL ECOLOGY; EVOLUTIONARY THEORY;

AGRICULTURE; ARCHAEOLOGY; BEHAVIOR; BIOLOGICAL EVOLUTION; CULTURE; HISTORY, ANCIENT; HUMANS; MODELS, THEORETICAL;

EID: 84899625206     PISSN: 00278424     EISSN: 10916490     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1308938110     Document Type: Review

References (113)

1. Denham TP, et al. (2003) Origins of agriculture at Kuk Swamp in the highlands of New Guinea. Science 301(5630):189-193.
2. Denham T (2011) Early agriculture and plant domestication in New Guinea and island Southeast Asia. Curr Anthropol 52(Suppl 4): S379-S395.
3. Piperno DR, Ranere AJ, Holst I, Iriarte J, Dickau R (2009) Starch grain and phytolith evidence for early ninth millennium B.P. maize from the Central Balsas River Valley, Mexico. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 106(13):5019-5024.
4. Dillehay TD, Rossen J, Andres TC, Williams DE (2007) Preceramic adoption of peanut, squash, and cotton in northern Peru. Science 316(5833):1890-1893.
5. Iriarte J (2007) New perspectives on plant domestication and the development of agriculture in the new world. Rethinking Agriculture: Archaeological and Ethnoarchaeological Perspectives, eds Denham T, Iriarte J, Vrydaghs L (Left Coast Press, Walnut Creek, CA), pp 167-188.
6. Piperno DR (2011) The origins of plant cultivation and domestication in the New World tropics: Patterns, process, and new developments. Curr Anthropol 52(Suppl 4):S453-S469.
7. Iriarte J (2009) Narrowing the gap exploring the diversity of early food-production economies in the Americas. Curr Anthropol 50(5): 677-680.
8. Barton L, et al. (2009) Agricultural origins and the isotopic identity of domestication in northern China. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 106(14): 5523-5528.
9. Zhao Z (2011) New archaeobotanic data for the study of the origins of agriculture in China. Curr Anthropol 52(Suppl 4): S295-S306.
10. Fuller DQ, Harvey E, Qin L (2007) Presumed domestication? Evidence for wild rice cultivation and domestication in the fifth millennium BC of the Lower Yangtze region. Antiquity 81:316-331.
11. Fuller DQ, et al. (2009) The domestication process and domestication rate in rice: Spikelet bases from the Lower Yangtze. Science 323(5921):1607-1610.
12. Bettinger RL, Barton L, Morgan C (2010) The origins of food production in North China: A different kind of agricultural revolution. Evol Anthropol 19(1):9-21.
13. Bettinger RL, et al. (2010) The transition to agriculture at Dadiwan, People's Republic of China. Curr Anthropol 51(5):703-714.
14. Zeder MA (2012) The Broad Spectrum Revolution at 40: Resource diversity, intensification, and an alternative to optimal foraging explanations. J Anthropol Archaeol 31:241-264.
15. Hegmon M (2003) Setting theoretical egos aside: Issues and theory in North American archaeology. Am Antiq 68:213-243.
16. Ellen R (2010) Theories in anthropology and "anthropological theory". J R Anthropol Inst 16:387-404.
17. Boyd R, Richerson PJ (1985) Culture and the Evolutionary Process (Univ of Chicago Press, Chicago).
18. Mesoudi A, Whiten A, Laland KN (2006) Towards a unified science of cultural evolution. Behav Brain Sci 29(4):329-347, discussion 347-383.
19. O'Brien MJ, Laland KN (2012) Genes, culture, and agriculture: An example of human niche construction. Curr Anthropol 53:434-470.
20. Richerson PJ, Boyd R, Henrich J (2010) Colloquium paper: Geneculture coevolution in the age of genomics. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 107(Suppl 2):8985-8992.
21. Harris M (1968) The Rise of Anthropological Theory (Thomas Crowell, New York).
22. Smith BD (2009) Core conceptual flaws in human behavioral ecology. Commun Integr Biol 6:533-534.
23. Zeder MA, Smith BD (2009) A conversation on agricultural origins: Talking past each other in a crowded room. Curr Anthropol 50:681-691.
24. Vrydaghs L, Denham T (2007) Rethinking agriculture: Introductory thoughts. Rethinking Agriculture: Archaeological and Ethnoarchaeological Perspectives, eds Denham T, Iriarte J, Vrydaghs L (Left Coast Press, Walnut Creek, CA), pp 1-15.
25. Zeder MA (2006) Central questions in the domestication of plants and animals. Evol Anthropol 15:105-117.
26. Smith BD (2007) Niche construction and the behavioral context of plant and animal domestication. Evol Anthropol 16:188-199.
27. Smith BD (2001) Documenting plant domestication: The consilience of biological and archaeological approaches. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 98(4):1324-1326.
28. Ketelaar T (2003) The evaluation of competing approaches within human evolutionary psychology. Evolutionary Psychology: Alternative Approaches, eds Scher SJ, Rauscher F (Kluwer, Boston), pp 31-54.
29. Zeder MA (2008) The Neolithic macro-(r)evolution: Macroevolutionary theory and the study of culture change. J Archaeol Res 17(1):1-63.
30. Zeder MA (2008) Domestication and early agriculture in the Mediterranean Basin: Origins, diffusion, and impact. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 105(33):11597-11604.
31. Bar-Yosef O (2011) Climatic fluctuations and early farming in West and East Asia. Curr Anthropol 52(Suppl 4):S175-S193.
32. Belfer-Cohen A, Goring-Morris AN (2011) Becoming farmers: The inside story. Curr Anthropol 52(Suppl 4):S209-S220.
33. Belfer-Cohen A, Goring-Morris AN (2009) For the first time. Curr Anthropol 50:669-671.
34. Flinn M (1997) Culture and the evolution of social learning. Evol Hum Behav 18:23-67.
35. Henrich J, McElreath R (2003) The evolution of cultural evolution. Evol Anthropol 12:123-135.
36. Nettle D (2009) Beyond nature versus culture: Cultural variation as an evolved characteristic. J R Anthropol Inst 15:223-240.
37. Jones BD (1999) Bounded rationality. Annu Rev Polit Sci 2:297-321.
38. Simon HA (1947) Administrative Behavior (Macmillan, New York).
39. Hodder I (1990) The Domestication of Europe: Structure and Contingency in Neolithic Societies (B. Blackwell, Oxford).
40. Cauvin J (2000) The Birth of the Gods and the Origins of Agriculture, trans Watkins T (Cambridge Univ Press, Cambridge, UK).
41. Gardner A (2011) Action and structure in interpretive archaeologies. Evolutionary and Interpretive Archaeologies: A Dialogue, eds Cochrane EE, Gardner A (Left Coast Press, Walnut Creek, CA), pp 63-82.
42. Smith EA (2013) Agency and adaptation. Annu Rev Anthropol 42:103-120.
43. Ingold T (2000) The Perception of the Environment: Essays in Livelihood, Dwelling and Skill (Routledge, London).
44. Joseph S (2000) Anthropological evolutionary ecology: A critique. J Ecol Anthropol 4:6-30.
45. Cochrane EE, Gardner A, eds (2011) Evolutionary and Interpretive Archaeologies: A Dialogue (Left Coast Press, Walnut Creek, CA).
46. Winterhalder B, Smith EA (1992) Evolutionary ecology and the social sciences. Evolutionary Ecology and Human Behavior, eds Smith EA, Winterhalder B (Aldine de Gruyter, New York), pp 3-24.
47. Nitecki MH, Nitecki DV (1992) History and Evolution (State Univ of New York Press, Albany, NY).
48. Richerson PJ, Boyd R (1997) Built for speed, not for comfort: Darwinian theory and human culture. Philosophica 60:13-43.
49. Lightfoot KG, Cuthrell RQ, Striplen CJ, Hylkema MG (2013) Rethinking the study of landscape management practices among hunter-gatherers in North America. Am Antiq 78(2):285-301.
50. Smith BD (2011) A cultural niche construction theory of initial domestication. Biol Theory 6:260-271.
51. Gray RD (1987) Faith and foraging: A critique of the "paradigm argument from design". Foraging Behavior, eds Kamil AC, Krebs JR, Pulliam HR (Plenum, New York), pp 69-140.
52. Pierce GJ, Ollason JG (1987) Eight reasons why optimal foraging theory is a complete waste of time. Oikos 49:111-118.
53. Boyer P (1995) Ceteris paribus (all else being equal). How Things Are: A Science Tool-Kit for the Mind, eds Brockman J, Matson K (William Morrow, New York), pp 169-175.
54. Yengoyan AA (2004) Anthropological History and the Study of Hunters and Gatherers: Cultural and Non-Cultural Hunter-Gatherers in History, Archaeology and Anthropology, ed Barnard A , Berg, New York), pp 57-66.
55. Henrich J (2002) Decision making, cultural transmission, and adaptation in economic anthropology. Theory in Economic Anthropology, ed Ensminger J (Alta Mira, Walnut Creek, CA), pp 251-295.
56. Henrich J (2004) Demography and cultural evolution: How adaptive cultural processes can produce maladaptive losses-the Tasmanian case. Am Antiq 69(2):197-214.
57. McElreath R (2004) Social learning and the maintenance of cultural variation: An evolutionary model and data from East Africa. Am Anthropol 106(2):308-321.
58. Richerson PJ, Boyd R (2005) Not by Genes Alone: How Culture Transformed Human Evolution (Univ of Chicago Press, Chicago).
59. Bird D, O'Connell JF (2006) Behavioral ecology and archaeology. J Archaeol Res 14:143-188.
60. Gremillion KJ (2004) Seed processing and the origins of food production in eastern North America. Am Antiq 69:215-234.
61. Gremillion KJ (1998) Changing roles of wild and cultivated plant resources among early farmers of Eastern Kentucky. Southeastern Archaeol 17:140-157.
62. Piperno DR, Pearsall DM (1998) The Origins of Agriculture in the Lowland Neotropics (Academic, San Diego).
63. Barlow KR (2006) A formal model for predicting agriculture among the Fremont. Behavioral Ecology and the Transition to Agriculture, eds Kennett DJ, Winterhalder B (Univ of California Press, Berkeley, CA), pp 87-102.
64. Marston JM (2011) Archaeological markers of agricultural risk management. J Anthropol Archaeol 30:190-205.
65. Foster HT II (2003) Dynamic optimization of horticulture among the Muscogee Creek Indians of the southeastern United States. J Anthropol Archaeol 22:411-424.
66. MacArthur RH, Pianka ER (1966) On optimal use of a patchy environment. Am Nat 100:603-609.
67. Smith BD (2006) Human behavioral ecology and the transition to food production. Behavioral Ecology and the Transition to Agriculture, eds Kennett DJ, Winterhalder B (Univ of California Press, Berkeley, CA), pp 289-303.
68. Levins R (1966) The strategy of model-building in population biology. Am Sci 54:421-431.
69. Richerson PJ, Boyd R (1987) Simple models of complex phenomena: The case of cultural evolution. The Latest on the Best: Essays on Evolution and Optimality, ed Dupre J (MIT Press, Cambridge, MA), pp 27-52.
70. Winterhalder B (2002) Models. Darwin and Archaeology: A Handbook of Key Concepts, eds Hart JP, Terrell JE (Bergin and Garvey, Westport, CT), pp 201-224.
71. Catania KC (2012) Evolution of brains and behavior for optimal foraging: A tale of two predators. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 109(Suppl 1):10701-10708.
72. Lai Y, Chen J-H, Lee L-L (2011) Prey selection of shell-invading leech as predicted by optimal foraging theory with consumption success incorporated into estimation of prey profitability. Funct Ecol 25:147-157.
73. Danial-Valcroze T, Lesage V, Giard J, Michaud R (2011) Optimal foraging theory predicts diving and feeding strategies of the largest marine predator. Behav Ecol 22:880-888.
74. Sayers K, Norconk MA, Conklin-Brittain NL (2010) Optimal foraging on the roof of the world: Himalayan langurs and the classical prey model. Am J Phys Anthropol 141(3):337-357.
75. Levi T, Lu F, Tu DS, Mangel M (2011) The behaviour and diet breadth of central-place foragers: An application ot human hunters and Neotropical game management. Evol Ecol Res 13:171-185.
76. Lupo KD, Fancher JM, Schmitt DN (2012) The taphonomy of resource intensification: Zooarchaeological implications of resource scarcity among Bofi and Aka forest foragers. J Archaeol Method Theory 20:420-447.
77. Dwairy M, Dowell AC, Stahl J-C (2011) The application of foraging theory to the information searching behaviour of general practitioners. BMC Fam Pract 12:90-98.
78. Robinson ME, McKillop HI (2013) Ancient Maya wood selection and forest exploitation: A view from the Paynes Creek salt works, Belize. J Archaeol Sci 10:3584-3595.
79. Flannery KV (1969) Origins and ecological effects of early domestication in Iran and the Near East. The Domestication and Exploitation of Plants and Animals, eds Ucko PJ, Dimbleby GW (Aldine, Chicago), pp 73-100.
80. Piperno DR (2006) The origins of plant cultivation and domestication in the Neotropics: A behavioral ecological perspective. Behavioral Ecology and the Transition to Agriculture, eds Kennett D, Winterhalder B (Univ of California Press, Berkeley, CA), pp 137-166.
81. Stiner MC, Munro ND, Surovell TA (2000) The tortoise and the hare: Small game use, the broad spectrum revolution, and Paleolithic demography. Curr Anthropol 41(1):39-79.
82. Stiner MC, Munro DN (2002) Approaches to prehistoric diet breadth, demography, and prey ranking systems in time and space. J Archaeol Method Theory 9:181-214.
83. Jones EL (2009) Climate change, patch choice, and intensification at Pont d'Ambon (Dordogne, France) during the Younger Dryas. Quat Res 72:371-376.
84. Munro ND (2009) Epipaleolithic subsistence intensification in the southern Levant: The faunal evidence. Integrating Approaches to the Study of Paleolithic Subsistence, eds Hublin J-J, Richards MJ (Springer, The Hague), pp 141-155.
85. Munro ND (2009) Integrating inter-and intra-site analyses of Epipaleolithic faunal assemblages from Israel. Before Farming: Archaeol Anthropol Hunter-Gatherers. 2009(1):4.
86. Stutz AJ, Munro ND, Bar-Oz G (2009) Increasing the resolution of the Broad Spectrum Revolution in the Southern Levantine Epipaleolithic (19-12 ka). J Hum Evol 56(3):294-306.
87. Starkovich BM, Stiner MC (2010) Upper Palaeolithic animal exploitation at Klissoura Cave 1 in southern Greece: Dietary trends and mammal taphonomy. Eurasian Prehistory 7:107-132.
88. Ugan A, Simms S (2012) On prey mobility, prey rank, and foraging goals. Am Antiq 77(1):179-185.
89. Mayr E (1961) Cause and effect in biology. Science 134(3489): 1501-1506.
90. Tinbergen N (1963) On aims and methods of ethology. Z Tierpsychol 20:410-433.
91. West-Eberhard MJ (2003) Developmental Plasticity and Evolution (Oxford Univ Press, Oxford).
92. Laland KN, Sterelny K, Odling-Smee J, Hoppitt W, Uller T (2011) Cause and effect in biology revisited: Is Mayr's proximate-ultimate dichotomy still useful? Science 334(6062):1512-1516.
93. Scott-Phillips TC, Dickins TE, West SA (2011) Evolutionary theory and the ultimate-proximate distinction in the human behavioral sciences. Perspect Psychol Sci 6:38-47.
94. Odling-Smee J, Laland KN, Feldman W (2003) Niche Construction (Princeton Univ Press, Princeton).
95. Odling-Smee J, Laland KN (2011) Ecological inheritance and cultural inheritance: What are they and how do they differ? Biol Theory 6(3):220-230.
96. Anderson MK (2005) Tending the Wild: Native American knowledge and the management of California's natural resources (Univ of California Press, Berkeley, CA).
97. Bliege Bird R, Bird DW, Codding BF, Parker CH, Jones JH (2008) The "fire stick farming" hypothesis: Australian Aboriginal foraging strategies, biodiversity, and anthropogenic fire mosaics. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 105(39):14796-14801.
98. Smith BD (2007) Behavior: The ultimate ecosystem engineers. Science 315(5820):1797-1798.
99. Anderson E (1952) Plants, Man, and Life (Univ of California Press, Berkeley, CA).
100. Anderson E (1956) Man as a maker of new plants and new plant communities. Man's Role in Changing the Face of the Earth, ed Thomas WL (Univ of Chicago Press, Chicago), pp 763-777.
101. Lewis HT (1972) The role of fire in the domestication of plants and animals in Southwest Asia: A hypothesis. Man (Lond) 7(2): 195-222.
102. Belovsky GE (1988) An optimal foraging-based model of hunter-gatherer population dynamics. J Anthropol Archaeol 7(4): 329-372.
103. Winterhalder B (1986) Diet choice, risk, and food sharing in a stochastic environment. J Anthropol Archaeol 5:369-392.
104. Winterhalder B, et al. (1988) The populations ecology of Hunter-Gatherers and their prey. J Anthropol Archaeol 7:289-328.
105. Pyke GH, Pulliam HR, Charnov EL (1977) Optimal foraging: A selective review of theory and tests. Q Rev Biol 52:137-154.
106. Winterhalder B (1981) Optimal foraging strategies and huntergatherer research in anthropology: Theory and methods. Hunter-Gatherer Foraging Strategies: Ethnographic and Archeological Analyses, eds Winterhalder B, Smith EA (Univ of Chicago Press, Chicago), pp 13-35.
107. Winterhalder B, Goland C (1997) An evolutionary ecology perspective on diet choice, risk, and plant domestication. People, Plants, and Landscapes: Studies in Paleoethnobotany, ed Gremillion KJ (Univ of Alabama Press, Tuscaloosa, AL), pp 123-160.
108. Broughton JM, Cannon MD, Bartelink EJ (2010) Evolutionary ecology, resource depression, and niche construction theory: Applications to central California hunter-gatherers and Mimbres-Mogollon agriculturalists. J Archaeol Method Theory 17:371-421.
109. Bettinger RL (2006) Agriculture, archaeology, and human behavioral ecology. Behavioral Ecology and the Transition to Agriculture, eds Kennett DJ, Winterhalder B (Univ of California Press, Berkeley, CA), pp 304-322.
110. Richerson PJ, Boyd R, Bettinger RL (2001) Was agriculture impossible during the Pleistocene but mandatory during the Holocene? A climate change hypothesis. Am Antiq 66:387-412.
111. Coward F, Shennan S, Colledge S, Conolly J, Collard M (2008) The spread of Neolithic plant economies from the Near East to northwest Europe: A phylogenetic analysis. J Archaeol Sci 35:42-56.
112. Bettinger RL, Richerson PJ (1996) The state of evolutionary archaeology: Evolutionary correctness, or the search for common ground. Darwinian Archaeologies, ed Maschner HDG (Plenum, New York), pp 221-231.
113. Collard M, Buchanan B, Ruttle A, O'Brien MJ (2011) Niche construction and the toolkits of hunter-gatherers and food producers. Biol Theory 6:251-259.