Advances in Evolutionary Culture Theory

It is argued that the conceptual systems the authors call cultures do evolve in the important, specific sense of "descent with modification," and that anthropology cannot afford to deny or ignore this fact.

Abstract

In this paper, I review recent attempts to formulate an evolutionary theory of cultural change. Historically, cultural evolution has had a bad name in anthropology, largely because the term has been used to describe unilineal schemes of social development and to promote the biologicization of the discipline. When defined and used appropriately, however, the term deserves a better fate. I argue that the conceptual systems we call cultures do evolve in the important, specific sense of descent with modification, and that anthropology cannot afford to deny or ignore this fact. On the contrary, I suggest that there is much to be gained by adding an evolutionary perspective of this kind to cultural theory and analysis. The last decade has witnessed a number of pioneering efforts in this direction; here I review five of the leading theoretical formulations, pointing out their similarities, differences, and specific contributions to the evolving subfield of evolutionary culture theory.