Dwight W. Read

Tasmanian Knowledge and Skill: Maladaptive Imitation or Adequate Technology?

A recent article has suggested that maintenance of complex tools and associated tasks in a group depends on the presence of skilled individuals to serve as targets for imitation. The expected number of skilled target individuals, it is argued, relates to the population size. It is predicted that population size and maximum complexity of tools and/or tasks should correlate, hence a decrease in population size could lead to maladaptive loss of skills. Data from Tasmania are said to support the argument. However, the argument neither agrees with the archaeological data from Tasmania nor ethnographic observations on hunter-gatherer societies. Instead of being an example of a group that underwent maladaptive loss, the indigenous people of Tasmania appear to have used tools sufficient for the tasks at hand. An alternative model is proposed that distinguishes between motor skills and knowledge needed to do tasks effectively and takes into account assessment of the time cost for developing skills. Loss of skills more likely relates to change in the mode of resource procurement or change in technology rather than a shortage of skilled, target individuals due to decrease in population size.

Population Growth, Carrying Capacity, and Conflict

The standard model of population growth and regulation is critiqued. It is argued that any model of population growth and regulation must accommodate ten propositions, and a multitrajectory model that does so is described. This model identifies competition between groups, individual choice in reproductive behavior, the scale for spatial and temporal variation in resource abundance, and the social unit for resource access and ownership as important components of population behavior.

AN INTERACTION MODEL FOR RESOURCE IMPLEMENT COMPLEXITY BASED ON RISK AND NUMBER OF ANNUAL MOVES

Different hypotheses identifying factors affecting the complexity of implements used to obtain food resources by hunter-gatherer groups are assessed with regression analysis. A regression model based on interaction between growing season as a proxy measure for risk and number of yearly moves fits data on the complexity of implements for 20 hunter-gatherer groups. The interaction model leads to a division of hunter-gatherer groups into two subgroups that correspond to collector vs. forager strategies for procuring resources. Implications of the interaction model for the evolution of complex implements are discussed.

Working Memory: A Cognitive Limit to Non-Human Primate Recursive Thinking Prior to Hominid Evolution:

In this paper I explore the possibility that recursion is not part of the cognitive repertoire of non-human primates such as chimpanzees due to limited working memory capacity. Multiple lines of data, from nut cracking to the velocity and duration of cognitive development, imply that chimpanzees have a short-term memory size that limits working memory to dealing with two, or at most three, concepts at a time. If so, as a species they lack the cognitive capacity for recursive thinking to be integrated into systems of social organization and communication. If this limited working memory capacity is projected back to a common ancestor for Pan and Homo, it follows that early hominid ancestors would have had limited working memory capacity. Hence we should find evidence for expansion of working memory capacity during hominid evolution reflected in changes in the products of conceptually framed activities such as stone tool production. Data on the artifacts made by our hominid ancestors support this expansion hypothesis for hominid working memory, thereby leading to qualitative differences between Pan and Homo.

An Algebraic Account of the American Kinship Terminology [and Comments and Reply]

Although componential and transformational analyses are the generally recognized domains for the study of kinship terminology structure, neither procedure completely elucidates the structure formed by kin terms as a system of terms. Both procedures ignore that kin terms, via a kin terms product, form a structure separate from the structure imposed on a genealogical space through definition of kin terms as sets of kin types. Separation of these levels shows that the structure of kin terms is an inherently algebraic form and suggests universal algebras, whose subject matter is the properties of formal structures, as the appropriate domain for the representation and analysis of kin term structure. The American (English) kinship terminology is analyzed using this framework, and it is shown that the system of terms that constitutes it has structure that can be isomorphically represented in algebraic terms. More specifically, it is shown that the structure for the set of kin terms, including properties heretofore seen as problematic, has exact explication within the algebraic representation. The set of kin terms distinguished and their structural relations are shown to result from a consanguineal structure which has the form of an algebra known as an inverse semigroup, with affinal terms imbedded via the product of two consanguineal structures-one centered around Self and the other centered around Spouse-with sex distinctions made on the basis of Spouse relations. The algebraic argument shows what properties suffice to generate the complete kin term structure for the American kinship terminology and suggests the possibility of structural comparison of kinship terminologies at the level of properties defining the generation of structure.

Biology is only part of the story

The origins and development of human cognition constitute one of the most interesting questions to which archaeology can contribute today. In this paper, we do so by presenting an overview of the evolution of artefact technology from the makers point of view, and linking that development to some hypotheses on the evolution of human cognitive capacity. Our main hypothesis is that these data indicate that, in the first part of the trajectory, biological limits to cognitive capacity were a major constraint that limited technology, whereas, in the second part, this biological constraint seems to have been lifted and others have come in its place. But these are modifiable by means of conceptual frameworks that facilitate concept innovation and therefore enable learning, thereby permitting acceleration in the pace of change in technology. In the last part of the paper, we elaborate on some of the consequences of that acceleration.

Formal analysis of kinship terminologies and its relationship to what constitutes kinship

The goal of this paper is to relate formal analysis of kinship terminologies to a better understanding of who, culturally, are defined as our kin. Part 1 of the paper begins with a brief discussion as to why neither of the two claims – (1) kinship terminologies, which primarily have to do with social categories and (2) kinship terminologies, which are based on classification of genealogically specified relationships traced through genitor and genetrix – is adequate as a basis for a formal analysis of a kinship terminology. A substantive problem with rewrite rule formalism is identified next. In Part 2 this problem is resolved when a kinship terminology is viewed from the perspective of a structured, symbolic system in which there is both a symbol calculus and a set of rules of instantiation giving the symbols empirical content. The symbol structure is linked to individuals via culturally specified instantiation of symbols. It is suggested that one’s kin are determined through the symbol structure and its instantiation.

SOME COMMENTS ON TYPOLOGIES IN ARCHAEOLOGY AND AN OUTLINE OF A METHODOLOGY

Classification is discussed as a procedure for maximizing information about a cultural system from archaeological data. This concept is made rigorous by defining typologies in terms of assumptions about patterning among variables that result from different artifacts being manufactured for use in different activities. Interval-scaled and nominal-scaled variables are considered independently, as the problem to be solved is different in the 2 cases. For continuous variables, the question is what divisions can be made, and for nominal variables, it is what divisions should be made. Two definitions for typologies are given, 1 for continuous variables and 1 for nominal variables. Cluster analysis and analysis of interaction and residuals in contingency tables are outlined as procedures for discovering types with continuous and nominal variables, respectively. Examples of each technique using archaeological data are given.

Numerical Taxonomy, R-Mode Factor Analysis and Archaeological Classification

The concepts underlying numerical taxonomy and factor analysis are examined in relation to the goals and requirements of archaeological classification. Numerical taxonomy, represented in the archaeological literature most commonly by cluster analysis on raw data, is found to be inappropriate for those goals. In contrast, the technique of r-mode factor analysis fits very well with the nature of archaeological data and the general aims of archaeological classification. The results of three experiments are presented which illustrate the drastically different interpretations that can be engendered by the two procedures from the same data.

From Population to Organization Thinking

Our species is still very young by biological time scales, and it is too early to know if we represent the cutting edge of a biological success story, like cockroaches or dinosaurs, or a brilliant but ultimately failed and short-lived experiment in niche construction and destruction. In the mere 200,000 or so years of Homo sapiens’ story, and in particular in the approximately 50,000 years since we began to accrue the accoutrements of culture like language, art and multi-component artifacts, members of our species have populated a vast extent of the earth’s surface and exploited for our own purposes an ever-increasing share of the planet’s biologically utilizable solar energy. In the last few centuries, we have ravaged the stock of bioprocessed solar energy accumulated over millions of years, transformed minerals extracted from below the earth’s surface into a huge variety of forms and new materials that satisfy what we regard as our needs, and increasingly concentrated the human population in urban spaces to which nearly all the raw materials necessary for human survival have to be imported from elsewhere. At the individual level, our first Homo sapiens ancestors managed to keep themselves going on the 100‐300 watts their bodies were able to generate, assisted in their quest for survival by the handful of artifacts they knew how to make and use; in contrast, current residents of New York City mobilize on average about 10,000 watts to propel them through their daily rounds of activity, and the shops in their city offer them a choice of something like 10 10 different kinds of artifacts to help them accomplish whatever it is they might feel inclined to do. 1 How have we managed to accomplish so much so fast? The main premise of this chapter is that we have done it through a new modality of innovation, through which human beings generate new artifacts that they embed in new collective activities,