Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Award: Factors Which Underlie Long Term Cultural Change

University Of Connecticut, Storrs CT

Investigators

Abstract

Under the supervision of Dr. Daniel Adler, Jayson Gill will study variability in stone tool (lithic) technology to test behavioral and geographic hypotheses related to the appearance of novel technologies and the the evolution of both Homo sapiens and Neanderthals. This project will test the competing hypotheses of population expansion (migration) and independent innovation for the appearance of new technologies as proposed by prior research. The researchers will apply a quantitative approach to studying the degree to which changes in technology can be attributed to cultural continuity or cultural replacement. Lithic artifact morphology reflects both cultural preferences and functional considerations, thus they represent a ubiquitous, vast, and durable record of past behaviors that can be utilized to investigate how changes occur. Clarifying how and why technology changes is essential to addressing the role that behavior plays in the complex narrative of human evolution. This project will support the doctoral training of the Co-PI (Jayson Gill) and training in quantitative techniques for students. Data produced in this study will be made freely available online as reference material and results will be widely disseminated through conference presentations, journal articles, and public engagement. This research utilizes cultural evolutionary theory, optimality modeling, and insights from experimental assemblages to address chronological patterns in past technologies in an attempt to disentangle the effects of social transmission, functional considerations, and raw material choice on the shape of lithics. Archaeological assemblages in two regions document the appearance of novel behaviors and variability both proceeding and following this appearance. Five lithic assemblages from two regions will be subjected to three-dimensional scanning and multivariate statistical methods as a means to identify the morphological relationships between different lithic technologies through time. The results will be evaluated against the morphological expectations in competing migration and innovation hypotheses. Further, results of shape-based statistics will be assessed against expectations derived from experimental work and will identify the relationship between changes in technology and changes in the functional proficiency of tool kits against a backdrop of broad chronological changes in the environment. Morphological relationships, or the lack thereof, between technologies can serve as a proxy for the degree of regional continuity in lithic production behaviors. Establishing continuity or abrupt change, as well as identifying the factors promoting the adoption of new technologies is vital to expanding the current understanding of the role that migration, behavioral adaptation, and innovation have on group variation during this significant period in human evolution. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.