The empirical case against the 'demographic turn' in Palaeolithic archaeology.
Recently, it has become commonplace to interpret major transitions and other patterns in the Palaeolithic archaeological record in terms of population size. Increases in cultural complexity are claimed to result from increases in population size; decreases in cultural complexity are suggested to be due to decreases in population size; and periods of no change are attributed to low numbers or frequent extirpation. In this paper, we argue that this approach is not defensible. We show that the available empirical evidence does not support the idea that cultural complexity in hunter-gatherers is governed by population size. Instead, ethnographic and archaeological data suggest that hunter-gatherer cultural complexity is most strongly influenced by environmental factors. Because all hominins were hunter-gatherers until the Holocene, this means using population size to interpret patterns in the Palaeolithic archaeological record is problematic. In future, the population size hypothesis should be viewed as one of several competing hypotheses and its predictions formally tested alongside those of its competitors.This article is part of the themed issue 'Major transitions in human evolution'.
Human Evolutionary Studies Program and Department of Archaeology, Simon Fraser University, 8888 University Drive, Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada V5A 1S6 Department of Archaeology, University of Aberdeen, Elphinstone Road, Aberdeen AB24 3UF, UK mcollard@sfu.ca.
Mark
M
Collard
School of Innovation Sciences, Eindhoven University of Technology, Eeuwsel IPO 1.14, 5612 AZ Eindhoven, The Netherlands Human Origins Group, Faculty of Archaeology, University of Leiden, Einsteinweg 2, 2333 CC Leiden, The Netherlands.
Krist
K
Vaesen
Department of Archaeology and History, La Trobe University, Plenty Road, MB 167 Melbourne, Australia.
Richard
R
Cosgrove
Human Origins Group, Faculty of Archaeology, University of Leiden, Einsteinweg 2, 2333 CC Leiden, The Netherlands.
Wil
W
Roebroeks
D000818:Animals; D000884:Anthropology, Cultural; D001106:Archaeology; D005075:Biological Evolution; D003468:Cultural Evolution; D003710:Demography; D015186:Hominidae; D006801:Humans; D011156:Population Density; D012919:Social Behavior
Palaeolithic archaeology; cultural change; cultural complexity; demography; hunter–gatherer technology; population size