Shennan, S: Genes, Memes and Human History Darwinian Archaeology and Cultural Evolution

Today, many scholars show more interest in unscientific attempts to empathize with ancient peoples than in obtaining valid knowledge about the past. Archaeologists have become failed ethnographers, forever regretting the demise of the people they would like to talk to. Stephen Shennan provides an ambitious blueprint for a new approach to archaeology, based on the application of the latest neo-Darwinian evolutionary ideas.

What is the history of human populations? How are cultural traditions maintained and changed over time? Why did people destroy their environments in the past and were they ever conservationists? What led to the emergence of marked social inequalities? These are some of the important questions that evolutionary archaeology can answer.

Shennan opens with the study of animal behavior, as acted upon by natural selection, and goes on to demonstrate that the same ideas can be applied to human societies, not just through the genes but also through culture, our second inheritance system. He then looks in detail at population history, methods of subsistence, male-female relations, social evolution, and competition and warfare. Fascinating insights emerge. For example, the unique time-depth of archaeology can be used to show that human populations have expanded and then crashed far more frequently in the past than has hitherto been realized. Similarly, the rise of plough agriculture may well have led to increasing control of women by men.

Ranging from life history theory to game theory, and from the origins of farming to the collapse of societies, the book takes us on a thrilling intellectual journey.