What Can Archaeology Do With Boyd and Richerson's Cultural Evolutionary Program?

Abstract

In a famous letter, the economist Alfred Marshall outlines a method for economic theorising: "(1) Use mathematics as shorthand language, rather than as an engine of inquiry (2) Keep to them till you have done (3) Translate into English (4) Then illustrate by examples that are important in real life (5) Burn the mathematics (6) If you cannot succeed in 4 then burn 3." (Pigou 1925). If Marshall's method is relevant to the way Boyd and Richerson work, then their new book is evidence that their theorising has reached an advanced stage. In their new book Not by Genes Alone (hereinafter, NBGA) there are none of the dense maths that distinguished their influential book Culture and the Evolutionary Process (1985), instead there are numerous examples drawn from the human sciences. The main point of this new book is to show that Darwinian evolutionary theory and methods are essential and productive tools for the analysis of human culture. This is a theme that Boyd and Richerson have been promoting since the late 1970s, but NBGA presents a more accessible account of their cultural evolutionary program and outlines a manifesto for future research. The book is aimed at readers in social science and humanities departments, with no graphs, only a single equation buried in the endnotes, axiom-like chapter headings, and case studies drawn from across the human sciences. The publication of this new synthesis of their ideas provides a good opportunity to review the main arguments of Boyd and Richerson's work as described in NBGA and evaluate the impact their program has had on archaeological research.