Gloria_Chapter 12_Response

Chapter 12 talks about the evolution of cultures, Cultural evolution. Cultural evolution presumes that over time, cultural change such as the rise of social inequalities or emergence of agriculture occurs as a result of humans adapting to some non-cultural stimulus, such as climate change or population growth. Cultural evolution was considered directional, that is, as human populations transform themselves, their culture becomes progressively complex. Today, the theory of cultural evolution is an more complex explanations for cultural change, and for the most part archaeologists believe that social changes are not only driven by biology or a strict adaptation to change, but by a complex web of social, environmental, and biological factors.

Cultures evolve. In one sense, this is a truism; in other senses, it asserts one or another controversial, speculative, unconfirmed theory of culture. Consider a cultural inventory of some culture at some time--say 1900AD. It should include all the languages, practices, ceremonies, edifices, methods, tools, myths, music, art, and so forth, that compose that culture. Over time, that inventory changes. Today, a hundred years later, some items will have disappeared, some multiplied, some merged, some changed, and many new elements will appear for the first time. A verbatim record of this changing inventory through history would not be science; it would be a data base. That is the truism: cultures evolve over time.