Explaining the Change from Biface to Flake Technology

Abstract

The form, the distribution, the success of all technologies are shaped by the same basic evolutionary processes. The major premises inderlying the selectionist perspective are that human behavior, and as a consequence technology, are components of the human phenotype, and that phenotypic change may be explained by the operation of natural selection on behavioral variants, including technological behaviors. Whereas processualism views technology as the consequences of people acting to improve their adaptation, selectionism views technology as comprised of variants that can be seen as competing alternatives that have different consequences for users, and hence their own replication. Herein lies one of the most fundamental theoretical differences between selectionist and processual thought. Selectionist theory demands that explanations consider these complex relationships among traits with respect to neutrality, sorting, selection, and adaptation. We argue that the reduction in mobility and changes in technology are linked in some manner to the powerful selective forces favoring maize production. The changes in lithic technologies were the product of the operation of selective agents on agricultural production, rather than a product of the operation of selective agents on the lithic technologies per se. Evolutionary explanations cannot be constructed within the processual framework because processual archaeology lacks the fundamental theoretical components necessary to address issues of change.