This book outlines a new approach to studying variability and cumulative change in human technology, a definitive research theme spanning archaeology and anthropology. The central argument is that human material culture is best understood as an expression of social tradition, with each artifact the outcome of a distinctive operational sequence, and with specific choices made at each stage in its production. The main focus is on exploring how different traditions of material culture are propagated through social learning, the factors that promote coherent lineages of tradition to form, and the ... More

This book outlines a new approach to studying variability and cumulative change in human technology, a definitive research theme spanning archaeology and anthropology. The central argument is that human material culture is best understood as an expression of social tradition, with each artifact the outcome of a distinctive operational sequence, and with specific choices made at each stage in its production. The main focus is on exploring how different traditions of material culture are propagated through social learning, the factors that promote coherent lineages of tradition to form, and the extent to which these cultural lineages exhibit congruence with one another and with language history. Drawing on the application of cultural-transmission theory to empirical research, chapters develop a descent with modification perspective on the technology of northern hunter-gatherers. Case studies are set in northwestern Siberia, the Pacific northwest coast, and Northern California, and together, they generate crosscultural insights into the evolution of material-culture traditions at different social and spatial scales. Overall, the approach presented in this book promises new ways of exploring some of the primary factors that generate human cultural diversity, both in the deeper past and through to the present.