Chapter 4: The Evolution of Culture

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 1900 AD. 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, 100 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 database. This is the truism: cultures evolve over time. Everybody agrees about that. Now let s turn to the controversial question: how are we to explain the patterns to be found in that data-base? Are there any good theories or models of cultural evolution?