School of Innovation Sciences, Eindhoven University of Technology, Eindhoven, The Netherlands.
PLoS One. 2012;7(7):e40989. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0040989. Epub 2012 Jul 24.
The idea that demographic change may spur or slow down technological change has become widely accepted among evolutionary archaeologists and anthropologists. Two models have been particularly influential in promoting this idea: a mathematical model by Joseph Henrich, developed to explain the Tasmanian loss of culture during the Holocene; and an agent-based adaptation thereof, devised by Powell et al. to explain the emergence of modern behaviour in the Late Pleistocene. However, the models in question make rather strong assumptions about the distribution of skills among social learners and about the selectivity of social learning strategies. Here I examine the behaviour of these models under more conservative and, on empirical and theoretical grounds, equally reasonable assumptions. I show that, some qualifications notwithstanding, Henrich's model largely withstands my robustness tests. The model of Powell et al., in contrast, does not--a finding that warrants a fair amount of skepticism towards Powell et al.'s explanation of the Upper Paleolithic transition. More generally, my evaluation of the accounts of Henrich and of Powell et al. helpfully clarify which inferences their popular models do and not support.
人口结构变化可能会促进或减缓技术变革，这一观点在进化考古学家和人类学家中已经得到广泛认可。有两个模型在推动这一观点方面特别有影响力：约瑟夫·亨里奇（Joseph Henrich）提出的一个数学模型，用于解释全新世时期塔斯马尼亚文化的消失；以及鲍威尔等人在此基础上提出的基于代理的适应性模型，用于解释更新世晚期现代行为的出现。然而，这些模型对社会学习者之间技能的分布以及社会学习策略的选择性做出了相当强的假设。在这里，我根据更保守的假设以及经验和理论依据，对这些模型进行了检验。我发现，尽管存在一些限制条件，亨里奇的模型在很大程度上经受住了我的稳健性检验。相比之下，鲍威尔等人的模型却没有——这一发现使得我们对鲍威尔等人对上旧石器时代过渡的解释持相当大的怀疑态度。更普遍地说，我对亨里奇和鲍威尔等人的解释的评估有助于澄清他们的流行模型支持和不支持哪些推论。
