Cultural macroevolution among high latitude hunter–gatherers: a phylogenetic study of the Arctic Small Tool tradition

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jas.2015.04.009Get rights and content

Highlights

  • Phylogenetic analysis identifies four Paleoeskimo cultural variants.

  • Earliest Paleoeskimo groups in the Eastern Arctic most likely arrived via two migrations.

  • Degree of cultural differentiation is correlated with measures of time and space.

Abstract

This study tests alternative hypotheses regarding the underlying conditions favoring variation in degree of differentiation between cultures in an evolving lineage. To accomplish this we develop a phylogenetic analysis of the early Arctic Small Tool tradition (ASTt) of eastern Siberia and northern North America. The use of early ASTt data permits us to monitor change while largely eliminating the possibility of influence by other cultural traditions. It also allows us to explore lingering questions regarding ASTt migrations. We examine correlations between tree branch length as a measure of cultural differentiation and geographic distance (from the oldest site), mean radiocarbon date, and three measures of terrestrial ecological variation. Outcomes suggest that only geographic distance and radiocarbon dates correlate with tree branch length. We offer conclusions regarding ASTt evolution and migrations along with ideas for future research.

Introduction

A fundamental question in evolutionary archaeology concerns the underlying conditions favoring splitting in cultural lineages on macroevolutionary scales. Foley and Lahr (2011) propose geographic and social barriers leading to isolation. If this is the case then greatest distinctions between groups will be evident at greatest distance. Prentiss and Chatters (2003) and Chatters and Prentiss (2005) offer a similar argument but emphasize ecological variation being the critical underlying factor, essentially in providing adequate but different resource conditions to permit groups to explore divergent socio-economic strategies as measured in annual scheduling of mobility, resource harvest, and in some contexts, food storage. Barton et al. (2007:122) also favor patchy environments as conducive to “cultural speciation” among hunter–gatherers. The macroevolutionary arguments of these scholars are in line with microevolutionary models that also implicate isolation as critical to divergence, especially when conformist bias plays a significant role in cultural transmission (Boyd and Richerson, 1985, Richerson and Boyd, 2005). These hypotheses are substantially in line with Hennig's (1966) “Progression” Rule, that more derived taxa will be found at distances further from geographic center of origin (see also Lycett, 2009). The underlying logic of these arguments is linked to the concept of isolation by distance (IBD) from evolutionary biology (Wright, 1943; see also Meirmans, 2012, Rousset, 1997).

Several archaeologists have proposed that cultural transitions could happen extremely fast as transitions between different forms of socio-economic organization are inherently very risky due to potential for misalignments between resource distributions and new strategic efforts by human groups (e.g. Fitzhugh, 2001, Prentiss and Chatters, 2003). Bettinger (2009) argues that this problem can be envisioned in reference to adaptive landscapes (e.g. Wright, 1932) whereby major cultural crossings require trips through risky troughs where the threat of extinction is high. If this is the case then we could also expect two patterns: first, transition time between different socio-economic strategies should be brief, perhaps less than a generation; and second, degree of differentiation should increase with time, assuming that transition events are cumulative. A possible exception to this rule could be if cultural stasis (Prentiss and Lenert, 2009, Rosenberg, 1994) becomes established, in which time would not play a significant role in degree of distance between parent and descendant cultures.

We make use of phylogenetic analysis to examine questions concerning the evolutionary process drawing from data associated with the early Arctic Small Tool tradition (ASTt) as expressed from eastern Siberia through Alaska to Greenland in the date range of ca. 5500–3500 B.P. By emphasizing the early ASTt we avoid the well-known lengthy period of stasis associated with the later ASTt in the Eastern Arctic (Prentiss and Lenert, 2009). The ASTt provides an ideal case study to examine underlying factors associated with cultural divergence as it represents the first human group to explore the eastern North American and Greenlandic Arctic. While expansion of ASTt groups, also known as Paleoeskimos (McGhee, 1996), undoubtedly contacted indigenous groups in Alaska (especially Northern Archaic and Aleutian populations), they appear to have remained ecologically separate to a substantial degree, especially as associated with the North Archaic whose members focused on forests (Mason and Bigelow, 2008), while ASTt groups were for the most part tundra adapted (Odess, 2005). Once into the Eastern Arctic, these groups entered a landscape entirely void of other human groups. Thus, with the possible exception of the eastern Aleutians, the potential is very low that ASTt was ever significantly influenced by other (non-ASTt) human groups. Our study has two goals. First, we apply standard phylogenetic procedures in order to test alternative models of Paleoeskimo expansions and ASTt evolution. Second, we use results of the phylogenetic analysis to provide data to test more general macroevolutionary hypotheses regarding conditions favoring variation in degree of cultural differentiation in a single evolutionary lineage. We do not offer a test of variation in rates of evolution (Bentley and O'Brien, 2011, Rogers and Ehrlich, 2008).

Section snippets

The early Arctic Small Tool tradition

Artifacts of what would become essential elements of the early Arctic Small Tool tradition (at least the North American portion) were famously independently discovered in 1948 by investigators in Alaska (Giddings, 1949, Giddings, 1951, Giddings, 1964) and northern Greenland (Knuth, 1954, Knuth, 1967a, Knuth, 1967b) immediately demonstrating the widespread nature of this cultural phenomenon. It was not until the early 1960s that the term Arctic Small Tool tradition was coined and entered common

Methods and materials

In this paper we test hypotheses concerning ASTt cultural evolution using phylogenetic analysis and we follow with additional testing of alternative hypotheses about underlying conditions driving degree of cultural differentiation in the evolutionary process. Some phylogenetic data are necessary to conduct the latter tests. This section provides a review of definition of taxa and characters for phylogenetic analysis, analytical procedures, and approaches to additional evolutionary hypothesis

Results

We conducted a branch and bound parsimony analysis with strict consensus using PAST 2.17c (Hammer et al., 2001) producing three equally parsimonious trees (Fig. 3, Fig. 4, Fig. 5) and a consensus tree (Fig. 6) with a consistency index of 0.531 and a retention index of 0.549 indicating the presence of homoplasies but also the presence of a branching structure (compare to scores in Collard et al., 2006). All trees illustrate a pattern characterized by an initial branching of Iyatayet followed by

Arctic Small Tool tradition

This study offers a number of implications for alternative hypotheses concerning Paleoeskimo group movements and ASTt evolution. Development of trees using two independent approaches centered on a single branching pattern by which an earliest ancestral group spread east from Siberia into the Bering Strait area as represented at Iyatayet before splitting into three clades. The Pre-Dorset clade retains ancient patterns despite significant loss of many tool types. The Southwest Alaska clade

Acknowledgments

An early draft of this paper was presented in the symposium “Current Research in Evolutionary Archaeology” at the 79th Meeting of the Society for American Archaeology, Austin, TX. We thank Randy Skelton for his help with computer programming and comments on the manuscript. We thank Briggs Buchanan and Mark Collard for their encouragement and thoughts on the conference paper. We also thank John Darwent, three anonymous peer reviewers, and the associate editor at JAS for their very helpful

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