Evolutionary Anthropology 21:38–42 (2012)

BOOK REVIEW

they were the scholars who con- pology, attempting to discredit it,7 Recent Advances in trolled the relevant data: the syn- and sidelining Margaret Mead and her Culturomics chronic products of the cultural ilk from the study of human behav- evolutionary processes (that is, the ior.8 Some looked to the !KungSan as behavioral and mental differences ‘‘our’’ ancestors, but when the Sense and Nonsense: Evolutionary that exist today across human !KungSan became inconveniently his- Perspectives on Human Behaviour, 2nd toricized, quickly found other ances- edition. By Kevin N. Laland and Gillian groups) and the diachronic processes R. Brown (2011) New York: Oxford that produced that cultural diversity tors in the Hadza and Ache. University Press. ix þ 270 pp. $39.95 (pa- (that is, the temporal social informa- It may be the first time you’ve seen per) ISBN 978-0-19-958696-7 tion preserved in the historic and it put this way, but epistemologically, prehistoric material record). the claims being made on behalf of Darwinian Sociocultural Evolution: By the 1990s that had all changed cultural evolution at the turn of the Solutions to Dilemmas in Cultural and twenty-first century were generally Social Theory. By Marion Blute (2010) in evolutionary theory. Archeologists, New York: Cambridge University Press. some of whom were inspired by biol- just too weak to be considered valua- ix þ 239 pp. $34.99 (paper) ISBN 978-0- ogy1 and others by the social history ble in anthropology. Marshall Sah- 521-74595-6 of technology,2,3 and yet all of whom lins, who had written an article for study cultural evolution in some Scientific American in 1960 on ‘‘The Cultural Evolution. By Kate Distin form, were sidelined by geneticists Origin of Society,’’9 notably devel- (2011) New York: Cambridge University Press. vi þ 272 pp. $27.99 (paper) ISBN and psychologists. The human brain, oped the argument that although 978-0-521-18971-2 once a splendidly unadapted organ, local ideas of kinship organize responsible in collectivity for produc- human social relations, empirically Cultural Evolution: How Darwinian ing an array of diversely adapted no human societies conceptualize kin Theory Can Explain Human Culture human societies, came instead to be in the way that W. D. Hamilton did and Synthesize the Social Sciences. By seen as a splendidly adapted organ. (and geneticists do). Consequently, bio- Alex Mesoudi (2011). Chicago: University of Chicago Press. xiii þ 264 pp. $27.50 It now produced an impressive uni- logical selection could not have been (paper) ISBN 978-0-52044-5 formity of human behavior, with a universal or consistent enough to affect few provisions: that the data of the human gene pool in the ways that 10 Human Evolution and the Origins of archeology would be largely ignored kin selection required. To the extent Hierarchies: The State of Nature. By in favor of more imaginative and that kinship may structure animal and Benoıˆt Dubreuil. (2010) New York: simplified reconstructions of cultural human social relations, then, it is Cambridge University Press. xv þ 271 pp. $85.00 (cloth) ISBN 978-0-521-76948-8 evolution; and that the experiential largely a matter of parallel evolution. and subjectively meaningful nature Kin selection is irrelevant to social Ancestors and Relatives: Genealogy, of cultural diversity, the transforma- anthropology, for it doesn’t tell us any- Identity, and Community. By Eviatar tive aspect of field work, would be jet- thing we don’t already know about the Zerubavel (2011) New York: Oxford tisoned in favor of more generalized importance of kinship. It was a com- þ University Press. xii 212 pp. $24.95 (pa- but superficial cross-cultural patterns. pelling argument to anthropologists, if per) ISBN 978-0-199-77395-4 It was as if the geneticists and psy- not to sociobiologists. Even biologist chologists of the twentieth century Jared Diamond’s bestseller on the fall Social Anthropology and Human Origins. By Alan Barnard (2011) New York: had finally caught up to anthropology of civilizations did not hold water in 11,12,13 Cambridge University Press. xiii þ 182 pp. of the nineteenth century. the archeological record. $27.99 (paper) ISBN 978-0-521-74929-9 Some of this work extended the The precedent indeed was set at ideas of what Ernst Mayr4 had the dawn of modern anthropology by In the 1960s, if you were interested famously derided as ‘‘beanbag genet- Franz Boas, who, in 1904, recalled in cultural evolution, you turned to ics’’ (in biology) to cultural phenom- the first generation of Darwinism the work of cultural anthropologists ena, exploring the spread of imagi- and its value for anthropology. (like Leslie White, Julian Steward, nary isolated elements of culture, or All sciences were equally guilty of and Marshall Sahlins) and archeolo- ‘‘memes.’’5 Some obliterated ‘‘gender’’ premature theories of evolution gists (like V. Gordon Childe, Lewis by finding broadly similar patterns based on observed homologies and Binford, and Robert Carneiro). There cross-culturally, and inscribing the supposed similarities. The theories was some sense to that, since results onto brain modules—as if had to be revised again and again, cultures were independent data as the slow progress of empirical points, with no associated history, knowledge of the data of evolution economics, or politics, and there 14:516 6 proved their fallacy. VC 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. were brain modules. This was facili- DOI 10.1002/evan.20320 A bit more than a century later, Published online in Wiley Online Library tated by overvaluing the significance (wileyonlinelibrary.com). of Coming of Age in Samoa in anthro- the stage seems to be set for a newer BOOK REVIEW Recent Advances in Culturomics 39 synthesis, or at least a hint of what creatively bio-cultural narratives of quence, despite the rich vein of agreement there really is, or can be, human social evolution. good ideas that have emerged between the biological and cultural The books under review comprise from human behavioural ecology evolution of the human species. One something of a ‘‘next wave’’ of cross- and are manifest in several solution, coming from science stud- disciplinary attempts to reconcile hundred scholarly publications, ies and highly consistent with classi- human biological and social evolu- the approach remains a very small cal human biology, is that it was a tion. What is new and interesting branch of anthropology (p. 102–103). reductive mistake in the first place to that may be relevant to understand- I can’t speak for anthropologists, treat biology and culture as analyti- ing human cultural evolution and is but if someone were to ask me why cally separable from one another.15 reasonably compatible with what we I’m not very interested in human What we should be studying instead already know from a century or behavioral ecology, I would tell them are the complex ways in which biol- more of professional anthropology? that I already know that culture is ogy and culture co-produce one Up first, Laland and Brown’s text- adaptive and that people tend to do another in the human species.16 book seems to be written for a cer- what they think is best for them. After all, culture is both an ultimate tain choir, which I am not a member Anthropologists explored the ecologi- cause (our species has been adapting of. It strives to differentiate concep- cal adaptive functions of culture in to it for millions of years) and a tually among human sociobiology, the 1960s and came to appreciate proximate cause (as the individual human behavioral ecology, evolution- that yes, culture works, but it also biosocial environment) of human ary psychology, cultural evolution changes in response to political-eco- biological facts. Primatology, genetics, (that is, meme-ology), and gene-cul- nomic forces that aren’t necessarily and race have all been recently ana- ture co-evolution, all of which seem in people’s interests, and that prob- lyzed in this fashion.17,18,19 to have in common the desire to ably help us understand their lives Another idea, which is perhaps the impose various biological models on more than a functionalist ecological most interesting contribution from anthropological data in the name of analysis does. You can count the primatology to anthropology since Darwin. Anthropology is indeed an calories if you want, but most people David Graybeard first shoved a twig alien presence in these pages. For are eating (or not eating) for other in a hole in front of Jane Goodall, example, Laland and Brown explain reasons. comes from Canadian primatologist the failure of anthropologists to To their credit, Laland and Brown Bernard Chapais in his recent book, throng to human behavioral ecology articulate the criticisms of each Primeval Kinship, reviewed in these in generally pathological terms. That approach. Perhaps the first-wave pages by Bob Sussman.20,21 Here, is to say, there must be something human sociobiologists really did act the emergent life history of the wrong with anthropologists for not irresponsibly in not ‘‘asking whether human species created a novel social thronging. Whatever can it be? they had evidence for their supposi- arrangement: brothers and sisters (or Most anthropologists and other tions, considering the merits of at least half-sibs) who grow up social scientists are skeptical non-evolutionary explanations, and together and maintain long-lasting about, if not downright hostile to, utilizing the data and insights col- social bonds into adulthood. The the evolutionary perspective of the lected by social scientists’’ (p. 71). existence of such relationships cre- human behavioural ecologists. Perhaps the human behavioral ecolo- ated a need to regulate them. That Indeed, the current post-modern gists are wrong in assuming that need is not present in ape species, malaise that afflicts much of the human behavior is indeed universally which are characterized by the trans- social sciences solicits a fashionably adaptive, for it ‘‘may sometimes be fer of one or the other or both sexes anti-science negativism... suboptimal’’ (p. 100). Perhaps model- out of their natal group in order to ing cultural evolution on biological breed. If you’re going to raise broth- We must remember too that microevolution can’t really work ers and sisters together past puberty, anthropology as a discipline was because ‘‘the differences between you had better regulate their sexual forged in an atmosphere domi- them are problematic’’ (p. 164). I sup- conduct: hence, foundation of the nated by erroneously linear and pose that is what I don’t get. If there incest taboo and rule-governed progressive ‘evolutionary’ exists both ‘‘sense’’ and ‘‘nonsense’’ in behavior. Put that together with the doctrines... which fuelled racist these scholarly communities, then evolution of grandparents in the ideologies. Once bitten, anthro- why is the latter tolerated? Why do Upper Paleolithic,22 and the transge- pologists remain shy of evolutionary the purveyors of ‘‘nonsense’’ flourish at nerational self-awareness that had to reasoning. Thus although the least as well as the purveyors of accompany it, and you have a methods of human behavioural ‘‘sense’’? Where are the gate-keepers? reasonable basis for theorizing the ecology have the advantage in that And if evolutionary psychology origins of kinship. Sarah Hrdy’s they are quantitative, rigorous, really is ‘‘marred by a number of argument for the emergence of coop- theory-driven, and insightful, such weak studies,’’ such that ‘‘too much erative breeding in early hominids23 qualities are rarely appreciated by research in the field is a documenta- may not entirely complete the the anthropological community at tion of what is already known, picture, but certainly produces a large, few of whom have mathe- accompanied by a post hoc evolu- potentially powerful framework for matical training. As a conse- tionary spin and a snappy press 40 Jonathan Marks BOOK REVIEW release’’ (p. 137), then are there any of the history of science or art in the tural data. He actually confronts the standards at all? Is there a category modern era, but as analytic tools, fact that the biological phenomena of evolutionary psychology that is their utility for ‘‘cultural evolution’’ is have different properties and are actually so bad that it is unpublisha- very limited. subject to different processes than ble?Whatmightthatpossiblylook Kate Distin, coming from psychol- are the cultural phenomena. like? The authors continue, ‘‘It would ogy, also promotes a meme-based Although this was known to anthro- be unfair to condemn the entire field theory of cultural evolution in the pologists a century ago, he quotes of evolutionary psychology based on modern world, largely devoid of both John Maynard Smith and Ste- the work of its weakest practitioners.’’ actual cultural diversity. Here, for phen Jay Gould on the point. I disagree. It is the role of the strong- example, the evolution of writing Cultural evolution is not very much est scholars to identify and separate becomes the evolution of specifically like biological evolution and there- themselves, for if the weakest and the Mesopotamian writing, and is pre- fore cannot be rigorously modeled strongest are largely indistinguishable sented not as a creative solution to a on it, they both said. Yet rather than from one another, then what they’re problem of emerging social relations, think (as I did), ‘‘If Maynard Smith practicing isn’t scientific, it’s cultic. independently solved on different and Gould agree on it, then it must Science is supposed to convince the continents,25 but basically as a men- be an important bit of evolutionary skeptic, not the choirmaster. If the tal improvement over not writing. knowledge,’’ Mesoudi dismisses this ‘‘Santa Barbara school’’ is the bath- Distin is coy about her memes, as mere detail, and goes on to model water,24 then where’s the baby? Is the though, shying away from the term. it anyway. He does integrate some baby more than just the name, ‘‘evolu- She explains in a fashion similar to data and analyses from archeology, tionary psychology,’’ which must pre- that of Laland and Brown about and seems sincere in his zeal to Dar- sumably be better than creationist evolutionary psychology: winize the academy, but ultimately is psychology? undone by the fact that from false I am aware, however, that this Marion Blute, a sociologist, explic- premises, all conclusions are inane. terminology can so distract those itly focuses on memes, or monads of After all, if one were to accept the readers who are in the habit of culture, for a biologized theory of opinions of Gould and Maynard dismissing memetics out of hand, cultural evolution. Her data are gen- Smith as wise evolutionary judg- that they are unable to hear what erally taken from modern histories ments, then why do cultural facts I am saying. Although a burgeon- of technology and brandished in need to be understood in a dubiously ing optimism ... is detectable ways illustrative of life in the modern relevant horse-and-buggy Darwinian across a variety of disciplines, world. From the standpoint of cul- framework in the first place? memetics has been widely tural evolution, however, the major Couldn’t one argue that anthropology criticised and perhaps even more problem with meme-ology is that it is already well beyond Darwin in widely misapplied to a variety of elevates a fairly small component of adopting what Ruth Benedict called irrelevant subjects... I would urge cultural evolutionary process – what cultural ‘‘relativity’’?28 its critics not to be misled by the anthropologists explored decades ago Mesoudi’s Darwinian model takes manifold ways it has been mis- as ‘‘diffusion’’ – to a primary or soli- ‘‘culture’’ to be composed of informa- used, to think that memetics itself tary role. If you want to talk about tion units (although that strikes me is as vacuous as so many of its food production, after all, its spread as more Mendelian than Darwinian) applications have been (p. 231). is one thing, but its evolutionary con- and is divergent from the way that sequences, from sedentism through This is fair enough, but without term is understood by 99% of sexism, urbanism, and monotheism, engaging the criticisms or telling us anthropologists, no matter how constitute its major features. Meme whose work is shoddy and is drag- diverse their actual definitions of it theory is constructed as if the eternal ging the field down, and by not may be. To use the biological anal- questions facing human societies, ensuring that they don’t get any ogy, the fact that biologists can’t transcending time and space since more grants or journal space, it agree on how to define a species does the Lower Paleolithic, have merely tends to sound less like critical schol- not mean that a species can be rea- been variations on the theme of: Mac arship and more like cheerleading. A sonably considered as an idea in the or PC? Ontologically, then, culture science without enforced intellectual mind of God. Mesoudi reviews a becomes a personal possession, standards just isn’t science, it is diverse corpus of cultural evolution- rather than constituting the condi- something else.26 And perhaps we ary literature, generally focused on tions of human development. This should split the difference and call testing hypotheses with varying helps the quantitative modeling, but the endeavor ‘‘memomics’’.27 degrees of obviousness, such as: Do beggars the reality. Moreover, if you It is possible that logical coherence children really learn culture from reduce culture history to the spread is overrated, but there is more of it their parents? Answer: Yes (whew!). of good ideas or memes, you tend to in Distin’s book, Cultural Evolution, Finally, we get to nonhuman miss the contingencies and random than in Alex Mesoudi’s book of the ‘‘culture’’. Predictably, he bashes events that characterize that history. same name. Mesoudi, also coming anthropologists for their anthropo- Memes may consequently be heuris- from psychology, also seeks to centrism in regarding culture as a tically useful for describing aspects impose a biological model upon cul- uniquely human thing, when obvi- BOOK REVIEW Recent Advances in Culturomics 41 ously other species have culture, that sumptive biocultural synthesis that ating meaningful distinctions and is to say, learned behaviors. Eventu- automatically privileges natural facts associations within a largely imag- ally he notices that humans are is probably too naive to be trusted. ined universe (of sounds and conspe- indeed doing something different, The facts themselves are biocultural. cifics) and modeling the ‘‘real’’ one acknowledges the social and histori- With Dubreuil’s book, we get a in their image. This seems highly cal aspects of human culture, and taste of some cultural evolutionary convergent with Dubreuil’s invoca- calls that ‘‘cumulative culture,’’—thus data of a more familiar sort. Coming tion of rule-following as human replicating the anthropocentrism he from philosophy, his thesis is that nature. Barnard draws on ethno- abjures, but relabeling it. Mesoudi dominance hierarchies in primates graphic experience to address the cites more anthropological and are not homologous to the stratifica- nature of the hunter-gatherer life archeological data than the previous tion and inequality we experience as style critically. Of particular value is books discussed, but still leaves me members of human societies. He Barnard’s nuanced discussion of con- with the feeling of having reviewed a takes the emergence of rule-following cepts like reciprocity, speech, and persuasive patent application for a as a prime mover in cultural evolu- kinship, which figure large in most perpetual motion machine. tion, and derives his foundation not of the self-professed ‘‘Darwinian’’ dis- Eviatar Zerubavel’s Ancestors and so much from meme theory (which cussions of human cultural evolu- Relatives is rather more intellectually takes rule-following for granted), but tion, but are far more problematic ambitious, since modeling human from game theory, where the emer- than mathematicians and entomolo- social processes on natural ones is gence of sanctions (that is, legal gists tend to realize. frankly a bit trite, even on a good codes) affects the evolutionary out- Barnard sees the evolution of lan- day. His short and engaging book come. Dubreuil’s ambition is to guage in two phases: first, the instead situates genetics, including explore the relationship between general appropriation of the vocal evolutionary genetics, within the human cooperation and the develop- apparatus by the symboling capaci- framework of cultural discourses ment of states. We evolved to be ties of the brain, already active in about kinship. Rather than model hunter-gatherers, with brains antici- gesture, sometime in the early his- culture on naturalistic processes, he pating the experience of more-or-less tory of the genus Homo; and second, wants to understand the cultural pro- egalitarian social relations. So why, the integration of this communica- duction of naturalistic information, he asks, is social hierarchy such an tive ability with the creative capacity most importantly, about relatedness. apparently stable social form? Even- for storytelling, narrative or myth, This is interesting because it is so tually, he ends up with an intricate which accompanied biological mod- strikingly (and ethnocentrically) hypothetical reconstitution of the or- ernity. (This is where I part company taken for granted in the biologized igin of political systems. The trick a bit with Barnard: I’d prefer to literature on cultural evolution. Zeru- seems to be in conjoining population invoke the narrative element reflex- bavel opens with the question of why growth with a symboling, rule-fol- ively here, and honestly observe that President Obama is a black man lowing mind, producing the ability to the cognitive or linguistic properties with a white mother, rather than a adopt a group identity and to repre- of, say, Homo erectus are simply white man with a black father, which sent the group – the many – by the unknowable and consequently, as shows immediately who wins when few: chiefs, kings, priests, and the Isaac Newton put it, Hypotheses non cultural facts and ostensibly biologi- like. With the ability to symbolize the fingo. The advancement beyond cal facts meet. His book is very suc- group in some fashion, the group’s Newton is to appreciate this and to cessful at relativizing genetics, and avatar creates the imaginary world of present it self-consciously as myth- explaining the significance of con- status difference; from whence hier- making,29 an epistemological chal- structed kinship (as understood by archical social forms may eventually lenge to anthropological science, but sociologists and social anthropolo- emerge and may eventually intensify, an integral part of it. To his credit, gists) to a full comprehension of the producing a conflict for the egalitarian Barnard acknowledges much of this.) claims made on behalf of genetic sci- forager mind, which we still struggle Barnard also notes in passing that ence. In other words, what geneti- to resolve. Dubreuil manages to tem- commonly husband-wife is consid- cists say about relatedness, from per the hand-waving, however, with ered the opposite relationship of chimpanzees to races to haplogroups archeological and bio-anthropological brother-sister, which seems worthy to your mama, is not to be taken at data, and to present a reasonable of deeper symbolic exploration, given face value, for it is invariably highly argument for his model. the renewed interest in the brother- culturally inflected. And whether it is Complementing Zerubavel’s and sister relationship. Like Sahlins deca- Morris Goodman’s suggestion that Dubreuil’s work, Alan Barnard’s des ago, Barnard observes that paral- we be classified with chimps because excellent new book, Social Anthropol- lel cousins are widely considered to ourDNAisverysimilartochimpan- ogy and Human Origins, gives us a be closer than are cross cousins. zee DNA or Brian Sykes’ claim that renewed sense of the possibility of Therefore, human behaviors toward there is a 20,000-year-old mtDNA clan bio-cultural synthesis. Barnard kin are not naturalistic and there- named for its founder Xenia—which begins with the thesis that kinship is fore, W. D. Hamilton’s generaliza- you might belong to, and you can find a product of the same evolved men- tions don’t really make sense if they out for a reasonable price!—any pre- tal faculties as language; that is, cre- assume that, for example, human 42 Jonathan Marks BOOK REVIEW behavior must be understood with or isn’t science and confront the 13 Lawler A. 2010. Collapse? What collapse? all cousins standing in the same unique epistemologies in human evo- Societal change revisited. Science 330:907–909. 14 Boas F. 1904. The history of anthropology. (genetic) relationship to ego. And lutionary studies. It won’t do to Science 20:513–524. although explicitly seeking a bio-cul- call anthropologists creationists, or 15 Silverman S, McKinnon S, editors. 2005. tural synthesis, Barnard also doesn’t anti-science postmodernists, for it is Complexities: beyond nature and nurture. Chi- see it coming from human behavioral actually no great embarrassment to cago: University of Chicago Press. 30 16 Keller EF. 2010. The mirage of a space ecology, which he dismisses in a reject crappy science. Indeed, the between nature and nurture. Durham, NC: single terse paragraph: ‘‘It proposes opposite – believing anyone who Duke University Press. abstract models of behaviour as claims to speak for science – is far 17 Strum SC, Fedigan LM, editors. 2003. Pri- mate encounters: models of science, gender, though they were explanations for worse. It will probably also require and society. Chicago: University of Chicago behaviour’’ (p. 86). some archeologists to put down Press. So where does that leave us? We’re those beers and get involved in build- 18 Goodman AH, Heath D, Lindee MS, editors. smarter than dolphins and nicer ing the intellectual bridges that will 2003. Genetic nature/culture: anthropology and science beyond the two-culture divide. Berkeley: than chimps, at least as individuals. link the natural and the social stud- University of California Press. We’ve got technology, we can talk ies of human evolution. 19 Koenig BA, Lee SS-J, Richardson S, editors. and point; we’ve got nonsexual oppo- 2008. Revisiting race in a genomic age. Piscat- away, NJ: Rutgers University Press. site-sex relationships; the ability to 20 Chapais B. 2008. Primeval kinship. Cam- put ourselves in someone else’s REFERENCES bridge, MA: Harvard University Press. shoes; an admiration for status but 21 Sussman RW. 2009. Kinship and the origins diverse ideas about what status 1 O’Brien MJ, Lyman RL. 2002. Evolutionary of human society. Evol Anthropol 18:36–38. means and how you acquire it; inti- archeology: current status and future prospects. 22 Caspari R. 2011. The evolution of grandpar- Evol Anthropol 11:26–36. ents. Sci Am 305:44–49. mate economic relationships with 2 Schiffer MB. 1991. The portable radio in 23 Hrdy SB. 2009. Mothers and others: the evo- other species, other groups of people, American life. Tucson, AZ: University of Ari- lutionary origins of mutual understanding. and material objects; and somehow zona Press. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. we have ended up with the ability to 3 Schiffer MB. 2008. Power struggles: scientific 24 Bolhuis JJ, Brown GR, Richardson RC, authority and the creation of practical electric- Laland KN. 2011. Darwin in mind: new oppor- both terrorize and assume responsi- ity before Edison. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. tunities for evolutionary psychology. PLoS Biol bility for the care of the very planet 5 Blackmore SJ. 2000. The meme machine. 9:e1001109. itself. There are many evolutionary New York: Oxford University Press. 25 Poe M. 2010. A history of communications. New York: Cambridge University Press. narratives to be written. 6 Buss D. 1994. The evolution of desire. New York: Basic Books. 26 Marks J, Schmid CW, Sarich VM. 1989. To be useful, and to have any kind 7 Freeman D. 1983. Margaret Mead and Response to Britten. J Hum Evol 18:165–166. of a shot at being accurate, any bio- Samoa: the making and unmaking of an 27 Proctor RN. 2007. ‘‘-Logos, ‘‘-ismos,’’ and cultural synthesis must incorporate anthropological myth. Cambridge, MA: Harvard ‘‘-ikos’’: the political iconicity of denominative University Press. suffixes in science (or, phonesthemic tints and anthropological knowledge, not colo- 8 Shankman P. 2009. The trashing of Margaret taints in the coining of science domain names). nize it or cherry-pick from it. In par- Mead: anatomy of an anthropological contro- Isis 98:290–309. ticular, the study of human social versy. Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin 28 Benedict R. 1934. Patterns of culture. New evolution must confront the realities Press. York: Houghton Mifflin. 9 Sahlins MD. 1960. The origin of society. Sci 29 Landau M. 1991. Narratives of human evo- of empirical diversity in human Am 203(Sept):76–88. lution. New Haven: Yale University Press. social forms, for the relationship 10 Sahlins MD. 1976. The use and abuse of 30 Goldacre B. 2009. Bad science. London: between the familiar and the natural biology. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Harper Perennial. is a complicated one. That relation- Press. 11 McAnany PA, Yoffee N, editors. 2009. Ques- ship is precisely what anthropologi- tioning collapse: human resilience, ecological Jonathan Marks cal data illuminate and cannot be vulnerability, and the aftermath of empire. New Department of Anthropology York: Cambridge University Press. taken for granted. The bio-cultural UNC-Charlotte 12 McAnany PA, Yoffee N. 2010. Questioning model is also going to have to tran- how different societies respond to crises. Charlotte, NC 28223 scend the question of whether this is Nature 464:977. E-mail: [email protected]