Annual SHA Conference, Kauaʻi Community College Puhi, Kauaʻi, October 11-13, 2002
152 15th Annual SHA Conference, Kauaʻi Community College Puhi, Kauaʻi, October 11-13, 2002 The ECS Files: Culture, Biology, and Complexity Dr. Robert J. Hommon, National Park Service Culture, no matter how you view this elusive concept, is fundamental to the proper study of our species. For archaeologists to think of human beings as well-adapted organisms is not all wrong, but it is only half right. Our cultural behavior differs from that of all other organisms in fundamental ways in that we reverse Nature’s direction of control. We have only poorly appreciated our behavioral differences not because they are obscure, rare, or difficult to decipher, but because, like water for fish, they so totally envelop us, hidden in plain sight. The evolved human brain is the adaptation to end adaptations. Using our brain’s enormous capacity, we have fundamentally transformed how we interact with each other and with our environments in the following three ways. First, we have developed a powerful approach to dealing with the environment that reverses the process of adaptation. An adapting organism responds to selective pressures by modifying its form or behavior to fit its environment. In contrast, we human beings practice what we can call ecaptation, the process of altering the environment to fit ourselves by inventing taro fields, compressed air, Boeing 767s, ice sculpture, screwdrivers, beagles, tattoos, Mexico City, and all else that we modify from naturally occurring raw materials. The second uniquely human process of interest is “appropriatizing,” or "proping" for short. The behavior of other organisms is determined almost entirely by their genes and by individual experience of the environment.
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