Get Rad! the Evolution of the Skateboard Deck
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Evo Edu Outreach (2011) 4:379–389 DOI 10.1007/s12052-011-0347-0 ORIGINAL SCIENTIFIC ARTICLE Get Rad! The Evolution of the Skateboard Deck Anna Marie Prentiss & Randall R. Skelton & Niles Eldredge & Colin Quinn Published online: 24 June 2011 # Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2011 Abstract Today there is growing interest in material culture not become significant without the early development of studies among a wide range of social and biological scientists. distinct lineages. This is different from most biological systems Researchers recognize that some concepts drawn from biology in the sense that the development of distinct lineages would can be useful in understanding aspects of material culture significantly reduce (or prevent) opportunities for blending. We evolution. Indeed, recent research has demonstrated that explore these ideas with an analysis of skateboard decks material culture can evolve in a branching manner (vertical spanning the history of professional skateboards since 1963. transmission) similar to that of biological species. However, We apply cladistic and networking models in order to develop there are many complicating factors as well, particularly the an understanding of the degree by which skateboard evolution human penchant for borrowing and resurrecting old ideas was affected by branching and blending/hybridization pro- resulting in extensive blending and hybridization (lateral cesses. The study is enhanced by a historical record that transmission). But blending and hybridization occurs in provides significant insight into the actual innovation and biology as well depending upon the nature and scale of borrowing processes associated with skateboard evolution. interacting organisms. There is far more lateral information Results confirm that both branching and blending played transfer between populations within species than between important roles and that branching was most critical early in species (although there are always exceptions). History can professional skateboard history. The study offers the important also be expected to play a role in the degree to which evolution implication that while cultural systems will typically incorpo- is affected by vertical versus lateral transmission processes. All rate far more horizontal transmission in the evolutionary things equal, we should expect branching to be most important process (particularly in later stages) than many biological early in the history of a cultural system since blending could systems, general principles governing early stage branching and disparity may apply to both. A. M. Prentiss (*) : R. R. Skelton Department of Anthropology, The University of Montana, Keywords Evolution . Cultural transmission . Cladistic Missoula, MT 59812, USA analysis . Skateboard e-mail: [email protected] R. R. Skelton e-mail: [email protected] By 1975 many choices faced the skateboard consumer….The number of choices went from minimal to maximum in a short period of time, N. Eldredge something like the Cambrian explosion 540 million years ago with Division of Paleontology, its evolutionary profusion of body types. And like the Cambrian The American Museum of Natural History, explosion, this spurt of growth and divergent developments went on New York, NY 10024, USA at a frantic pace for a while and then leveled off, with many species e-mail: [email protected] not making it (Weyland 2002:36–37). C. Quinn Museum of Anthropology, University of Michigan, Skateboarders themselves were the first to recognize the 4013 Ruthven Museums Building, 1109 Geddes Ave., Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1079, USA potential evolutionary implications of skateboard history. e-mail: [email protected] As chronicled by Weyland (2002) and others (e.g., Brooke 380 Evo Edu Outreach (2011) 4:379–389 1999; Goodrich 2010) the skateboard deck evolved through effective or popular designs—a pattern widely recognized a series of divergent forms in a late twentieth and early in paleobiology (e.g., Gould 1989) and archaeology (e.g., twenty-first century process at times resembling that of Prentiss and Chatters 2003). Second, we test for branching biology. Skateboard history offers significant potential for and blending in skateboard evolution with the expectation understanding the operation of critical processes associated that given high degrees of social interactions between with generation of variation and its evolution through time skateboard designers and skaters, blending should play a leading to the formation of evolutionary lineages. Skateboard significant role in the evolutionary process. Finally, we design history is well known, providing scholars with the examine the effects of external factors such as changing ability to identify innovations and borrowing of ideas in economic conditions and technological innovations on rates creation of new designs. Skateboards have also been subject to of branching and blending in skateboard history. This permits an evolutionary process that replicates evolution by natural us to address interesting questions concerning underlying selection in that the users of skateboards receive feedback on conditions favoring variability in rates of innovation and the utility of particular designs, which can come in the form of borrowing. Ultimately, this is a “proof of concept” study that a great ride or scrapes and contusions. Functional design demonstrates the validity of using phylogenetic analysis to characteristics in skateboards, as is the case with any such understand artifact evolution. We start with a class of artifacts character in technology or biology, could evolve through a with a well-understood history and then seek to replicate that process of tinkering to make improvements to enhance safety history using our phylogenetic approach. Thus our work and performance. Highly effective designs could thus achieve differs from many phylogenetic studies that attempt to equally high degrees of replicative success, while poor reconstruct previously unknown evolutionary histories. We designs could just as easily be cast aside (or sorted out). believe that the paper offers some unique insights into the The simple model of innovation and selection only evolutionary process and it provides opportunities for teachers partially describes the evolutionary process, particularly as to engage students with evolutionary questions using a very applied to human artifacts like skateboards. If innovation familiar element of modern material culture. and selection alone characterized cultural evolution then cultural histories could always be depicted as simple branching trees. The human penchant for imitation and Skateboard History borrowing however leads to the possibility of significant complexity in cultural evolutionary history. Some anthro- Skateboard history is chronicled through a series of pologists argue that cultural evolution is simply too boom and bust periods. Booms are associated with complex to even be modeled using the branching tree significant popularity and associated commercial sales metaphor, favoring instead a blending process as depicted of skateboards. Bust periods tend to correspond with by the braided stream image of ethnogenesis (Moore 1994). decline in interest and subsequent sales. The first The contrasting branching tree versus braided stream skateboard boom in 1963–1965 followed a lengthy initial models have been tested in a number of studies (e.g., gestation period that featured exploration of the potential Jordan and Shennan 2009; Tehrani and Collard 2002, 2009) for riding a piece of wood with mounted roller skate resulting in the conclusion that there is evidence for both assemblies (see Figs. 1 and 2 for key skateboard terms). branching and blending in cultural lineages. However, the In 1963, Larry Stevenson was the first to develop what extent to which each is manifested appears to vary highly was widely considered to be a professional skateboard (the between different artifact histories (e.g., Tëmkin and Makaha Phil Edwards model, named for the prominent Eldredge 2007) and geographic–social contexts (Tehrani surfer Phil Edwards) featuring a wooden deck shaped and Collard 2009; Tehrani et al. 2010). There has been loosely like a miniature surfboard, Chicago trucks, and relatively little study of variability in branching versus clay wheels. During the first boom other manufacturers blending processes through time within artifact lineages. explored alternative materials for board construction, the Research by Eldredge (2009) suggests that not only could most famous of which was the Gordon and Smith these processes vary in their effects over time but that “Fibreflex” skateboard produced for an initially short extra-cultural factors ranging from innovations in related period and designed to flex using a fiberglass, epoxy, and technologies to changing cultural preferences could also have a thin maple wood core. The first boom was short lived as impacts on the evolution of particular artifact designs. parents became increasingly fearful of the devices, and Our study of skateboard deck evolution permits us to with some good reason given the poor level of technology address a number of fundamental problems in material in this era. Larry Stevenson patented the kicktail in 1969, culture evolution. First, we assess the pattern of evolution well after the first boom. This permitted skateboarders to asking if, as observed by Weyland (2002), skateboards gain better tail leverage (and hold for the foot) for riding diversified early followed