SPECIAL FEATURE: PERSPECTIVE PERSPECTIVE SPECIAL FEATURE: Particularism and the retreat from theory in the archaeology of agricultural origins Kristen J. Gremilliona,1, Loukas Bartonb, and Dolores R. Pipernoc,d aDepartment of Anthropology, Ohio State University, Columbus, OH 43210; bDepartment of Anthropology, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA 15260; cDepartment of Anthropology, Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, Washington, DC 20013-7012; and dSmithsonian Tropical Research Institute, Apartado Postal 0843-03092, Panama, Republic of Panama Edited by James O’Connell, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT, and approved October 28, 2013 (received for review June 26, 2013) The introduction of new analytic methods and expansion of research into previously untapped regions have greatly increased the scale and resolution of data relevant to the origins of agriculture (OA). As a result, the recognition of varied historical pathways to agriculture and the continuum of management strategies have complicated the search for general explanations for the transition to food production. In this environment, higher-level theoretical frameworks are sometimes rejected on the grounds that they force conclusions that are incompatible with real-world variability. Some of those who take this position argue instead that OA should be explained in terms of local and historically contingent factors.This retreat from theory in favor of particularism is based on the faulty beliefs that complex phenomena such as agricultural origins demand equally complex explanations and that explanation is possible in the absence of theoretically based assumptions. The same scholars who are suspicious of generalization are reluctant to embrace evolutionary approaches to human behavior on the grounds that they are ahistorical, overly simplistic, and dismissive of agency and intent. We argue that these criticisms are misplaced and explain why a coherent theory of human behavior that acknowledges its evolutionary history is essential to advancing understanding of OA. Continued progress depends on the integration of human behavior and culture into the emerging synthesis of evolutionary developmental biology that informs contemporary research into plant and animal domestication. evolutionary theory | behavioral ecology Over the last decade there has been a major This trend, coupled with the critical stance In arguing for the systematic use of theory expansion of knowledge regarding the timing toward hypothetico-deductive science cur- as a tool for the advancement of knowledge, and socioecological context of plant domesti- rently influential in archaeological thought we are not making the claim that evolution- cation and emerging agricultural systems. (15), has motivated many archaeologists to arytheoryistheonlypossiblerealmfrom This wealth of data is due in large part to favor interpretive modes of explanation. In which to choose. However, neo-Darwinism methodological innovations (e.g., in genetics origins of agriculture (OA) research, one has withstood repeated challenges to its core and paleogenomics, in the analysis of plant result of this changing climate has been a elements, having earned status as an over- micro- and macroremains and biological res- proliferation of historical narratives that arching framework for explaining the di- idues, and in the physical and biogeochemical highlight local events and processes and versity of life. For this reason, evolutionary analyses of anthropogenic sediments), reex- downplay general principles. Although we theory is central to understanding the root cavations of some important archaeological recognize the value of empirical rigor, we causes of human behavior and indeed culture sites, and the expansion of archaeological re- argue that the progress of OA research is itself (16). An even stronger case for the evo- search into regions whose record of agricul- significantly hampered by the denial of lutionary perspective on human behavior can tural origins has been until recently poorly explanations derived from a systematic be made now that the distinctive features of known [such as New Guinea (1, 2), lowland program of theoretically driven hypothesis cultural transmission and evolution are be- areas of Mesoamerica and northern South testing. We also reject assertions that evo- coming more fully incorporated into the syn- America (3–7), and northern and southern lutionary theory is teleological, needlessly thesis (e.g., refs. 17–20). China (8–13)]. These research activities have reductionist, ahistorical, and therefore irrel- We divide our discussion of these issues enriched both the scale and resolution of the evant to understanding human behavior. into three sections. The first elaborates upon data relevant to agricultural origins world- Without a coherent theory of human behav- some of the weaknesses of particularism in wide. One result of this welcome enhance- ior, arguments about agricultural origins OA research. Next, we sharpen the focus ment of the empirical record is wider must rely on assumptions that are often in- to respond to critiques of evolutionary acknowledgment of the variability in the his- tuitive, unstated, and largely implicit. Cou- approaches to human behavior [particularly torical pathways taken by emerging food pro- pled with the increasing emphasis on the research program of human behavioral duction systems across space and time. The human exceptionalism, the erosion of scien- ecology (HBE) and one of its tools, optimal dichotomy between foraging and food pro- tific method is troubling because it creates foraging theory (OFT)]. We argue that recent duction has been discarded in favor of a con- a rift between researchers in biology and ar- calls to abandon HBE or OFT are misguided, tinuum of landscape, plant, and animal chaeology whose collaboration is essential to management strategies that sometimes resist advancing understanding of OA. To address Author contributions: K.J.G., L.B., and D.R.P. wrote the paper. fi classi cation. However, for some scholars (2, these weaknesses, we contend that evolution- The authors declare no conflict of interest. 14), the richly detailed records of change ary theory (broadly construed to include cul- This article is a PNAS Direct Submission. seem to have dampened the appeal of general tural as well as biological processes) must 1To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: gremillion. explanations for the transition to agriculture. play a central role in OA research. [email protected]. www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.1308938110 PNAS | April 29, 2014 | vol. 111 | no. 17 | 6171–6177 Downloaded by guest on September 28, 2021 and we explain why the particularist alter- (23). The result is a rejection of both uni- historical accounts of OA (see, for exam- natives might provide more explanatory versal causation and general principles in ple, refs. 25 and 29-32). However, to the depth and power when situated within favor of “frameworks of explanation that extent that they purport to engage in ex- a program of behavioral ecology. Finally, pay close and careful attention to existing planation, such accounts often rely on we assess the prospects for a synthetic relevant archaeological information, that inductions that are expected to stand on evolutionary research program for the are scaled at the regional level, and that the strength of available evidence alone. study of domestication and agriculture. focus on the complex interplay of a range of Although we recognize that the prioritiza- different environmental and social pre- tion of data is often intentional and explicitly Limitations of Particularism in OA conditions, prompts, and factors of various stated (e.g., ref. 33), we disagree that it is Research and the Need for Theory kinds” (ref. 23, p. 681). a good idea to abandon the iterative process The research trend that we critique in this We agree that no single cause explains all of hypothesis testing, revision, and retesting paper shares several characteristics with the instances of transition from foraging to food that drives incremental advances in scientific approach labeled historical particularism by production (25–27); this observation is true understanding. historians of anthropology (21). Most closely but trivial. An explanation that claims uni- associated with Franz Boas and his students, versal validity loses its universality when Particularistic Explanations Lack a General historical particularism emphasized the col- exceptions are found to exist. However, its Theory for the Evolution of Human Behavior lection and compilation of ethnographic data remaining components—variables, processes, Yet Rely on a General Theory of Evolution without the distorting effects of theory. Boas and assumptions— often remain relevant at for All Other Organisms. Thereislittledis- and his adherents, weary of unsubstantiated a more modest level of generality. The fatal agreement that change in the frequency of theorizing unsupported by rigorous field- flaw in the prime mover arguments is not attributes in populations of humans, animals work, viewed theory as an obstacle to scien- that they rely on overarching laws or and plants under domestication is inherently tific investigation. Generalizations about assumptions, but rather that they are ap- coevolutionary. Understanding this process culture were suspect because exceptions to plied at an inappropriate scale. Following requires a general theory that links change in them could always be found. Any reliable the same