Seminarier

Med jämna mellanrum anordnas vid Centrum för evolutionär kulturforskning öppna seminarier. Forskare från olika discipliner bjuds in för att hålla dessa. Följande riktlinjer gäller för seminariernas karaktär:

1. Seminariets sluttid är 14.30. Dessförinnan ska 20-30 minuter ha lämnats för diskussion.
2. Seminariets tema är brett och innefattar allt som belyser hur kultur av mänsklig typ kan uppstå, bibehållas och förändras. Därför ska talare vara begripliga och intressanta för en allmän krets av forskare från olika ämnen och vara beredda att diskutera antaganden, metodval och resultat i relation till seminariets allmänna tema.

Kommande seminarier

Wedensday, 16th May, 13.30, room 334
Eva Lindström Fil Dr i lingvistik vid Stockholms universitet
Title: Linguistic Archaeology in New Ireland, Papua New Guinea

Abstract: Kuot is a language spoken in New Ireland in Papua New Guinea in the southwest Pacific. It is an isolate, with no known relatives. The area was inhabited by modern humans by 40000 ago. For some 3000 years Kuot (in earlier forms) has been in contact with languages from the Oceanic branch of the large Austronesian family. These neighbouring languages have been of two types, the first brought by the initial spread of Oceanic speakers out of a nearby dispersal centre, but then replaced by a second type, overlayering the first.

There are many indications of contact in Kuot, apart from large cultural overlaps, both in vocabulary, the sound system, and in some grammatical structures. Some of these appear to reflect contact with the first type of Oceanic, so that Kuot preserves features that are not present in its current neighbouring languages, but which are found in the periphery of the spread area of the first type, and/or reconstructed for Proto-Oceanic.

This talk explores these traces and what they can tell us about early contact and interactions.

The work is based on some 2.5 years of fieldwork on Kuot (and to some extent its closest neighbours) since 1997, and published data for other languages and Proto-Oceanic.

 

Friday, 1st June, 13.30, room 334
Anna-Carin Stymne PhD student, Department of History, Stockholm University
Title: How comprehensible is history? Progression in the way Swedish pupils explain human action in history.

Abstract: In this talk I will present results from a study that will be a part of my PhD thesis. The study investigates how pupils make progression in the way they explain human action in history. Participants were pupils from four different grades (ages 9, 12, 15 and 18 years). The results show clear progression in terms of what driving forces pupils refer to when they explain action, and are similar to results found in British studies. Why do we see this progression? I will discuss the possibility of applying Tomasello's theories of the cognitive abilities underlying cultural learning

Tidigare seminarier

Friday, 20th April, 13.30, room 334
Daniel Cownden, filosofie doktor i matematik vid Stockholms universitet

Titel: Human cooperation, is it still and was it ever an evolutionary mystery?

Abstract: Following in the footsteps of theoretical biologists, researchers of human behaviour often conceive of human cooperation as an evolutionary puzzle. In this talk I will discuss what does and does not constitute and evolutionary mystery and whether or not human cooperation is deserving of the title. I will first set the stage by presenting the classic evolutionary mystery of altruistic genes and this former mystery's well known resolutions. In particular we will consider the classic prisoner's dilemma formulation of the problem, and the two separate but easily confounded insights which dissolve this “mystery”. These insights are of course Hamilton's notions of kin selection, and Triver's notions of reciprocal altruism. We will then take a brief but necessary tangent and discuss Tindbergen's four causes, and how these relate to the “Phenotypic Gambit.” Finally we will examine the extant to which human cooperation remains unexplained by the resolutions of the classic evolutionary mystery of altruistic genes, and whether or not this leaves human cooperation as an evolutionary mystery.

Fredagen den 24 februari, 13.30, room 334
Mícheál de Barra filosofie doktor i evolutionär psykologi, Centrum för evolutionär kulturforskning, Stockholms universitet
Titel: Childhood disease and adult face preferences
Abstract: Fitness often depends on adopting the right strategy for the given circumstances. Because early-life experiences predict what kind of world one will face as an adult, they help the individual to `choose' the right strategy. In humans, the benefits of different mate choice preferences may depend on local pathogen ecology and personal immunocompetence. When there is a high risk of  infectious disease indirect benefits (like heritable immunocompetence) may be increasingly important relative to direct benefits (resources, longer-term investment in offspring). Thus, we hypothesised that people more frequently ill as children would show a greater preference for a putative cue to partner health (i.e., sexual dimorphism in the face). The hypothesis was tested in Matlab, Bangladesh, using a standard face preference test and detailed longitudinal data on childhood health. We found that childhood illness (diarrhoea in particular) predicted a stronger preference for sexual dimorphism in opposite-sex, but not same-sex, faces. Moreover, the effects of childhood illness was stronger in individuals with poorer current health. These data indicate childhood exposure to illness may calibrate adult mate preferences. Implications for disease-avoidance psychology and life history strategy will be discussed.

Fredagen den 1 februari kl. 13:30, room 334
Matthijs van Veelen, professor i ekonomi, Centre for Research in Experimental Economics and Political Decision Making, University of Amsterdam
Title: In and out of equilibrium: evolution of strategies in repeated games with discounting and population structure
Abstract: Repeated games tend to have large sets of equilibria. We also know that in the repeated prisoners dilemma there is a profusion of neutrally stable strategies, but no strategy that is evolutionarily stable. But how stable is neutrally stable? We show that there is always a stepping stone path away from equilibrium: there is always a neutral mutant that can enter a population and create an actual selective advantage for a second mutant.

Such stepping stone paths out of equilibrium generally exist both in the direction of more and in the direction of less cooperation. While the central theorems show that such paths out of equilibrium exist, they could still be rare compared to the size of the strategy space. Simulations however suggest that they are not too rare to be found by a reasonable mutation process, and that typical simulation paths take the population from equilibrium to equilibrium through series of indirect invasions.

Furthermore we combine repetition with population structure. Especially the interplay between those two ingredients of the evolution of cooperation is interesting; with high continuation probabilities, only a little bit of population structure goes a long way. That suggests that one recipe for (part of) the evolution human cooperation might have been: a lot of repetition and a little bit of population structure.

Fredagen den 27 januari, 13.30, rum 334 (seminarierummet på plan 3)
Erik Mohlin, filosofie doktor i ekonomi, University College London
Föredragets titel: Evolution of Theories of Mind
Sammanfattning: This paper studies the evolution of peoples' models of how other people think -- their theories of mind. First, this is formalized within the level-k model, which postulates a hierarchy of types, such that type k plays a k times iterated best response to the uniform distribution. It is found that, under plausible conditions, lower types co-exist with higher types. The results are extended to a model of learning, in which type k plays a k times iterated best response the average of past play. The model is also extended to allow for partial observability of the opponent's type.

Link to the paper: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.geb.2011.11.009

Fredagen den 9 december kl. 13.30, rum 334 (seminarierummet på plan 3)
Sarah Mathew, filosofie doktor i antropologi, Centrum för evolutionär kulturforskning, Stockholms universitet
Föredragets titel: Warfare and the collective action problem: cattle raiding among Turkana pastoralists of East Africa
Sammanfattning: Understanding cooperation and punishment in small-scale societies is crucial for explaining the origins of human cooperation. I will present data showing that the Turkana, an acephalous pastoral society in East Africa, sustain costly large scale cooperation in warfare through informal sanctions against free riders, and that Turkana norms regulating warfare benefit the ethno-linguistic group, not smaller social units. These results challenge current views that punishment is unimportant in small-scale societies and that human cooperation evolved in small groups of kin and familiar individuals. Instead they suggest that cooperation at the larger scale of ethnolinguistic units enforced by third-party sanctions could have occurred for a long period in human evolutionary history. 

Fredagen den 2 december kl. 13.30, rum 334 (seminarierummet på plan 3)
Mikael Sandberg, professor i statsvetenskap, Högskolan i Halmstad/Centrum för evolutionär kulturforskning, Stockholms universitet
Föredragets titel: "Democratic Revolutions", Regime Survival and Institutional Evolution
Sammanfattning: In this seminar I will (1) present results from a recent study on transitions to democracy (with Jansson and Lindenfors) and (2) a new approach to the study of institutional evolution.First, we show that autocracy and democracy are peaks in the evolutionary landscape of possible modes of institutional arrangements. Transitions between these peaks have mainly occurred through rapid leaps, with a median time from autocracy to democracy of 2.4 years and overnight in the reverse direction. Only seldom do we find slow and incremental transitions, and when this has been the case, these steps have followed unique paths through regime space for each country. Survival of democracy as a political regime type is better in the cases where transitions have been slower. Second, I present an inductive approach to the analysis of institutional evolution. Results suggest that there are three major waves of regime types (combinations of institutions) in the last two centuries: despotism, factionalism/sectarianism and democracy. Nation-states may be "invaded" by one or several of these regime types and institutions.The inductive approach opens up a new field of evolutionary studies of political institutions.

Fredagen den 18 november kl. 13.30, rum 334 (seminarierummet på plan 3)
Håkan Fischer, professor i biologisk psykologi, Stockholms universitet
Föredragets titel: The face in the brain: the neural basis of emotional face perception and memory of out-group versus in-group faces
Sammanfattning: The functional importance of face perception and recognition in humans and infrahuman primates is well established and is mediated by a relatively dedicated functional neuroanatomy. Research on the neural basis of face perception and recognition has established a core face-specific network that includes occipital cortex and fusiform gyrus for processing invariant aspects of faces, and regions of the superior temporal sulcus for processing and remembering socially relevant aspects of faces and that vary from occasion to occasion. These core regions interact with other brain regions to support a variety of face-processing tasks such as encoding of new faces, recognition of familiar faces, or processing the complex meaning conveyed in facial expressions. I will present data showing how social group membership affect the brain basis of emotional face processing.

Fredagen den 14 oktober kl. 13.30, rum 334 (seminarierummet på plan 3)
Pontus Strimling, filosofie doktor i matematik/tillämpad matematik, Centrum för evolutionär kulturforskning, Stockholms universitet
Föredragets titel: Sadly, everything matters in cultural evolution and that makes modeling it hard
Sammanfattning: In this talk, I summarize some of my earlier work on cultural evolution and consider it from a new perspective. When the latest school for modeling cultural evolution started in the eighties many were hopeful that with small alterations, models from population genetics would be all they needed to understand cultural evolution. Sadly this is not the case. In this talk , I go one step further in bringing bad news to the table.  Not only can we not adapt population genetics models; we will probably never get general models for cultural evolution that work as well as they do in population genetics. Unlike these models in which  essential details such as whether the species was haploid or diploid did not matter in many cases, in cultural evolution we have on our hands a system where everything we look at seems to matter. More than that, every aspect of cultural evolution that we study turns out to be essential in understanding our most fundamental question; what structure will the outcome of cultural evolution have and which traits will be in it? The fact that cultural evolution is hard to predict from general models leads us to look at models of specific phenomena.  This is a very attractive idea but so far these kinds of models are rare.  One reason for this is that modellers have seldom worked close enough to empirical research to have any estimations of the crucial variables. At the end of the talk I try to point out what kind of data is needed to underpin the cultural evolution models that will be able to predict the outcome of specific cultural evolution processes.

Fredagen den 30 september kl. 13.30, rum 334 (seminarierummet på plan 3)
Julie Coultas, filosofie doktor i evolutionär socialpsykologi, University of Sussex
Föredragets titel: Using the serial reproduction method to study cultural transmission of stories
Sammanfattning: The serial reproduction method is the "Chinese whispers" game in a laboratory context. I will present an overview of how this method has been increasingly used in the study of cultural transmission of stories during the last decade, and discuss some recent studies I have conducted together with Kimmo Eriksson on a possible disgust-bias and on the effect of multiple cultural parents in cultural transmission.

Fredagen den 6 maj kl. 13.30, rum 334 (seminarierummet på plan 3)
Paul Seabright, professor i ekonomi, University of Toulouse
Föredragets titel: Beyond Reason: the role of the emotions in building economic social trust
Sammanfattning: A long tradition in economic theory as well as in Western intellectual thought sets reason in opposition to the emotions and hypothesizes that the growth of complex modern societies involves the gradual replacement of emotions by reason in economic exchange, bureaucratic management, political leadership and the administration of justice. This lecture will discuss the contrary evidence that has been accumulating in recent years in psychology, neuroscience and behavioral economics, and propose an alternative view. Far from replacing the emotions, reason is effective by harnessing the emotions in the service of creating social trust. Understanding the cognitive and emotional foundations of social trust is both an exciting research agenda for the future and the source of potentially importance insights for public policy.

Fredagen den 29 april kl. 13:30, rum 334 (seminarierummet på plan 3)
Jan Tullberg, docent i företagsekonomi
Föredragets titel: Evolutionary Economics - a metaphor or an analogy?
Sammanfattning: In the field of evolutionary economics, there is an ongoing debate about the potential of the theory of evolution for the understanding of economic development and dynamics. Some economists use the term evolutionary very generally and the connection to Darwinism is just a metaphor. Others see a potential in “generalized Darwinism”. The Darwinian mechanisms of variation, replication and selection are suggested for a general model to be applied to the economy. Models built upon that meta-model are more than metaphors – rather they can be seen as analogous or even homologous to evolutionary theory. Lamarckian theories and dynamics of epidemics inspire other perspectives and hypotheses. In this seminar, I will discuss some different ideas how to connect theories inspired by biology and understanding of the cultural evolution in the field of economics.

Fredagen den 11 mars kl. 13.30, rum 334 (seminarierummet på plan 3)
Mark Thomas, professor i evolutionär genetik, University College London
Föredragets titel: Late pleistocene demography and the appearance of modern human behavior
Sammanfattning: The origins of modern human behavior are marked by increased symbolic and technological complexity in the archaeological record. In western Eurasia this transition, the Upper Paleolithic, occurred about 45,000 years ago, but many of its features appear transiently in southern Africa about 45,000 years earlier. We show that demography is a major determinant in the maintenance of cultural complexity and that variation in regional subpopulation density and/or migratory activity results in spatial structuring of cultural skill accumulation. Genetic estimates of regional population size over time show that densities in early Upper Paleolithic Europe were similar to those in sub-Saharan Africa when modern behavior first appeared. Demographic factors can thus explain geographic variation in the timing of the first appearance of modern behavior without invoking increased cognitive capacity.

Fredagen den 25 februari kl. 13.30, rum 334 (seminarierummet på plan 3)
Maria Wallenberg Bondesson, filosofie doktor i historia, Centrum för evolutionär kulturforskning, och Arne Jarrick, professor i historia, Centrum för evolutionär kulturforskning och Historiska institutionen, Stockholms universitet
Föredragets titel: General reflections based on some results from a comparative study of four pre-modern legal codes
Sammanfattning: We will present our on-going study of the long-term development of laws and legislation, and specifically address three issues or concepts frequently discussed within research on cultural evolution: cultural systems, cumulativity and unilinearity, and, finally, complexity. Concerning the first concept, we will present a systems perspective on laws and their development over time, and, for instance, discuss how to measure the degree of systematicity in the structure of legal codes. One hypothesis – which is supported by data this far – is that more systematic laws will display a more even distribution of separate provisions over subject types. Concerning the second issue, we will discuss linear trends concerning, for instance, the ratio of human activities governed by morals, customs and law respectively, penal practices and the legitimation of the law. Finally we will discuss the concept of complexity: what is increased complexity in general, what can it be considered to be in this context and which factors need to be taken into consideration when “measuring” cultural complexity?

Fredagen den 11 februari kl. 13.30, rum 334 (seminarierummet på plan3)
Brendan McSweeney, Professor of Management, Royal Holloway, University of London
Föredragets titel: The myth of common cultural values
Sammanfattning: For a variety of complex reasons the idea of culture as a/the key social driver has gained immense popularity across a range of academic disciplines. This is also the case more widely - international agencies, management consultants and a host of other groups and institutions have embraced it. But the label ‘culture’ has multiple, often underspecified, meanings. This presentation focuses on notion of culture as deeply sedimented psychological orientations (subjective values) attaching to, or inhering in, particular groups which it is supposed create social uniformity (and thereby excluding social diversity). The assumption of cultural determinism alone does not exclude the possibility of social diversity. What the “mental programming” (Hofstede, 2001) model also supposes is that for each specific arena or category of actors (civilization, country, ethnic group, or whatever) culture is coherent, that is: uniform, non-contradictory. The assumption of monopolistic cultural coherence (and the neglect of non-cultural influences) necessarily leads to assertions of uniformity (of action, institutions, and so forth). Logically, diverse causal culture, assuming cultural causality, implies diversity in outcomes. Conversely, causal coherent culture implies uniformity of outcomes. This latter deterministic notion culture forecloses consideration of the levels, properties of, components of, dynamics of, sources, and of both change and diversity. Whilst in some academic disciplines (such as anthropology) this notion of culture or values has but a peripheral presence it dominates (albeit does not monopolise) cultural analysis in management/business theory. Notwithstanding criticisms, as of January 2011 the work of Geert Hofstede, the preeminent exponent of deterministic coherent culture within that discipline(s) remarkably had been cited (largely positively) over 57,000 times.

The presentation will first briefly review the claims that people (‘civilizations’; ‘nations’, ‘ethnic’ and other ‘multicultural’ groups’, and so forth) can validly be partitioned into discrete groups whose social action is determined by group-unique, shared, coherent, enduring and subjective culture (see http://www.rhul.ac.uk/Management/Research/Papers/2010/SOMWP1003.html, for instance). It will then summarise three types of critiques I have undertaken of this view of societies. First, the methodology employed by Hofstede, Trompennars, and other exponents of cultural determinism in management/business in measuring and ranking ‘national cultures’ are challenged (http://www.google.com/search?client=gmail&rls=gm&q=brendan%20mcsweeney%20a%20failure%20of%20analysis , for instance); secondly the alleged deterministic link between national values and social action (or practices) will be critiqued both conceptually and empirically (http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1632340 , for instance).

Fredagen den 28 januari kl. 13.30, föreläsningssalen på Botaniska institutionen, Lilla Frescativägen 5
Tom Dickins, University of East London
Föredragets titel: Cultural change and evolution
Sammanfattning:In this talk I will address two uses of the term evolution - the general theory of evolution and the special theory of evolution.  The latter is that body of theory used by evolutionary biologists and many behavioural biologists.  The former is a class of ideas that are often adopted by those interested in non-genetic inheritance and cultural change.  There are similarities between the two uses, but also marked differences that must be carefully accounted for.  I will discuss the similarities and differences between the two uses, making reference to recent conceptual work by Jablonka and Lamb, among others, and then I will focus upon one particular account coming from Martindale about changes in art.  I will use Martindale's account of evolutionary processes at work in high art to open discussion about alternative ways of conceptualizing such changes.

Fredagen den 21 januari kl. 13.30, rum 334 (seminarierummet på plan 3)
Sven Isaksson, Centrum för evolutionär kulturforskning, Stockholms universitet
Föredragets titel: Tracing traditions. Analyzing social transmission through Euclidean distance in chronological matrices based on material culture distributions Sammanfattning
Sammanfattning: With this seminar I would like to discuss and get feedback on an analytical technique for the identification of traditions in distributions of “things” (i.e. material culture) in chronologically sequenced assemblages. Tradition describes a state of things: When faced with the choice between the Old and the New preference is given to the Old. It is an emphasis on so called vertical social learning. However, in traditions change occur, through lending (e.g. oblique and horizontal social learning) or distortion (e.g. copying or transmission errors). Given these definitions a prediction can be made: In a chronological sequence similarity should be greatest between sequential neighbors, greater than between all entities separated in the sequence, if there is tradition. As Euclidean distance is a measure of dissimilarity in distributions of multiple variables this parameter was chosen in this study. The approach was tested on a number of various material culture distributions (grave goods, pottery use, species (i.e. bones)) and the various results will be presented and discussed.

Fredagen den 17 december kl. 13.30, rum 334 (seminarierummet på plan 3)
Ida Envall och Sven Isaksson, Centrum för evolutionär kulturforskning, Stockholms universitet
Föredragets titel: Evolution of culinary arts. On an empirical study of long-term change in European cooking recipes.
Sammanfattning: We have carried out an empirical study of European cooking recipes to test a general hypothesis in cultural evolution: that cultural complexity increases over time due to a cumulative effect of knowledge. Data from seven cook books, the oldest one written in medieval times (~1200) and the youngest one dating from late modernity (1999), have been excerpted for the purpose of measuring and comparing their respective levels of complexity. We found a significant increase in the numbers of steps and separate processes required in each recipe, in the numbers of techniques and ingredients, as well as in the quantities in each recipe of both simple and complex semi manufactured ingredients. However, when correcting for the number of ingredients the number of steps remains stable, indicating that the number of ingredients is the best explanation of why recipes get longer over time. Nevertheless, all other variables exhibited a significant temporal increase, enabling us to identify cooking as an example of the general trend of increased complexity in long-term cultural evolution.

Fredagen den 19 november kl. 13.30, rum 334 (seminarierummet på plan 3)
Johan Lind, docent i etologi, Centrum för evolutionär kulturforskning och Zoologiska institutionen, Stockholms universitet
Föredragets titel: What can animals do? Really.
Sammanfattning: There is no consensus regarding what animals can and cannot do. What mental capacities do animals possess? The debate concerning taxonomic differences in mental capacities between animals and what makes humans unique has a long history. I will review different perspectives on animals' mental capacities and present an approach that can help explain variation between species and what mental limits prevent animals from becoming humans.

Fredagen den 1 oktober kl. 13.30, rum 334 (seminarierummet på plan 3)
Patrik Lindenfors, docent i ekologi, Centrum för evolutionär kulturforskning och Zoologiska institutionen, Stockholms universitet
Föredragets titel: The Green Beards of Language
Sammanfattning: The primary function of language is communication. A functioning language fulfilling the requirements for communication requires individuals who cooperate on the forms of communication. The evolution of language is consequently best understood in similar terms as how cooperative behavior spreads through populations. Theoretical problems surrounding the evolution of cooperation disappear if a recognition system is present such that cooperating individuals easily can identify each other; if they are equipped with so called ‘green beards’. I propose that both the biological and the cultural aspects of language are bestowed with such recognition systems by simultaneously being forcedly honest signals of their own presence as well as their own perfect detection mechanisms. The biological capacity for language signals its presence in an individual through speech and understanding. However, the real usefulness of language comes from its potential to convey an infinite number of meanings through the dynamic handling of symbols. But any specific language in itself (e.g. English) also signals its own presence through usage and understanding. Language itself can therefore benefit its own presence regardless of if individuals cooperate or compete – a language can ‘cooperate with itself’. Thus the cultural evolution of language may have co-evolved with language ability, constantly demanding ever better cognitive and social learning abilities, simultaneously invoking costs in terms of energetic demands to grow and fuel an ever larger brain. In this regard, language is unique; the biological evolution of language ability coupled with the cultural evolution of languages themselves may therefore explain the historically rapid expansion of the human brain and its abilities as well as the uniquely human proclivity for social learning.

Onsdagen den 9 juni kl. 14.00, rum 435
Julie Coultas, research fellow vid universitetet i Sussex
Föredragets titel: Copying, cooperation and conformity
Sammanfattning: Social psychologists have been studying conformity for nearly a century. In this talk I want to make links between early research on conformity and imitation within social psychology and more recent developments. I will use human experiments to illustrate aspects of what is now termed ‘automatic imitation’ in the literature. Recently, Heyes (2009) argued that imitation ‘…bridges the gap between minds; powers social and cognitive development; promotes cooperation and well-being; and provides a channel of cultural inheritance’. In this talk I will address how imitation could facilitate cooperation – without us even noticing.

Onsdagen den 12 maj kl. 14.00, rum 334 (seminarierummet på plan 3)
Erik Dahlquist, Professor i energiteknik, Mälardalens högskola
Föredragets titel: Människans utveckling utifrån språk, kultur, religion och genetik. Hur hänger allt ihop?
Sammanfattning: Min far har gjort en serie böcker (52 registrerade på Congress Library) där han gått igenom ca 150 ord på 150 språk från hela världen, och försökt hitta samband. Har identifierat ett mindre antal språkfamiljer. Han har sedan studerat världens kulturer och religioner och knutit ihop dessa. Jag har sedan försökt göra ett genetiskt träd över släktskapet mellan de folk pappa identifierat som intressanta, och dessutom försökt knyta de historiska kulturerna till dagens kulturer. Ett nätt litet verk som min far ägnade ca 65 år av sitt liv åt, och jag gjort som diskussionspartner och som fritidsintresse under ca 40 år. Har publicerat en sammanfattning av detta arbete som en bok på länken : http://works.bepress.com/dr_erik_dahlquist/ The development of humans - a study including languages, cultures, religions and genetics (with Dr. Allan Dahlquist) (2009) The book covers the development of culture, religion, language and genetics of the human population...

Torsdagen den 22 april kl. 14.00, rum 334 (seminarierummet på plan 3)
Micael Ehn, Centrum för evolutionär kulturforskning, Stockholms universitet
Föredragets titel: Solutions to the Rogers Paradox in Cumulative Culture
Sammanfattning: Alan Rogers (1988) pointed out that social learning does not necessarily increase individual fitness; this is called “The Rogers Paradox”. While various solutions to Rogers Paradox have been proposed (Boyd and Richerson 1985; Enquist et. al. 2007), none have considered cumulative culture. As cumulative culture is a distinctive feature of humans, we set out to explore how Rogers Paradox and its solutions are influenced by cultural accumulation.    When culture is cumulative, a “second order” Rogers Paradox appears, which invalidates a previous solution (the critical social learner) in many situations. Critical social learners tends to “get stuck” on a level they consider good enough. Surprisingly, this effect can also result in the fitness of the critical social learner actually decreasing as social learning becomes more efficient. Another similar solution (the conditional social learner), does not exhibit this behavior and tends to do better than the critical social learner even in situations that have previously been shown to be very beneficial for critical social learners.    We also introduce a new learning strategy, the individual refiner, which first uses social learning and then always refines the solution by individual learning. The individual refiner proves a solution to Rogers Paradox in a cumulative setting.

Torsdagen den 25 mars kl. 14.00, Piperska Muren
Kimmo Eriksson, professor i tillämpad matematik, Mälardalens högskola & Centrum för evolutionär kulturforskning, Stockholms universitet
Cirkelgångens förunderliga väsen, Repetitiva fenomen i natur och kultur. Arrangör: Vetenskapsrådets ämnesråd för humaniora och samhällsvetenskap
Föredragets titel: Matematiken hjälper oss att förstå cykliska förlopp
Sammanfattning: Både i naturen och kulturen kan man hitta fascinerande mönster som upprepar sig. Till och med mänskligt samspel kan leda till förutsägbara regelbundenheter. Varför uppstår cyklicitet? Vad är det som gör att vi uppfattar vissa förlopp som cykliska? Matematiken hjälper oss att beskriva och förstå cykliska fenomen, oavsett om det handlar om naturvetenskap, samhälle eller humaniora. Om detta berättar Kimmo Eriksson.

Tisdagen den 9 mars kl. 15.00, rum 334 (seminarierummet på plan 3)
Felix Riede, Adjunkt i arkeologi, Department of Prehistoric Archaeology, Institute of Anthropology, Archaeology and Linguistics, AHRC Centre for the Evolution of Cultural Diversity, Aarhus University, Denmark
Föredragets titel: Cultural evolution, adaptation and niche construction in human prehistory: a case study from the Southern Scandinavian Late Glacial
Sammanfattning: Specialised reindeer hunting economies emerged multiple times in the course of human prehistory and history. In my presentation I will describe and analyse the repeated emergence of such specialised foraging economies during the Late Palaeolithic (c. 14,7k to 11,5k years BP) in Southern Scandinavia from a niche construction perspective. Niche construction theory distinguishes between cultural, ecological and biological inheritance, and focuses on how these different inheritance domains hang together over time. Cultural inheritance is tracked using phylogenies built from material culture data, which allows historical relationships amongst Late Palaeolithic hunter-gatherer groups to be represented quantitatively. Ecological inheritance is tracked by proxy archaeological data on humanly modified environments, here the use of domesticated dogs as hunting/transport aids and quasi-symbiotic reindeer hunting. The primary focus of this paper are cultural niche construction processes, and using material culture phylogenies and the tools of the comparative methods, I demonstrate that successful specialised reindeer hunting during the Late Palaeolithic was depended on prior niche construction in the form of domesticated dogs as hunting/transport aids. I further argue that archaeological data provides important information on past human niche construction and that the comparative method can be used to quantify the relationship and causal order between niche-constructing traits.