Using Agent-Based Modeling to Study Constraints on the Social Learning of Lithic Technology

Summary

Social learning is universally believed to be critical to the hominin adaptation. Yet when this becomes evident in our oldest cultural proxy, lithic artifacts, is hotly debated. Much of the variation in how archaeologists study this question is caused by differing assumptions related to the constraints on the performance, and thus the learning, of the flintknapping process. This paper explores the consequences of the physical constraints within lithic technology on its cultural transmission, using a spatially-explicit agent-based model. Building off of our previous work (PLoSOne 2016), we examine the incomplete social learning of the technological knowledge to produce curated lithic tool kits. We measure the number of learning events produced under the different constraints within flintknapping that reside at the heart of this debate. These constraints include where the learning occurred on the taskscape, the significance of the cognitive difference between strategic knowledge and tactical know-how, the degree of equifinality of products from different sequences, the generative entrenchment between products and sequences, and the size of the parameter space of lithic technology. Using the developmental utility of our model, we discuss ways to improve both experimental and artifactual studies designed to test for social learning during the Stone Age.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 83rd Annual Meeting, Washington, DC (2018)

Keywords

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 21013