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Understanding cultural clusters: An ethnographic perspective

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 September 2022

Polly Wiessner Open the ORCID record for Polly Wiessner [Opens in a new window]
Polly Wiessner*
Affiliation:
School of Human Evolution and Social Change, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ 85287, USA wiessner@soft-link.com https://shesc.asu.edu/people/pauline-wiessner The University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT 84112, USA.
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Abstract

The cultural evolutionary approach to the dynamics of cumulative culture is insufficient for understanding how culture affects heritability estimates; it ignores the agency of individuals and internal complexity of social groups that drive cultural evolution. Both environmental and social selection need consideration. The WEIRD (western, educated, industrialized, rich, and democratic) problem has never plagued anthropology: A wealth of ethnography is available for the problem at hand.

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Open Peer Commentary
Information
Behavioral and Brain Sciences , Volume 45 , 2022 , e180
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Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2022. Published by Cambridge University Press

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