13 Dec 2016 - 14 Dec 2016 All day Alison Richard Building, 7 West Road, Cambridge, CB3 9DT

Description

Registration for the conference is now closed.

 

Convenor

Andrew Buskell (University of Cambridge)

 

Summary

In the last thirty-five years, the study of human culture using evolutionary tools has exploded. Where once evolutionary models had been scarce, such methods are now used throughout the social sciences: in anthropology, linguistics, history and economics. Indeed, these evolutionary social sciences now constitute a mature field of research. There are institutions for research into the evolution of human culture, and new research societies promising dedicated journals to the study of cultural evolution.

Yet within the evolutionary social sciences – however mature – there is room for exploration, for new methods, and new approaches. This conference gathers together researchers working at the cutting-edge of the field, and will open dialogues on the as-of-yet unanswered issues at the heart of social science and cultural evolution. Progress on these issues will require the conjoined efforts of a wide range of disciplines whose natural home is not in the social sciences: archaeologists, mathematicians, geneticists, primatologists, and more besides. 

 

Sponsors

                   

Supported by the Centre for Research in the Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities (CRASSH), the British Society for the Philosophy of Science, and the Galton Institute.

 

Administrative assistance: events@crassh.cam.ac.uk

Programme

Day 1: Tuesday 13 December
10.45 - 11.15

Registration

11.15 - 11.30

Welcome and opening

11.30 - 12.30

Session 1

Mathieu Charbonneau (Central European University)

The structure of cumulative cultural evolution

 

Discussant: Enza Spinapolice (Sapienza University of Rome)

12.30 - 13.30

Lunch

13.30 - 15.30

Session 2 

Olivier Morin (Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History)

How to say things with things: the evolution of graphic codes

 

Albert Acerbi (Eindhoven University of Technology)

It’s worth the fuss: for a plurality of approaches in cultural evolution

15.30 - 16.00

Break

16.00 - 17.00

Session 3 

Christine Caldwell (University of Stirling)

Methods for investigating cumulative cultural evolution in humans and nonhumans

 

Discussant: Corina Logan (University of Cambridge)

Day 2: Wednesday 14 December
9.30 - 10.30

Session 4

Anne Kandler (Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology)

Linking models with data in cultural evolution: analysis of the archaeological record

 

Discussant: Adam Powell (Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History)

10.30 - 11.00

Break

11.00 - 13.00

Session 5

Heidi Colleran (Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History)

Bridging micro and macro level approaches to the coevolution of culture and demography

 

Laura Fortunato (University of Oxford)

Revisiting the effect of red on competition in humans

13.00 - 14.00

Lunch

14.00 - 15.00

Session 6

Nicole Creanza (Vanderbilt University)

Large-scale cultural change as a feature of cultural evolution itself

 

Discussant: Neeltje Boogert (University of Cambridge)

15.00 - 15.30

Concluding Remarks

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