Before I talk about the human niche and how it might clarify what biocultural evolution actually is, I have to address something else that’s important. This has to do with the ecological concept of niche itself. Biological anthropologists have never managed to sustain a serious academic dialogue about niche and how it applies to human evolutionary history. Although there are signs things are changing (Hill et al. 2009; Kaplan et al. 2010; O’Brien & Laland 2012; Pinker 2010; Riel-Salvatore 2010; Wells & Stock 2007), there’s surprisingly little discussion about what the human niche is in general. This is a problem with how we use evolutionary theory to explain our place in nature. Our species, Homo sapiens, has recently succeeded in altering, disrupting, or destroying the ecological niches of seemingly countless other species, mainly over the past 200 years. Given that ecosystems are complex interconnected evolving natural systems, two obvious questions follow. First, might our own niche have something to do with our disruptive effect on other species’ niches? Second, if our role in Earth’s biosphere today is as a “disequilibrium maker,” might knowledge about the long-term evolution of our niche help us better understand our current situation? There are thus applied as well as theoretical reasons for substantively figuring out the human niche. As I discuss below, the human niche can be described in a pretty straightforward way that’s fully in line with broader contemporary definitions and approaches in ecology, and this helps us to apply a highly useful, general approach from Niche Construction Theory (see the NCT website) to clarify the process of niche-adaptation co-evolution in the hominin lineage. In taking the “NCT” approach, we can then better see how biocultural evolution emerged as a unique derived hominin trait–not an adaptive trait per se, but an “extended phenotypic” aspect (á la Dawkins 1982) of hominin niche-adaptation co-evolution.

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by Aaron Jonas Stutz

The question of culture has long vexed the discipline of Anthropology–almost from its turn-of-the-last-century emergence. Then, Franz Boas led the establishment of a holistic framework for investigating human diversity–biological and cultural, past and present (and possibly future). At its most basic, culture–it is agreed–is a holistic concept that links human individuals to larger groups … and that emphasizes how larger groups persist over time. In short, culture aims to explain human sociality in all of its diverse forms. The problem is with “aims to explain.” Because disagreement persists over HOW culture generally explains human sociality, the concept is a kind of placeholder for pending or hoped-for theoretical coherence within the discipline. This is where we are today. Although most major American and Canadian academic Anthropology departments maintain a three- or four-field structure–with cultural anthropology, biological anthropology, archaeology, and linguistic anthropology comprising the “Boasian” subdisciplines–the concept of culture does not run continuously among or within these subdisciplines as a mutually understood, foundational theoretical thread.

Let me put this another way. Franz Boas successfully founded North American Anthropology, which quickly became a widely acknowledged academic discipline. He established the “four-field” umbrella structure that laid the intellectual groundwork from which “biocultural evolution” concepts emerged in the 1970’s. Yet, no single definition of culture took hold then, nor has one taken hold now–within cultural anthropology or across the four main subfields of Boasian Anthropology. As I discuss in the post “What is Biocultural Evolution?” this vagueness or confusion over the culture concept continues to limit inquiry into biocultural evolution. This, despite widespread implicit agreement that biocultural evolution, whatever it actually is, is an important force in human evolution. If we are to clarify the question of culture–and I really do simply mean, “What is culture in the first place?”–we need to identify where anthropologists have lost the thread.

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by Aaron Jonas Stutz

“Biocultural evolution” is a really useful phrase for anthropologists. Many of us agree that the term captures something fundamental about humanity’s identity, about our place in the world. The phrase efficiently points toward the simultaneous tension and intimate proximity between our biological evolutionary origins and inheritance, on the one hand, and our symbolically structured, socially entangled, and technologically shaped lives, on the other.

Indeed, biocultural evolution is a staple term that college students learn in introductory anthropology courses. It gives a thematic focus to exploring the evidence for how prehistoric culture, technology, population migrations, and interbreeding patterns contributed to the rise of sickle cell anemia in Central and West African populations … as a biological adaptation to resist malaria infection! Students who have taken Anthro 101 or an Introduction to Physical/Biological Anthropology course will find the concept–and very possibly the example I just mentioned–familiar. When we see one of the few really clearly documented examples of biocultural evolution, we immediately get a more profound appreciation about how we shape our own biology, perhaps just as much as it shapes us.

The phrase is not problem-free. From the beginning, there has been–and there certainly remains–a conceptual imbalance between the concept’s biological and cultural dimensions. The evolutionary theory foundation for understanding biological change in populations enjoys a solid disciplinary history, with both healthy debates and advancing scientific knowledge. However, when it comes to culture and its connection to biology, moments of clarity tend to be obscured by clouds of intellectual confusion and disagreement. Thus, a major point of departure for this blog is consideration and clarification of the culture concept and the phenomenon of culture’s evolutionary emergence as a major factor–interlinked with biology–in shaping human diversity.

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