Why evolutionary biology needs anthropology: Evaluating core assumptions of the extended evolutionary synthesis.

Abstract

Anthropologists have a long history of applying concepts from evolutionary biology to cultural evolution. Evolutionary biologists, however, have been slow to turn to anthropology for insights about evolution. Recently, evolutionary biology has been engaged in a debate over the need to revise evolutionary theory to account for developments made in 60 years since the Modern Synthesis, the standard evolutionary paradigm, was framed. Revision proponents maintain these developments challenge central tenets of standard theory that can only be accounted for in an extended evolutionary synthesis (EES). Anthropology has much to offer to this debate. One important transition in human cultural evolution, the domestication of plants and animals, provides an ideal model system assessing core EES assumptions about directionality, causality, targets of selection, modes of inheritance, and pace of evolution. In so doing, anthropologists contribute to an overarching framework that brings together cultural and biological evolution.