The application of natural selection theory to the study of adaptation and biological design in an ecological setting
What is evolutionary ecology/neo-darwinian theory/human behavioral ecology
100
Any characteristics that make an organism better fitted to survive and reproduce in its environment
What is Darwinian Adaptation?
100
The non-sociobiological process by which genetic and behavioral traits are acquired by individuals.
What is Dual Inheritance theory?
100
Predicts the food items that a forager will attempt to handle and those it will ignore in favor of continued search for more preferred foods.
What is the Prey Choice or Diet Breadth model?
100
People who engage in hunting, gathering and fishing but do not seriously interact with domesticated plants and animals
Who are foragers?
200
Seeking to establish and use general or universal laws
What is a Nomothetic perspective?
200
A term that means "life cycle of an organism"
What is ontogeny?
200
Results when individuals use some traits, for example, those connoting prestige, as an indicator of who to choose as a cultural model.
What is Indirect Bias?
200
Addresses forager behavior in environments with resource clumping or differential spatial distribution of resources
What is the Patch Choice Model?
200
Any object showing clear modification by humans.
What is an artifact?
300
Hypotheses cannot be strictly proven, only soundly disproved
What is Logical Positivism?
300
An organism's "propensity to survive and reproduce in a particularly defined environment and population"
What is the concept of Fitness?
300
A process of cultural transmission in which the beliefs of one generation are linked to the next. Involves the accumulation of multi-generational learning that can lead to adaptive change.
What is Guided Variation?
300
A strategy where foragers frequently return to a base camp with resources they have obtained from a surrounding area
What is Central Place Foraging?
300
Morphological aspects of artifacts that can be used to measure changes in adaptive behaviors through time?
What are typological, technological attributes, variables, or traits?
400
1. There must be phenotypic variation
2. Some of this variation must be heritable
3. Variants must differ in their ability to survive and reproduce
What are the three required conditions of Natural Selection?
400
1. an actor that exhibits alternative strategies
2. a strategy set defining the range of available options
3. a currency in which the costs and benefits of alternatives are measured
4. a set of constraints that determine the feasible strategies and their payoffs
What are elements of Optimization Analysis?
400
A method of cultural transmission that can be characterized by the phrase "When in Rome, do as the Romans do."
What is Frequency Dependent Bias?
400
A method of solving for multiple competing optimal behavioral strategies under specified constraints
What is the Linear Programming and/or Indifference Curve Model?
400
A perspective on time that considers archaeological phenomena from a linear, progressive viewpoint
What is diachronic?
500
The process of gaining knowledge by making observations, recording empirical facts, building testable ideas, testing ideas through attempts to disprove them
What is the Scientific Method or the Hypothetico-Deductive Method?
500
A measure that is thought to correlate with fitness and can be empirically measured to evaluate the costs and benefits of alternatives in a strategy set.
What is Currency?
500
With this mode of cultural transmission, there is no need to invent or reinvent the behavior concerned, but only to evaluate alternative behaviors and choose among them.
What is Biased Transmission?
500
Shows that as distance from the central place of foraging to the site of resource encounter decreases, diet breadth increases and includes items of both high and low profitability.
What is the Encounters-At-A-Distance model?
500
A perspective on time that looks at archaeological data that all correspond to a limited temporal period.