CoChat
Sign Up
Cited by 14Language and cultural evolutionPleistocene-Era Hominins and ArchaeologyArchaeological and Geological Studies

The DOI matches its Crossref record; 59 of the 59 references it cites were found in a registry or an index; none of the 48 sources its claims cite is checked for support yet.

What Is Evolution? A Response to Bamforth

Open access
O'Brien, Michael J., Lyman, R. Lee, Leonard, Robert D.·2003·American Antiquity
DOI 10.2307/3557109
Open this paper in CoChat — free accountOpen PDF

Abstract

Douglas Bamforth's recent paper in American Antiquity, “Evidence and Metaphor in Evolutionary Archaeology,” charges that Darwinism has little to offer archaeology except in a metaphorical sense. Specifically, Bamforth claims that arguments that allegedly link evolutionary processes to the archaeological record are unsustainable. Given Bamforth's narrow view of evolution—that it must be defined strictly in terms of changes in gene frequency—he is correct. But no biologist or paleontologist would agree with Bamforth"s claim that evolution is a process that must he viewed fundamentally at the microlevel. Evolutionary archaeology has argued that materials in the archaeological record are phenotypic in the same way that hard parts of organisms are. Thus changes in the frequencies of archaeological variants can be used to monitor the effects of selection and drift on the makers and users of those materials. Bamforth views this extension of the human phenotype as metaphorical because to him artifacts are not somatic features, meaning their production and use are not entirely controlled by genetic transmission. He misses the critical point that in terms of evolution, culture is as significant a transmission system as genes are. There is nothing metaphorical about viewing cultural transmission from a Darwinian point of view., ResumenEl reciente trabajo de Douglas Bamforth que apareció en American Antiquity y llamado “Evidencia y metáfora en Arqueología Evolutiva” acusa al darvinismo de tener poco que ofrecer a la arqueología excepto en un amplio sentido metafórico. Especí ficamente, Bamforth afirma que los argumentos que supuestamente conectan la selección y el desplazamiento con el registro arqueológico son insostenibles. Dada la opinión estrecha de la evolución—que deber ser estrictamente definida en términos de cambios en frecuencia de genes—tiene razón. Pero ningún biólogo o paleontólogo estaría de acuerdo con la acusación de Bamforth de que la evolución es un proceso que deber ser considerado fundamentalmente al nivel micro. La arqueología evolutiva ha sostenido que los materiales en el registro arqueológico son fenotipos de la misma manera que lo son las partes duras de los organismos. De esta manera, los cambios en las frecuencias de las variantes arqueológicas pueden ser usados para seguir de cerca los efectos de la selección y el desplazamiento en los fabricantes y usuarios de esos materiales. Bamforth considera esta extensión de los fenotipos humanos como metafórica porque en su opinión los artefactos no son características somáticas, lo que quiere decir que su producción y uso no están controlados completamente por transmisión genética. Él no capta el punto crítico que en términos de evolución, la cultura es un sistema de transmisión tan significante como los genes. No hay nada metafórico en considerar la transmisión cultural desde un punto de vista darviniano.

Overview

AI snapshot

Written from the paper’s full text.

TL;DR

O’Brien et al. respond to Bamforth’s claim that evolutionary archaeology uses Darwinism only metaphorically, arguing his case depends on an overly narrow gene-frequency definition of evolution. They contend artifacts are phenotypic features and cultural transmission is a legitimate Darwinian system, so evolutionary archaeology is not metaphorical.

Key findings

  • Bamforth’s “universally understood” definition of evolution as changes in relative gene frequency is rejected; citing Mayr, Endler, Ridley, and Simpson, the authors say evolution includes descent with modification, phenotypic change, and taxonomic diversification.
  • Artifacts are phenotypic in the same way somatic features are; EA does not equate cultural information with genetic information but treats genes and culture as transmission systems that create variation.
  • Paleontology is not a nonmetaphorical contrast: paleontologists cannot directly observe genes or allele-frequency changes in fossils and infer genetic change from phenotypic patterns, just as archaeologists infer from material culture.
  • EA uses methods including frequency and occurrence seriation, clade-diversity diagrams, and cladograms; macroevolutionary concepts such as punctuated equilibrium are applicable. The authors note spans of 5–6 million years versus 100,000 years, with the latter 50–60 times shorter, and say large-scale change is rarely visible over 10,000 years.

Methods

  • Theoretical reply/critique to Bamforth (2002), with no new empirical data; it synthesizes evolutionary biology, paleontology, and evolutionary archaeology literature.
  • Compares archaeological and paleontological inference and discusses evolution via replicators, selection, drift, sorting, and cultural transmission.
  • Uses cited definitions and examples (e.g., Mayr 1991; Endler 1986; Ridley 1993; Simpson 1944, 1949a; Moore 2002) to challenge Bamforth’s premises.

Limitations

  • No formal limitations section is stated. The authors acknowledge EA’s data requirements are high and that archaeologists rarely have access to the evolutionary “big picture”; EA is often forced to study macroevolutionary change because microevolutionary genetic change cannot be monitored directly.
  • They agree that archaeological data often pertain to groups with unknown social and/or familial relations and aggregate data over large regions and long spans of time.
  • Evident from the text: this is a polemical response rather than a new empirical test, and it relies on argument and secondary literature.

Model-written summary. Check it against the paper before relying on it.

Integrity signals

Registry

Crossref · 10.2307/3557109

Cites

59 of 59 references verified0 citation errors · 0 not checkable

Statistics

Nothing to recompute.

Verification

Claims the paper makes

0 of 48 cited sources checked · 0 supported · 0 flagged

Verify all 1 references — free account
  • Findingnone given

    No evolutionary archaeologist has ever equated cultural information with genetic information.

    “Important to our point here is that no evolutionary archaeologist we know of has ever equated cultural information with genetic information.”
    Quote in the paperNot a substantial claim
  • Interpretationreasoning

    The difference between cultural and genetic transmission does not lead to the conclusion that humans have evolved the means to stop evolving.

    “but the difference does not lead to the inescapable conclusion that humans as organisms have evolved the means to stop evolving.”
    Quote in the paperSubstantial claim
  • Premisecitation

    Archaeologists study change in artifacts, not change in the ideas behind the artifacts.

    “Archaeologists are in the same situation; they study change in artifacts, not change in the ideas behind the artifacts (Lyman and O'Brien 2001).”
    Quote in the paperSubstantial claim0 of 1 sources checked
    • cites Lyman and O'Brien 2001 source
  • Interpretationreasoning

    Humans today are no more immune to evolutionary processes than they were 30,000 years ago.

    “Humans today are no more immune to evolutionary processes than they were 30,000 years ago.”
    Quote in the paperSubstantial claim
  • Interpretationnone given

    Those methods can be used to study the remains of a single species such as Homo sapiens.

    “Importantly, those methods can be used to study the remains of a single species such as Homo sapiens.”
    Quote in the paperNot a substantial claim
  • It may state two separate claims as one. 16
  • Probably not a substantial claim. 25

  • It may state two separate claims as one.

    Premisecitation

    Archaeologists cannot directly observe the actual processes of evolution that operated in the past; they must infer them from patterns in material culture.

    “He points out that”
    Quote in the paperSubstantial claim0 of 1 sources checked
    • cites Bamforth 2002 source

  • Probably not a substantial claim. It may be too vague to check against evidence. The paper may give no reason why it holds.

    Interpretationnone given

    Many problems confronting humanity today will require knowledge of evolutionary theory to solve.

    “it is also clear that many problems that confront humanity today-global warming, deterioration of the ozone layer, global reduction of biodiversity, genetic engineering, AIDS, cloning, increasing bacterial resistance to antibiotics, cultural extinction-will require knowledge of evolutionary theory to solve.”
    Quote in the paperNot a substantial claim

  • Probably not a substantial claim. It may be too vague to check against evidence. The paper may give no reason why it holds.

    Interpretationnone given

    Systems theory's failure to make archaeology a science implies nothing about the success or failure of EA or any other intellectual program that offers science as a solution.

    “That systems theory failed to make archaeology a science implies nothing about the success or failure of EA or of any other intellectual program that offers science as a solution to many of the problems in which archaeologists are interested.”
    Quote in the paperNot a substantial claim

  • It may state two separate claims as one.

    Premisereasoning

    Replicators compete for limited resources, and those that are better competitors are more successful at replicating themselves.

    “Thus, replicators compete for those materials, and those that are better competitors are more successful at replicating themselves.”
    Quote in the paperSubstantial claim

  • Probably not a substantial claim. It may be too vague to check against evidence. It may state two separate claims as one.

    Premisenone given

    Genes and culture are transmission systems that act to create variation.

    “What EA has done is to view genes and culture as transmission systems that act to create variation.”
    Quote in the paperNot a substantial claim

  • Probably not a substantial claim. The paper may give no reason why it holds.

    Interpretationnone given

    Large-scale cumulative evolutionary results are the end products of countless small-scale changes that took place over a very long time period.

    “Skeptics such as Bamforth are looking for the big results and missing the point that those large-scale, cumulative results are the end products of countless small-scale changes that took place over a very long time period.”
    Quote in the paperNot a substantial claim

  • Probably not a substantial claim. It may be too vague to check against evidence.

    Premisecitation

    The link between genes and phenotype in paleontology is obvious and relatively well-understood.

    “The problem of linking temporal patterns of change in paleontological data to evolution essentially does not arise because the link is so obvious and relatively well-understood”
    Quote in the paperNot a substantial claim0 of 1 sources checked
    • cites Bamforth 2002 source

  • It may state two separate claims as one.

    Interpretationreasoning

    Culture is simply one adaptive response that a particular lineage of organisms evolved, and it does not exempt its bearers from evolutionary processes.

    “We contend, however, that culture is simply one adaptive response that a particular lineage of organisms evolved.As such, it does not exempt its bearers from evolutionary processes.”
    Quote in the paperNot a substantial claim

  • Probably not a substantial claim. It may be too vague to check against evidence.

    Interpretationreasoning

    That theoretical framework, irrespective of the chosen species concept, is Darwinism.

    “That theoretical framework, irrespective of the chosen species concept, is Darwinism.”
    Quote in the paperNot a substantial claim

  • Probably not a substantial claim. The paper may give no reason why it holds. It may state two separate claims as one.

    Premisenone given

    Paleontologists accept as axiomatic that their macroscale picture comprises millions of tiny structures and routine processes and that genetic change was behind some of the change they see.

    “They accept such detail as axiomatic, just as they accept that genetic change was behind some of the change they see.”
    Quote in the paperNot a substantial claim

  • Probably not a substantial claim. The paper’s conclusions may not depend on it.

    Premisecitation

    Other social sciences are increasingly embracing the explanatory power of Darwinian evolutionary theory.

    “As Bamforth notes, other social sciences are increasingly embracing the explanatory power of Darwinian evolutionary theory (e.g., Cziko 1995).”
    Quote in the paperNot a substantial claim0 of 1 sources checked
    • cites Cziko 1995

      Couldn’t be matched to a paper in Crossref, so it can’t be checked.

  • Probably not a substantial claim.

    Interpretationreasoning

    The possessors of objects in the archaeological record were acted on by evolutionary processes.

    “This is a shorthand way of saying that the possessors of the objects were acted on by evolutionary processes.”
    Quote in the paperSubstantial claim

  • Probably not a substantial claim. The paper may give no reason why it holds. It may state two separate claims as one.

    Interpretationreasoning

    Paleontologists do not characterize what they do as metaphorical, nor should they.

    “And yet they do not characterize what they do as metaphorical, nor should they.”
    Quote in the paperNot a substantial claim

  • Probably not a substantial claim.

    Premisecitation

    Evolution can be defined without reference to genes.

    “Mark Ridley (1993:5) states that”
    Quote in the paperSubstantial claim0 of 1 sources checked
    • cites Ridley 1993

      Couldn’t be matched to a paper in Crossref, so it can’t be checked.

  • Probably not a substantial claim. It may state two separate claims as one.

    Premisecitation

    The fossil record does not actually show the process of change of one species into another because fossils are not living and do not mutate, reproduce, and undergo selection.

    “The fossil record particularly does”
    Quote in the paperSubstantial claim0 of 1 sources checked
    • cites Moore 2002 source

  • Probably not a substantial claim. It may be too vague to check against evidence.

    Premisereasoning

    Evolution means significantly more than simply changes in allelic frequencies.

    “The important point is, evolution means significantly more than simply changes in allelic frequencies, and it is in that expanded arena that archaeology biology, and paleontology fit comfortably.”
    Quote in the paperNot a substantial claim0 of 3 sources checked
    • cites Mayr 1991

      Couldn’t be matched to a paper in Crossref, so it can’t be checked.

    • cites Endler 1986
    • cites Ridley 1993

      Couldn’t be matched to a paper in Crossref, so it can’t be checked.

  • Probably not a substantial claim. It may be too vague to check against evidence.

    Interpretationreasoning

    All EA does-all it can do-is offer a coherent, theoretically grounded approach to examining the archaeological record.

    “All EA does-all it can do-is offer a coherent, theoretically grounded approach to examining the archaeological record.”
    Quote in the paperNot a substantial claim

  • Probably not a substantial claim. It may be too vague to check against evidence.

    Interpretationreasoning

    EA is not a prescriptive exercise that, if followed, turns one instantly into a scientist.

    “More to the point, EA is not some prescriptive exercise that, if followed, turns one instantly into a scientist.”
    Quote in the paperNot a substantial claim

  • It may state two separate claims as one.

    Premisecitation

    Phenotypic traits and characters rather than just genes can change both their states and their frequencies of expression; they can change within a population by vertical transmission and between populations by horizontal transmission.

    “In other words, contrary to Bamforth's alleged universally understood,”
    Quote in the paperSubstantial claim0 of 1 sources checked
    • cites Endler 1986

  • Probably not a substantial claim.

    Premisecitation

    Labeling one set of fossils species A and another set species B comprises an interpretation given to fossil evidence by the mind, within the theoretical framework of a species concept.

    “As paleontologist Richard Fox (1986:73) put it, labeling one set of fossils species A and another set species B comprises an”
    Quote in the paperSubstantial claim0 of 1 sources checked
    • cites Fox 1986

      Couldn’t be matched to a paper in Crossref, so it can’t be checked.

  • Probably not a substantial claim.

    Premisecitation

    Phenotype is the outcome of an interaction between the information included in an organism's genes and the environment that organism occupies.

    “Bamforth (2002:445) defines phenotype as”
    Quote in the paperSubstantial claim0 of 1 sources checked
    • cites Bamforth 2002 source

  • It may state two separate claims as one.

    Premisecitation

    Culture merely altered the components of fitness and directional changes prompted by selection; the selective environment has been altered.

    “It merely altered”
    Quote in the paperSubstantial claim0 of 1 sources checked
    • cites Lerer 1959

      Couldn’t be matched to a paper in Crossref, so it can’t be checked.

  • Probably not a substantial claim. The paper may give no reason why it holds.

    Premisenone given

    EA rests on the premise that objects in the archaeological record, because they were parts of past phenotypes, were shaped by the same evolutionary processes as were the somatic features of their makers and users.

    “EA rests on the premise that objects in the archaeological record, because they were parts of past phenotypes, were shaped by the same evolutionary processes as were the somatic features of their makers and users.”
    Quote in the paperNot a substantial claim

  • Probably not a substantial claim. It may state two separate claims as one.

    Premisecitation

    Competition between replicators and their resulting differential reproduction defines evolution via natural selection but leaves out drift and other sorting processes.

    “The notion of competition between replicators and their resulting differential reproduction defines evolution via natural selection, but it leaves out drift and other sorting processes (Vrba and Gould 1986) that influence the differential reproduction of replicators.”
    Quote in the paperSubstantial claim0 of 1 sources checked
    • cites Vrba and Gould 1986 source

  • Probably not a substantial claim. It may be too vague to check against evidence. The paper may give no reason why it holds.

    Premisenone given

    Culture and its material consequences are the result of biological phenomena.

    “Like it or not, culture and its material consequences are the result of biological phenomena.”
    Quote in the paperNot a substantial claim

  • It may state two separate claims as one.

    Interpretationcitation

    Macroevolutionary concepts such as punctuated equilibrium and methods such as cladistics and clade-diversity diagrams are directly applicable to archaeology.

    “We have detailed in numerous places that certain macroevolutionary concepts, such as punctuated equilibrium (O'Brien and Lyman 2000b), and macroevolutionary methods, such as cladistics and clade-diversity diagrams (Lyman and O'Brien 2000;O'Brien and Lyman 1999, 2000b, 2002a;O'Brien et al. 2001O'Brien et al. ,2002)), are directly applicable to archaeology.”
    Quote in the paperSubstantial claim0 of 3 sources checked
    • cites O'Brien and Lyman 2000b

      Couldn’t be matched to a paper in Crossref, so it can’t be checked.

    • cites Lyman and O'Brien 2000 source
    • cites O'Brien and Lyman 1999

      Couldn’t be matched to a paper in Crossref, so it can’t be checked.

  • Probably not a substantial claim. It may be too vague to check against evidence. It may state two separate claims as one.

    Interpretationreasoning

    Archaeologists rarely have access to the evolutionary big picture, but the details cumulatively are evolution.

    “Conversely, archaeologists rarely have access to anything approaching the evolutionary big picture, but we should not get so lost in detail that we forget that it is those details that cumulatively are evolution.”
    Quote in the paperNot a substantial claim

  • Probably not a substantial claim. It may be too vague to check against evidence. The paper’s conclusions may not depend on it. The paper may give no reason why it holds. It may state two separate claims as one.

    Interpretationnone given

    The data requirements for EA are high, as they usually are in science.

    “The data requirements for EA are high, but they usually are in science.”
    Quote in the paperNot a substantial claim

  • It may state two separate claims as one.

    Premisereasoning

    EA's theory comes from Darwinism as generally understood by biologists and paleontologists, and its empirical standards are derived from that theory, not from received archaeological wisdom.

    “EA has been particularly clear on where the theory comes from-Darwinism as generally understood by biologists and paleontologists.It has been equally clear that the empirical standards are derived from that theory, not simply from received archaeological wisdom.”
    Quote in the paperSubstantial claim

  • Probably not a substantial claim. It may be too vague to check against evidence. The paper may give no reason why it holds.

    Interpretationnone given

    Many anthropologists choose to distance themselves from evolutionary theory because they deeply desire for humanity to be distinct from the biological realm, despite all evidence to the contrary.

    “Yet many anthropologists choose to distance themselves from evolutionary theory for the simple reason that they deeply desire for humanity to be distinct from the biological realm, despite all evidence to the contrary.”
    Quote in the paperNot a substantial claim

  • Probably not a substantial claim. It may be too vague to check against evidence. It may state two separate claims as one.

    Premisecitation

    Evolution is a historical science, which means very little can be verified by direct observation.

    “For example, biologist John Moore (2002:90) recently observed,”
    Quote in the paperNot a substantial claim0 of 1 sources checked
    • cites Moore 2002 source

  • Probably not a substantial claim. It may be too vague to check against evidence.

    Premisecitation

    Explanation is one part theory and one part empirical standard.

    “To us, explanation is one part theory and one part empirical standard (Leonard 2001; O'Brien and Lyman 2000b).”
    Quote in the paperNot a substantial claim0 of 2 sources checked
    • cites Leonard 2001

      Couldn’t be matched to a paper in Crossref, so it can’t be checked.

    • cites O'Brien and Lyman 2000b

      Couldn’t be matched to a paper in Crossref, so it can’t be checked.

  • It may state two separate claims as one.

    Interpretationreasoning

    Units that are functional will be sorted by natural selection; units that are stylistic will be sorted by the vagaries of transmission.

    “Those units that are functional will be sorted by natural selection; those that are stylistic will be sorted by the vagaries of transmission.”
    Quote in the paperSubstantial claim
33 of 33

Self-check

Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.

Each contradiction between two passages listed here was confirmed by an independent check.

  • 1959 citation author does not match the reference

    Minor

    The text cites "Lerer 1959," but the corresponding 1959 reference lists the author as Lerner.

1 of 1

Citations

Cites

Flagged first, then by citations

Research works printed but not linked: 9

  1. Huelsenbeck, 1949b, The Meaning of Evolution.
  2. Imbrie, 1957, The Species Problem,, 125
  3. Neff, 2001, Style and Function: Conceptual Issues in Evolutionary Archaeology,, 25
  4. Arkell, 1940, The New Systematics,, 395
  5. Lerner, 1959, The Concept of Natural Selection: A Centennial View, Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, 103, 173
  6. O’Brien, 1999, Meeting Theoretical and Methodological Challenges to the Future of Evolutionary Archaeology, Review of Archaeology, 20, 14
  7. Huxley, 1956, Current Anthropology,, 3
  8. Mayr, 1942, Systematics and the Origins of Species
  9. Fox, 1986, Species in Paleontology, Geoscience Canada, 13, 73

Cited by

Sorted by citations

Related

Metadata

Authors
O'Brien, M. J., Lyman, R. L., & Leonard, R. D.
Affiliations
  • University of Missouri (US)
  • University of New Mexico (US)
ORCID
Lyman, R. Lee
Venue
American Antiquity
Publisher
Cambridge University Press (CUP)
Published
2003-07
Volume
68
Issue
3
Pages
573-580
ISSN
  • 0002-7316 (ISSN-L)
  • 2325-5064
DOI
10.2307/3557109
OpenAlex
W2331059238
Cited by
14
References
58
Citations by year
2023: 1 · 2022: 1 · 2015: 3 · 2012: 1
FWCI
23.48
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Licence
www.cambridge.org/core/terms (unspecified, 4952 d)
Locations
  • American Antiquity (publishedVersion)
  • Digital Commons @ Texas A&M University-San Antonio (Texas A&M University-San Antonio) (submittedVersion)
Topics
  • Social Sciences › Cultural Studies › Language and cultural evolution
  • Social Sciences › Anthropology › Pleistocene-Era Hominins and Archaeology
  • Social Sciences › Arts and Humanities › Archeology (arts and humanities) › Archaeological and Geological Studies
Keywords
evolutionary archaeology, Darwinism, cultural evolution, cultural transmission, allele frequency, selection and drift, human phenotypes

About these checks

Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.

A language model drew the claims from the paper on 2026-11-10, under version 3 of the claim definition (model deepseek-v4.1-flash, prompt extract-v3).

A second model labelled each claim on 2026-11-10 (model jev-1.13-20260917, definition revision gold-guideline-v0.2).

Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.

Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.

What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›

Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review