Complexity and Demographic Explanations of Cumulative Culture

Formal models have linked prehistoric and historical instances of technological change (e.g., the Upper Paleolithic transition, cultural loss in Holocene Tasmania, scientific progress since the late nineteenth century) to demographic change. According to these models, cumulation of technological complexity is inhibited by decreasing— while favoured by increasing—population levels. Here we show that these findings are contingent on how complexity is defined: demography plays a much more limited role in sustaining cumulative culture in case formal models deploy Herbert Simon's definition of complexity rather than the particular definitions of complexity hitherto assumed. Given that currently available empirical evidence doesn't afford discriminating proper from improper definitions of complexity, our robustness analyses put into question the force of recent demographic explanations of particular episodes of cultural change.

形式化模型已将史前与历史时期的技术变革案例（如旧石器时代晚期过渡阶段、全新世塔斯马尼亚地区的文化流失、19世纪末以来的科学进步）与人口变化关联起来。根据此类模型，技术复杂度的累积会因人口规模缩减而受到抑制，却会因人口规模增长而得到促进。本文研究表明，上述结论取决于复杂度的定义方式：当形式化模型采用赫伯特·西蒙（Herbert Simon）的复杂度定义，而非此前研究所采用的特定复杂度定义时，人口因素在维持累积性文化中的作用要有限得多。鉴于当前可用的实证证据无法区分复杂度定义的恰当与否，本文的稳健性分析对近期针对特定文化变革事件的人口学解释的有效性提出了质疑。