Using Evolutionary Archaeology and Evolutionary Ecology to Explain Cultural Elaboration: The Case of Middle Ohio Valley Woodland Period Ceremonial Subsistence

We propose a Darwinian evolutionary model for the development and disappearance of Woodland period cultural elaboration in the Ohio River Valley, and specifically the “climax” of this behavior known as the Hopewell phenomenon. We combine aspects of evolutionary archaeology and evolutionary ecology to provide a model that (1) has testable empirical consequences, and (2) specifically addresses the historical context of development of the phenomenon being explained. Our model builds on Smith's (1987) coevolutionary scenario for the development of symbiosis between Eastern Agricultural Complex (EAC) crops and the human populations exploiting them. After presenting our model, we explore the empirical consequences of ceremonial subsistence and the types of data that would be required to test the model. In our discussion of the extant data we also contrast our scenario with a competing evolutionary explanation for the Hopewell phenomenon: the “waste” hypothesis. The limited available evidence is in line with the empirical expectations of the ceremonial subsistence model and is, to varying degrees, at odds with the empirical expectations for the “waste” explanation. Our ceremonial subsistence model offers a testable alternative that is not falsified by the extant data. However, we recognize the problem is far from solved. Our primary aim is to promote renewed theoretical discussion of the issues raised herein and to encourage new problem-oriented research to provide empirical evidence to test both explanations.