Charles S. Spencer

TL;DR: In this paper, it is suggested that key portions of Boyd and Richerson's dual inheritance theory of cultural evolution are consistent with a balanced consideration of agency and structure in chiefdom development.

TL;DR: A database of historical and archaeological information from 30 regions around the world over the last 10,000 years revealed that characteristics, such as social scale, economy, features of governance, and information systems, show strong evolutionary relationships with each other and that complexity of a society across different world regions can be meaningfully measured using a single principal component of variation.

TL;DR: In this article, concepts drawn from multilevel selection theory and evolutionary trend theory are utilized in an analysis of Oaxaca Valley regional settlement pattern data to identify the key institutions of the Zapotec state during Monte Alban I and Monte Alban II.

TL;DR: In this article, a general model of this process, the territorial expansion model, is presented and assessed with archaeological data from six areas where primary states emerged in antiquity: Mesoamerica, Peru, Egypt, Mesopotamia, the Indus Valley, and China.

TL;DR: Two evolutionary approaches in contemporary archaeology, selectionism and processualism, are compared in terms of their theoretical perspectives, methodologies, and empirical contributions to suggest which will spawn the evolutionary archaeology of the future.