Among various cultural models, the dichotomy of static versus dynamic models has provided a fertile ground for research. Although a number of static models are suggested, the dominant trend in almost all static models is provided by Hofstede who focuses on cultural differences along four major dimensions (power distance, individualism, uncertainty avoidance, and masculinity) and reduces “the co...

We call “regulatory traits” those cultural traits that are transmitted through cultural interactions and, at the same time, change individual behaviors directly influencing the outcome of future cultural interactions. The cultural dynamics of some of those traits are studied through simple simulations. In particular, we consider the cultural evolution of traits determining the propensity to cop...

The gradual cumulative cultural evolution of locally adaptive technologies has played a crucial role in our species’ rapid expansion across the globe. Until recently, human artifacts were not obviously more complex than those made by organisms that lack cultural learning and have limited cognitive capacities. However, cultural evolution creates adaptive tools much more rapidly than genetic evol...

To explain emergent cultural phenomena, this paper argues, it is inevitable to understand the evolution of complex human cognitive adaptations and their links to the populationlevel dynamics of cultural variation. On the one hand, the process of cultural transmission is influenced and constrained by humans’ evolved psychology; people tend to acquire some cultural variants rather than others. On...

We consider the city as a complex and open system, that exhibits phenomena of self-organization. We further suggest, that as such a system the city has a special characteristic: its elementary components are human individuals which, unlike the elementary units of non-living and most of the living systems, are themselves self-organizing complex systems. Based on this approach, we have developed ...

The emergence of complex cultural practices in simple hunter-gatherer groups poses interesting questions on what drives social complexity and what causes the emergence and disappearance of cultural innovations. Here we analyze the conditions that underlie the emergence of artificial mummification in the Chinchorro culture in the coastal Atacama Desert in northern Chile and southern Peru. We pro...

New archaeological evidences of the so-called "Bactrian-Margiana Archaeological Complex" (= BMAC) has invited a change in our knowledge of the cultural relations between Oxus civilization and south-eastern Iran during the III-II millennium B.C. transition period. The new archaeological projects in southern and western Turkmenistan, as well as attested at Gonur Depe, have showed a wider and more...

Language exhibits structure: a species-unique system for expressing complex meanings using complex forms. We present a review of modelling and experimental literature on the evolution of structure which suggests that structure is a cultural adaptation in response to pressure for expressivity (arising during communication) and compressibility (arising during learning), and test this hypothesis u...