Over recent decades, many archaeologists have eschewed evolutionary theories, and in doing so they have turned away from the identification of long‐term trends that are of great relevance to present‐day matters of concern. In particular, there is clear evidence for an overall long‐term increase in the amount of human‐made material and associated human‐thing entanglements, an increase tied up with environmental impact and global inequalities. The directionality of these long‐term changes is clear and yet evolutionary theory largely shuns notions of overall directional change. This paradox and its implications are the subject of this article, with the suggestion made that, for human evolution at least, notions of directionality and path dependence need to be embraced, with concomitant changes in human evolutionary theory, and with implications for responses to environmental change. Adding to earlier accounts of entanglement, emphases are placed on the self‐amplifying processes that lead to change and on irreversibility in the place of teleology.

中文翻译：

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长期的悖论：人类的进化与纠缠★

在最近的几十年中，许多考古学家避开了进化论，而这样做却远离了确定与当今关注的问题息息相关的长期趋势。特别是，有明确的证据表明，人造材料和相关的人为物纠缠量的总体长期增长是与环境影响和全球不平等联系在一起的。这些长期变化的方向性是明确的，但是进化论在很大程度上避开了总体方向变化的概念。这一悖论及其含义是本文的主题，并提出了这样的建议：至少对于人类进化，必须包含方向性和路径依赖的概念，同时人类进化理论也应随之变化，并对应对环境变化产生影响。除了早期的纠缠之外，重点放在了导致变化的自我放大过程和替代目的论的不可逆转性上。