The sharp distinction between biological traits and culturally based traits, which had long been standard in evolutionary approaches to behavior, was blurred in the early 1980s by mathematical models that allowed a co‐dependent evolution of genetic transmission and cultural information. Niche‐construction theory has since added another contrast to standard evolutionary theory, in that it views niche construction as a cause of evolutionary change rather than simply a product of selection. While offering a new understanding of the coevolution of genes, culture, and human behavior, niche‐construction models also invoke multivariate causality, which require multiple time series to resolve. The empirical challenge lies in obtaining time‐series data on causal pathways involved in the coevolution of genes, culture, and behavior. This is a significant issue in archeology, where time series are often sparse and causal behaviors are represented only by proxies in the material record.

中文翻译：

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基因，文化和人类生态位：概述

长期以来，生物学特征和基于文化的特征之间的鲜明区别一直是行为进化方法中的标准。在1980年代初期，数学模型模糊了这种区别，数学模型允许遗传传递和文化信息的相互依存演化。生态位构造理论此后与标准进化论形成了另一种对比，因为它把生态位构造视为进化变化的原因，而不仅仅是选择的产物。生态位构建模型在提供对基因，文化和人类行为的共同进化的新理解的同时，还调用了多元因果关系，这需要多个时间序列来解决。经验上的挑战在于获取有关基因，文化和行为共同进化的因果路径的时间序列数据。