ABSTRACT Ancient monuments are puzzling from an evolutionary perspective. It is obvious that their construction would have been costly in terms of energy, but it is not clear how they would have enhanced reproductive success. In the late 1980s, Robert Dunnell proposed a solution to this conundrum. He argued that wasting energy on monuments and other forms of what he called “cultural elaboration” was adaptive in highly variable environments. Here, we report a study in which we used an agent-based model to test Dunnell’s hypothesis. We found that the propensity to waste was subject to strong negative selection regardless of the level of environmental variability. At the start of the simulation runs, agents wasted ca. 50% of the time but selection rapidly drove that rate down, ultimately settling at ca. 5–7%. This casts doubt on the ability of Dunnell’s hypothesis to explain instances of cultural elaboration in the archaeological record.

中文翻译：

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基于主体的模型实验对邓内尔关于文化加工的自适应废物解释提出了质疑

摘要从进化的角度来看，古迹令人困惑。显然，从能源的角度来看，它们的建造本来会很昂贵的，但尚不清楚它们如何提高繁殖成功率。在1980年代后期，罗伯特·邓内尔（Robert Dunnell）提出了解决这一难题的方案。他认为，在古迹和他所谓的“文化装饰”等其他形式上浪费能量，可以适应高度变化的环境。在这里，我们报告了一项研究，其中我们使用了基于代理的模型来检验Dunnell的假设。我们发现，无论环境多寡，废物的倾向都受到强烈的负面选择。在模拟运行开始时，代理浪费了约。50％的时间，但是选择迅速使该比率下降，最终稳定在大约50％。5–7％。