Steven Kuhn, talking about the importance of matching scales of explanation with scales of evidence (2012), and citing ecologist Simon Levin (1992):
Levin makes a parallel observation about ecological processes: “…if there are predictable patterns that may be observed in what we define as communities and ecosystems, they have arisen through the individualistic ecological and evolutionary responses of their components…” (1992, 1960). The emergent patterns that we call archaeological cultures in the Paleolithic are in some ways analogous. They are the result of countless decisions by individuals in the past, following agendas that may have been quite divergent, and that certainly had little to do with creating and maintaining what we perceive as the Mousterian, the Magdalenian or the Aurignacian. Yet the fact remains that we can identify and draw boundaries—sometimes fuzzy ones— in time and space around these entities.
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1. Kuhn, S. “Questions of Complexity and Scale in Explanations for Cultural Transitions in the Pleistocene: A Case Study from the Early Upper Paleolithic.” Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory: 1-18.
2. Levin, S. A. (1992). “The Problem of Pattern and Scale in Ecology: The Robert H. MacArthur Award Lecture.” Ecology 73(6): 1943-1967.
