How the Past Lives with Us : Epigenetics as a Link Between Cultural and Biological Evolution

Abstract

This chapter outlines biological and cultural evolution as two complementary images of the same reality. The authors show the extent to which the two processes are mutually interconnected and demonstrate that within the evolution of life, neither can claim precedence and primacy.

Using a conceptual framework outlined in an excursion into nineteenth century biology and while applying the results of modern epigenetics, the authors thus argue that in some cases, cultural memory can become a hereditary trace in subsequent generations, making cultural evolution just another aspect of biological evolution.

Keywords

• dual inheritance theory
• organic memory
• epigenetics
• transgenerational epigenetic inheritance
• phenotypic and genotypic accommodation