OPEN SEMIOTICS RESOURCE CENTER

Virtual Symposia

The Toronto Semiotic Circle organized a symposium on "Imitation, Memory, and Cultural Changes: Probing the Meme Hypothesis" held at Victoria College (University of Toronto), Northrop Frye Hall, Room 205, on May 4-6, 2007.

This event was organized with the financial support of Victoria University (SSHRC and Principal Office grants), the Departments of Sociology and Anthropology at the University of Toronto, the Emilio Goggio Chair of Italian Studies, and in cooperation with the Open Semiotic Resource Center.

Is a Handaxe a Meme

Abstract

If the meme is to be conceived of as analogous to the gene then it must be a unitary phenomenon whether the ‘phenotypic’ expression is a handaxe or a poem. This paper will consider whether identifying handaxes with memes offers a conceptual basis for empirical research. This paper extends the proposal made by McNabb, Binyon, and Hazelwood (2004), based on an analysis of the form of South African Acheulian handaxes, that handaxes were individualized memic constructs. The nature of handaxe manufacture and the variability of handaxe form will be presented to raise the question of what exactly it means to identify this artifact type as a meme. This discussion highlights the complexity of the interaction between memory and action in the production of artifacts. The question that emerges from this discussion is whether the nature of memory involved in handaxe production is of the same kind as the memory involved in other activities that have been linked with the concept of the meme. This question is particularly interesting because the handaxe is a technological phenomenon which lasted for over 1 million years and was produced by a pre-modern hominin (Homo erectus).

Reference

McNabb, J,, F. Binyon, and L. Hazelwood. 2004. The Large Cutting Tools from the South African Acheulean and the Question of Social Traditions. Current Anthropology 45(5): 653-677.