The Evolution and Dissolution of Cultural Memory

Recent theoretical progress in understanding the neural mechanisms of human memory has provided new ways of thinking about the adaptive consolidation of experience within the social context. One perspective is motivation: the limbic organization of memory is directed by motive controls that for humans are inextricably bound with social relations. Another perspective is developmental: the extended development of human juveniles has evolved through neurodevelopmental mechanisms that are consolidated in a single period of sequential stages of nocturnal sleep. Bringing these biological perspectives to understanding human cultural evolution suggests that memory and culture are highly interdependent processes. Cultural memory organizes the developing identities of each generation. Whereas human cultures evolved as small societies of intimates, the advent of civilization created large societies of strangers facing novel challenges of collective self-regulation. Globalization is causing the dissolution of traditional ethnocentric cultural memory, leaving modern identities to develop within the ambiguity of a global culture.