Included are the evolution of diversity, regionality, technology, and landscapes. California during its transformation into the modern world is historically visible. What role world-systems relationships may have played in the evolution of diversity, however, is controversial. The economic and political dependency of subordinate regions, for example, often has created the illusion that they are passive and unchanging recipients of essential goods and technologies from the core or dominant region. Others, however, have argued that world-system peripheries are likely to be "hotbeds" of social and cultural change. For example, there is an argument that the expansion of capitalism has increased social and cultural diversity in peripheral regions because of the unique and creative responses of indigenous peoples to their economic and political condition. If one follows evolutionary principles that the intensity of selection increases with variability, such conditions also imply a jump in the rate of social and cultural evolution. The formation of new hierarchical social structures such as those that emerged rapidly in California Gold Rush mining towns like Nevada City and Grass Valley is implied. Political processes are also important. The emergence of political “big men” among 17th century Native Americans in southern New England, for example, appears to be a response to world-system expansion. Recent work also suggests that a single "big chief” emerged among the Kasahaya Pomo after they moved to clustered residential compounds next to the Russian colony at Fort Ross. Ethnic diversification is another transformation process that appears to be associated with world-system peripheries. New “ethnic
Included are the evolution of diversity, regionality, technology, and landscapes. California during its transformation into the modern world is historically visible. What role world-systems relationships may have played in the evolution of diversity, however, is controversial. The economic and political dependency of subordinate regions, for example, often has created the illusion that they are passive and unchanging recipients of essential goods and technologies from the core or dominant region. Others, however, have argued that world-system peripheries are likely to be "hotbeds" of social and cultural change. For example, there is an argument that the expansion of capitalism has increased social and cultural diversity in peripheral regions because of the unique and creative responses of indigenous peoples to their economic and political condition. If one follows evolutionary principles that the intensity of selection increases with variability, such conditions also imply a jump in the rate of social and cultural evolution. The formation of new hierarchical social structures such as those that emerged rapidly in California Gold Rush mining towns like Nevada City and Grass Valley is implied. Political processes are also important. The emergence of political “big men” among 17th century Native Americans in southern New England, for example, appears to be a response to world-system expansion. Recent work also suggests that a single "big chief” emerged among the Kasahaya Pomo after they moved to clustered residential compounds next to the Russian colony at Fort Ross. Ethnic diversification is another transformation process that appears to be associated with world-system peripheries. New “ethnic