The Evolution of Cultural Diversity: A Phylogenetic ApproachRuth Mace, Clare J Holden, Stephen Shennan Routledge, 2016 M09 16 - 301 pages Virtually all aspects of human behavior show enormous variation both within and between cultural groups, including material culture, social organization and language. Thousands of distinct cultural groups exist: about 6,000 languages are spoken today, and it is thought that a far greater number of languages existed in the past but became extinct. Using a Darwinian approach, this book seeks to explain this rich cultural variation. There are a number of theoretical reasons to believe that cultural diversification might be tree-like, that is phylogenetic: material and non-material culture is clearly inherited by descendants, there is descent with modification, and languages appear to be hierarchically related. There are also a number of theoretical reasons to believe that cultural evolution is not tree-like: cultural inheritance is not Mendelian and can indeed be vertical, horizontal or oblique, evidence of borrowing abounds, cultures are not necessarily biological populations and can be transient and complex. Here, for the first time, this title tackles these questions of cultural evolution empirically and quantitatively, using a range of case studies from Africa, the Pacific, Europe, Asia and America. A range of powerful theoretical tools developed in evolutionary biology is used to test detailed hypotheses about historical patterns and adaptive functions in cultural evolution. Evidence is amassed from archaeological, linguist and cultural datasets, from both recent and historical or pre-historical time periods. A unifying theme is that the phylogenetic approach is a useful and powerful framework, both for describing the evolutionary history of these traits, and also for testing adaptive hypotheses about their evolution and co-evolution. Contributors include archaeologists, anthropologists, evolutionary biologists and linguists, and this book will be of great interest to all those involved in these areas. |
Other editions - View all
The Evolution of Cultural Diversity: A PHYLOGENETIC APPROACH Ruth Mace,Clare J Holden,Stephen Shennan No preview available - 2005 |
Common terms and phrases
Africa analysis ancestor Anthropology archaeological artefact Austronesian languages Bantu language tree Bantu languages Bantu-speaking populations basic vocabulary basketry basketry assemblages Bayesian biological bootstrap Boyd branch lengths brideprice Carpet cattle Cavalli-Sforza Chapter character Chuval clade cladistics cladogram coefficients Collard comparative methods correlated evolution cultural evolution cultural traits cultural transmission dataset descent rules distance distribution diversity Ersari ethnogenesis evidence evolutionary Express Train Figure genes genetic geographic groups Holden and Mace homoplasy horizontal transmission human hypothesis Indo-European inference lineages material culture matrilineal matrix maximum parsimony MCMC Moore and Romney NeighborNet nodes Pagel parameters patterns phylogenetic comparative methods phylogenetic methods phylogenetic signal phylogenetic trees phylogeny Pomo population history posterior probability processes PSDP Tekke ratio at birth relationships Salor sample Saryk sex ratio Shennan similar species split decomposition splits graph studies taxa taxon taxonomy Tekke Terrell tree model Turkmen University Press variables variation villages Welsch West Bantu languages Yomut