35
views
0
recommends
+1 Recommend
0 collections
    0
    shares
      • Record: found
      • Abstract: found
      • Article: not found

      On the shape and fabric of human history.

      Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences
      Cross-Cultural Comparison, Cultural Evolution, European Continental Ancestry Group, Humans, Language, Linguistics, Models, Theoretical, Oceanic Ancestry Group, Phylogeny

      Read this article at

      ScienceOpenPublisherPMC
      Bookmark
          There is no author summary for this article yet. Authors can add summaries to their articles on ScienceOpen to make them more accessible to a non-specialist audience.

          Abstract

          In this paper we outline two debates about the nature of human cultural history. The first focuses on the extent to which human history is tree-like (its shape), and the second on the unity of that history (its fabric). Proponents of cultural phylogenetics are often accused of assuming that human history has been both highly tree-like and consisting of tightly linked lineages. Critics have pointed out obvious exceptions to these assumptions. Instead of a priori dichotomous disputes about the validity of cultural phylogenetics, we suggest that the debate is better conceptualized as involving positions along continuous dimensions. The challenge for empirical research is, therefore, to determine where particular aspects of culture lie on these dimensions. We discuss the ability of current computational methods derived from evolutionary biology to address these questions. These methods are then used to compare the extent to which lexical evolution is tree-like in different parts of the world and to evaluate the coherence of cultural and linguistic lineages.

          Related collections

          Author and article information

          Journal
          21041216
          2981918
          10.1098/rstb.2010.0162

          Chemistry
          Cross-Cultural Comparison,Cultural Evolution,European Continental Ancestry Group,Humans,Language,Linguistics,Models, Theoretical,Oceanic Ancestry Group,Phylogeny

          Comments

          Comment on this article