The popularity spectrum applied to a cross-cultural question

We investigate a new approach for identifying the contribution of horizontal transmission between groups to cross-cultural similarity. This method can be applied to datasets that record the presence or absence of artefacts, or attributes thereof, in archaeological and ethnographic assemblages, from...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Theoretical population biology 2020-06, Vol.133, p.104-116
Main Authors: Nakamura, Mitsuhiro, Wakano, Joe Yuichiro, Aoki, Kenichi, Kobayashi, Yutaka
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Archaeology
Bayes Theorem
Bayesian MCMC
Computer Simulation
Cross-Cultural Comparison
Cultural Evolution
Functional traits
Horizontal transmission
Population structure
Stylistic traits
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Summary:We investigate a new approach for identifying the contribution of horizontal transmission between groups to cross-cultural similarity. This method can be applied to datasets that record the presence or absence of artefacts, or attributes thereof, in archaeological and ethnographic assemblages, from which popularity spectra can be constructed. Based on analytical and simulation models, we show that the form of such spectra is sensitive to horizontal transmission between groups. We then fit the analytical model to existing datasets by Bayesian MCMC and obtain evidence for strong horizontal transmission in oceanic as opposed to continental datasets. We check the validity of our statistical method by using individual-based models, and show that the vertical transmission rate tends to be underestimated if the datasets are obtained from lattice-structured rather than island-structured meta-populations. We also suggest that there may be more borrowing of functional than stylistic traits, although the evidence for this is currently ambiguous. •A new method is proposed to detect between-group horizontal cultural transmission.•Popularity spectrum of cultural traits is derived for a toy analytical model.•This spectrum is fitted by Bayesian MCMC to empirical and simulated datasets.•Oceanic datasets yield higher horizontal transmission rates than continental ones.•Lattice structure leads to significant underestimates of vertical transmission rate.
ISSN:0040-5809
1096-0325
DOI:10.1016/j.tpb.2019.10.003