The popularity spectrum applied to a cross-cultural question

Mitsuhiro Nakamura, Joe Yuichiro Wakano, Kenichi Aoki and Yutaka Kobayashi

Theoretical Population Biology, 2020, vol. 133, issue C, 104-116

Abstract: 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.

Keywords: Horizontal transmission; Population structure; Stylistic traits; Functional traits; Bayesian MCMC (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:thpobi:v:133:y:2020:i:c:p:104-116

DOI: 10.1016/j.tpb.2019.10.003

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