Foundations of the Age-Area Hypothesis

Matthew Baker

Palgrave Communications, 2021, vol. 8, issue 1, 1-17

Abstract: Abstract A useful tool in understanding the roots of the world geography of culture is the Age-Area-Hypothesis. The Age-Area Hypothesis (AAH) asserts that the point of geographical origin of a group of related cultures is most likely where the culture speaking the most divergent language is located. In spite of its widespread, multidisciplinary application, the hypothesis remains imprecisely stated, and has no theoretical underpinnings. This paper describes a model of the AAH based on an economic theory of mass migrations. The theory leads to a family of measures of cultural divergence, which can be referred to as Dyen divergence measures. One measure is used to develop an Age-Area Theorem, which links linguistic divergence and likelihood of geographical origin. The theory allows for computation of the likelihood different locations are origin points for a group of related cultures, and can be applied recursively to yield probabilities of different historical migratory paths. The theory yields an Occam’s-razor-like result: migratory paths that are the simplest are also the most likely; a key principle of the AAH. The paper concludes with an application to the geographical origins of the peoples speaking Semitic languages.

Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1057/s41599-021-00991-8 Abstract (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
Working Paper: Foundations of the Age-Area Hypothesis (2021)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:pal:palcom:v:8:y:2021:i:1:d:10.1057_s41599-021-00991-8

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/palcomms/about

DOI: 10.1057/s41599-021-00991-8

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Palgrave Communications from Palgrave Macmillan
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().