The Impact of the Prehistoric Out-of-Africa Migration on Cultural Diversity

Oded Galor, Marc Klemp and Daniel Wainstock

No 10379, CESifo Working Paper Series from CESifo

Abstract: Evidence suggests that the prehistoric Out of Africa Migration has impacted the degree of intra-population genetic and phenotypic diversity across the globe. This paper provides the first evidence that this migration has shaped cultural diversity. Leveraging a folklore catalogue of 958 oral traditions across the world, we find that ethnic groups further away from East Africa along the migratory routes have lower folkloric diversity. This pattern is consistent with the compression of genetic, phenotypic, and phonemic traits along the Out of Africa migration routes, setting conditions for the emergence and proliferation of differential cultural diversity and economic development across the world.

Keywords: diversity; culture; Out of Africa; folklore (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O10 Z10 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cul, nep-dev, nep-evo, nep-gro, nep-int and nep-ure
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

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Related works:
Working Paper: The Impact of the Prehistoric Out-of-Africa Migration on Cultural Diversity (2023)
Working Paper: The Impact of the Prehistoric Out-of-Africa Migration on Cultural Diversity (2023)
Working Paper: The Impact of the Prehistoric Out of Africa Migration on Cultural Diversity (2023)
Working Paper: The Impact of the Prehistoric Out of Africa Migration on Cultural Diversity (2023)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ces:ceswps:_10379

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