Phylogenetic Approaches to Culture III & IV
Lectures
Phylogenetic Approaches to Culture – Part 3: Ancestral States
Fiona Jordan discusses the use of phylogenetic approaches in predicting the traits most likely to have been present in a shared ancestral culture. In particular, once a phylogenetic tree thought to represent the relationship between existing cultures and the cultures from which they descended has been constructed (often through the use of using linguistic data), data on the traits of present cultures may be used to infer the traits most likely to have been present in shared a shared ancestral culture.
Phylogenetic Approaches to Culture – Part 4: Modeling Change
Fiona Jordan discusses the use of simulation techniques for modeling change in a cultural trait, beginning with an ancestral culture and continuing through descendant cultures remaining in the present day. Uses the example of land tenure to illustrate how these approaches may sometimes enable the discovery of re-occurring sequences of cultural change.