Hypotheses
- Cultural phylogeny will be a stronger predictor than ecology for a majority of traits, except for technology and material culture traits (5).Mathew, Sarah - Behavioural variation in 172 small-scale societies indicates that social lea..., 2015 - 3 Variables
Inter-group variation is greater in humans than in any other animal, and scholars continue to debate the cause of this diversity. Two competing explanatory models of human variation emphasize either (1) ecological differences and "evoked" culture or (2) population-level effects of cultural transmission. The former emphasizes mechanisms that operate within a single generation, while the latter emphasizes cumulative cultural history operating over many generations. To test these competing models, the authors measured the relative power of ecological variables as compared to culture history to predict behavioral variation in 172 western North American tribes. Culture history is subdivided into culture phylogeny (based on language phylogeny) and spatial distance.
Related Hypotheses Cite More By Author - Behavioral traits will be affected by both cultural history and ecology (5).Mathew, Sarah - Behavioural variation in 172 small-scale societies indicates that social lea..., 2015 - 3 Variables
Inter-group variation is greater in humans than in any other animal, and scholars continue to debate the cause of this diversity. Two competing explanatory models of human variation emphasize either (1) ecological differences and "evoked" culture or (2) population-level effects of cultural transmission. The former emphasizes mechanisms that operate within a single generation, while the latter emphasizes cumulative cultural history operating over many generations. To test these competing models, the authors measured the relative power of ecological variables as compared to culture history to predict behavioral variation in 172 western North American tribes. Culture history is subdivided into culture phylogeny (based on language phylogeny) and spatial distance.
Related Hypotheses Cite More By Author - Cultural history will have a stronger effect on the probability of a trait being present than ecology (5).Mathew, Sarah - Behavioural variation in 172 small-scale societies indicates that social lea..., 2015 - 3 Variables
Inter-group variation is greater in humans than in any other animal, and scholars continue to debate the cause of this diversity. Two competing explanatory models of human variation emphasize either (1) ecological differences and "evoked" culture or (2) population-level effects of cultural transmission. The former emphasizes mechanisms that operate within a single generation, while the latter emphasizes cumulative cultural history operating over many generations. To test these competing models, the authors measured the relative power of ecological variables as compared to culture history to predict behavioral variation in 172 western North American tribes. Culture history is subdivided into culture phylogeny (based on language phylogeny) and spatial distance.
Related Hypotheses Cite More By Author - Both cultural phylogeny and ecology will be stronger predictors than spatial distance for a majority of traits in all categories (5).Mathew, Sarah - Behavioural variation in 172 small-scale societies indicates that social lea..., 2015 - 4 Variables
Inter-group variation is greater in humans than in any other animal, and scholars continue to debate the cause of this diversity. Two competing explanatory models of human variation emphasize either (1) ecological differences and "evoked" culture or (2) population-level effects of cultural transmission. The former emphasizes mechanisms that operate within a single generation, while the latter emphasizes cumulative cultural history operating over many generations. To test these competing models, the authors measured the relative power of ecological variables as compared to culture history to predict behavioral variation in 172 western North American tribes. Culture history is subdivided into culture phylogeny (based on language phylogeny) and spatial distance.
Related Hypotheses Cite More By Author - The effect of ecology will be greater than culture history in a majority of the traits related to subsistence (5).Mathew, Sarah - Behavioural variation in 172 small-scale societies indicates that social lea..., 2015 - 3 Variables
Inter-group variation is greater in humans than in any other animal, and scholars continue to debate the cause of this diversity. Two competing explanatory models of human variation emphasize either (1) ecological differences and "evoked" culture or (2) population-level effects of cultural transmission. The former emphasizes mechanisms that operate within a single generation, while the latter emphasizes cumulative cultural history operating over many generations. To test these competing models, the authors measured the relative power of ecological variables as compared to culture history to predict behavioral variation in 172 western North American tribes. Culture history is subdivided into culture phylogeny (based on language phylogeny) and spatial distance.
Related Hypotheses Cite More By Author - The effects of cultural phylogeny will tend to decline over time (5).Mathew, Sarah - Behavioural variation in 172 small-scale societies indicates that social lea..., 2015 - 3 Variables
Inter-group variation is greater in humans than in any other animal, and scholars continue to debate the cause of this diversity. Two competing explanatory models of human variation emphasize either (1) ecological differences and "evoked" culture or (2) population-level effects of cultural transmission. The former emphasizes mechanisms that operate within a single generation, while the latter emphasizes cumulative cultural history operating over many generations. To test these competing models, the authors measured the relative power of ecological variables as compared to culture history to predict behavioral variation in 172 western North American tribes. Culture history is subdivided into culture phylogeny (based on language phylogeny) and spatial distance.
Related Hypotheses Cite More By Author - The effect of cultural history will be largely driven by cultural phylogeny, not spatial distance (5).Mathew, Sarah - Behavioural variation in 172 small-scale societies indicates that social lea..., 2015 - 3 Variables
Inter-group variation is greater in humans than in any other animal, and scholars continue to debate the cause of this diversity. Two competing explanatory models of human variation emphasize either (1) ecological differences and "evoked" culture or (2) population-level effects of cultural transmission. The former emphasizes mechanisms that operate within a single generation, while the latter emphasizes cumulative cultural history operating over many generations. To test these competing models, the authors measured the relative power of ecological variables as compared to culture history to predict behavioral variation in 172 western North American tribes. Culture history is subdivided into culture phylogeny (based on language phylogeny) and spatial distance.
Related Hypotheses Cite More By Author - Linguistic diversity will be predicted by some of 14 environmental variables across continental regions universally (2).Axelsen, Jacob Bock - River density and landscape roughness are universal determinants of linguist..., 2014 - 15 Variables
The authors investigate the relationship between linguistic diversity and various environmental and spatial variables associated with biodiversity. Most of these variables predict linguistic diversity variably across different continents, and more so within Africa and extended Asia (Asia, the Pacific, and Australia) than within Europe and the Americas. This divide is theorized to be a result of differences in demography and impact of colonialism between the two global regions. However, two environmental factors, landscape roughness and density of river systems, are found to be significant predictors across all global regions. The authors suggest that, as in processes of speciation, rough terrain and watercourses both create physical barriers between which languages can develop in isolation while, in the case of river junctions, also providing transportation routes whereby hybrid languages can occasionally manifest.
Related Hypotheses Cite More By Author - Ecological diversity promotes state centralization.Fenske, James - Ecology, trade, and states in pre-colonial Africa, 2014 - 2 Variables
The author analyzes 440 Sub-Saharan African societies to test whether trade across ecologically diverse zones is predictive of degree of state centralization (state capacity or strength of state) in pre-colonial Africa. The author finds that diverse ecology is predictive of state capacity and that trade supports class stratification. The author also emphasizes the importance of historical contingency and ethnographic data consultation in understanding mechanisms in individual cases.
Related Hypotheses Cite More By Author - Technological complexity is positively associated with risk of resource failure (1).Collard, Mark - Risk, mobility or population size?: Drivers of technological richness among ..., 2013 - 6 Variables
This paper builds off previous research into the effect of population size and resource risk on complexity of subsistence technology by investigating the relationship between these independent variables and total number of material items and techniques used by various western North American hunter-gatherer groups. This tally of total technological complexity is found to be insignificantly related to population size or residential mobility; however, there is a significant correlation in the expected direction between technological complexity and one measure of resource risk (mean annual temperature during driest month). Tying this finding to previous analyses of subsistence technologies, the authors theorize that environmental risk is a pervasive driver of technological ingenuity and cultural evolution.
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