The cophylogeny of populations and cultures: reconstructing the evolution of Iranian tribal craft traditions using trees and jungles

Tehrani, J.J.; Collard, M.; Shennan, S.J.

Abstract

Phylogenetic approaches to culture have shed new light on the role played by population dispersals in the spread and diversification of cultural traditions. However, the fact that cultural inheritance is based on separate mechanisms from genetic inheritance means that socially transmitted traditions have the potential to diverge from population histories. Here, we suggest that associations between these two systems can be reconstructed using techniques developed to study cospeciation between hosts and parasites and related problems in biology. Relationships among the latter are patterned by four main processes: co-divergence, intra-host speciation (duplication), intra-host extinction (sorting) and horizontal transfers. We show that patterns of cultural inheritance are structured by analogous processes, and then demonstrate the applicability of the host-parasite model to culture using empirical data on Iranian tribal populations.

Citation

Tehrani, J., Collard, M., & Shennan, S. (2010). The cophylogeny of populations and cultures: reconstructing the evolution of Iranian tribal craft traditions using trees and jungles. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 365(1559), 3865-3874. https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2010.0020

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Publication Date: Dec 12, 2010
• Deposit Date: Apr 25, 2014
• Publicly Available Date: Apr 30, 2014
• Journal: Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences
• Print ISSN: 0962-8436
• Electronic ISSN: 1471-2970
• Publisher: The Royal Society
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 365
• Issue: 1559
• Pages: 3865-3874
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2010.0020
• Keywords: Cultural phylogenies, Population history, Coevolution, Cophylogeny, Cultural evolution, Iranian tribes.
• Public URL: https://durham-repository.worktribe.com/output/1557130