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The Uses of Cultural Phylogenetics in Archaeology

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Handbook of Evolutionary Research in Archaeology

Abstract

In recent decades, phylogenetic methods originated in evolutionary biology have been put forward as fruitful strategies to trace and reconstruct the origin, development, distribution, and interrelatedness of archaeological artifacts and traditions. Artifact phylogenies are increasingly being used by archaeologists to infer, develop, and test hypotheses about the processes that originate and shape material culture sets, as well as to study the extent and rates of cultural innovation, borrowing, diffusion, convergence, and loss. As an analytical tool, cultural phylogenetics can also be used to test hypotheses about the emergence, change, and exchange of artifact types, thereby allowing researchers to make inferences about temporal and regional behavioral patterns. This chapter will review some basic concepts of cultural phylogenetics, discuss its applications in archaeology, and reflect on some of the main challenges and prospects faced by the field.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Note that clades are hierarchically nested, i.e., each clade is included within a larger cluster. For example, chimpanzees and bonobos constitute a clade because they shared a common ancestor most recently. At the same time, these two cluster with humans in another clade, since all three show greater similarity with each other than with gorillas, and again gorillas form a clade with humans, chimpanzees, and bonobos because these four are more similar to one another than to orangutans and so on (Nickels and Nelson 2005).

  2. 2.

    Each of these has an explanatory website and free online tutorials. For a comprehensive list of Phylogeny programs, see: http://evolution.genetics.washington.edu/phylip/software.html.

  3. 3.

    For more thorough and detailed reviews of relevant contributions of cultural phylogenetics in archaeological research, see García Rivero 2016; Mace et al. 2005; Renfrew and Forster, 2006; Lipo et al. 2006; O’Brien 2008; Shennan 2009.

  4. 4.

    What is known as Galton’s problem.

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Acknowledgments

I am grateful to the editor of the volume, Dr. Anna Marie Prentiss, for her guidance and to the two reviewers of this chapter. I am particularly thankful to Dr. Ben Marwick for his insightful suggestions.Data Sharing StatementData sharing not applicable to this article as no datasets were generated or analyzed during the current study.

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  1. Cognitive Psychology Unit, Leiden University, Leiden, The Netherlands

    Larissa Mendoza Straffon

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Correspondence to Larissa Mendoza Straffon .

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  1. Department of Anthropology, University of Montana, Missoula, MT, USA

    Anna Marie Prentiss

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Straffon, L.M. (2019). The Uses of Cultural Phylogenetics in Archaeology. In: Prentiss, A. (eds) Handbook of Evolutionary Research in Archaeology. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-11117-5_8

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