Geographical and social isolation drive the evolution of Austronesian languages.

The origins of linguistic diversity remain controversial. Studies disagree on whether group features such as population size or social structure accelerate or decelerate linguistic differentiation. While some analyses of between-group factors highlight the role of geographical isolation and reduced linguistic exchange in differentiation, others suggest that linguistic divergence is driven primarily by warfare among neighbouring groups and the use of language as marker of group identity. Here we provide the first integrated test of the effects of five historical sociodemographic and geographic variables on three measures of linguistic diversification among 50 Austronesian languages: rates of word gain, loss and overall lexical turnover. We control for their shared evolutionary histories through a time-calibrated phylogenetic sister-pairs approach. Results show that languages spoken in larger communities create new words at a faster pace. Within-group conflict promotes linguistic differentiation by increasing word loss, while warfare hinders linguistic differentiation by decreasing both rates of word gain and loss. Finally, we show that geographical isolation is a strong driver of lexical evolution mainly due to a considerable drift-driven acceleration in rates of word loss. We conclude that the motor of extreme linguistic diversity in Austronesia may have been the dispersal of populations across relatively isolated islands, favouring strong cultural ties amongst societies instead of warfare and cultural group marking

Biogeography and adaptation in the Kuril Islands, Northeast Asia.

The Circumpolar North is generally recognized as a challenging environment to inhabit and yet, we know relatively little about how people managed their welfare in these places. Here, we add to the understanding of maritime hunter-gatherers in the subarctic North Pacific through a comparative approach that synthesizes biogeographic and archaeological data from the Kuril Islands. We conclude that our faunal, ceramic and lithic evidence support expectations from biogeography as assemblages from low biodiversity and insular regions show limited diet breadth, more locally produced pottery and a conservation of lithic resources. However, we highlight that these ecological factors did not strictly determine the occupation history of the archipelago as radiocarbon data suggests all regions experienced similar demographic fluctuations regard-less of their biogeography. These results imply additional pressures influenced the strategic use and settlement of the Kuril Islands and the need for increased chronological resolution to disentangle these complex historical factors

Evolution of the Okvik/Old Bering Sea culture of the Bering Strait as a major transition

Great transitions are thought to embody major shifts in locus of selection,labour diversification and communication systems. Such expectations arerelevant for biological and cultural systems as decades of research hasdemonstrated similar dynamics within the evolution of culture. The evolutionof the Neo-Inuit cultural tradition in the Bering Strait provides anideal context for examination of cultural transitions. The Okvik/OldBering Sea (Okvik/OBS) culture of Bering Strait is the first representativeof the Neo-Inuit tradition. Archaeological evidence drawn for settlementand subsistence data, technological traditions and mortuary contextssuggests that Okvik/OBS fits the definition of a major transition givenchange in the nature of group membership (from families to politicalgroups with social ranking), task organization (emergent labour specialization)and communication (advent of complex art forms conveying socialand ideological information). This permits us to develop a number of implications about the evolutionary process recognizing that transitions mayoccur on three scales: (1) ephemeral variants, as for example, simple technological entities; (2) integrated systems, spanning modular technology tosocio-economic strategies; and (3) simultaneous change across all scaleswith emergent properties.This article is part of the theme issue ‘Human socio-cultural evolution inlight of evolutionary transitions’

A quantitative workflow for modeling diversification in material culture.

Questions about the evolution of material culture are widespread in the humanities and social sciences. Statistical modeling of long-term changes in material culture is less common due to a lack of appropriate frameworks. Our goal is to close this gap and provide robust statistical methods for examining changes in the diversity of material culture. We provide an open-source and quantitative workflow for estimating rates of origination, extinction, and preservation, as well as identifying key shift points in the diversification histories of material culture. We demonstrate our approach using two distinct kinds of data: age ranges for the production of American car models, and radiocarbon dates associated with archaeological cultures of the European Neolithic. Our approach improves on existing frameworks by disentangling the relative contributions of origination and extinction to diversification. Our method also permits rigorous statistical testing of competing hypotheses to explain changes in diversity. Finally, we stress the value of a flexible approach that can be applied to data in various forms; this flexibility allows scholars to explore commonalities between forms of material culture and ask questions about the general properties of cultural change

Competition and extinction explain the evolution of diversity in American automobiles

One of the most remarkable aspects of our species is that while we show surprisingly little genetic diversity, we demonstrate astonishing amounts of cultural diversity. Perhaps most impressive is the diversity of our technologies, broadly defined as all the physical objects we produce and the skills we use to produce them. Despite considerable focus on the evolution of technology by social scientists and philosophers, there have been few attempts to systematically quantify technological diversity and therefore the dynamics of technological change remain poorly understood. Here we show a novel Bayesian model for examining technological diversification adopted from paleontological analysis of occurrence data. We use this framework to estimate the tempo of diversification in American car and truck models produced between 1896 and 2014 and to test the relative importance of competition and extrinsic factors in shaping changes in macroevolutionary rates. Our results identify a four-fold decrease in the origination and extinction rates of car models and a negative net diversification rate over the last thirty years. We also demonstrate that competition played a more significant role in car model diversification than either changes in oil prices or gross domestic product. Together our analyses provide a set of tools that can enhance current research on technological and cultural evolution by providing a flexible and quantitative framework for exploring the dynamics of diversification

The Paradox of Pottery in the Remote Kuril Islands

Archaeological research on pottery technology has traditionally emphasized the importance of agriculture, sedentism and population size to explain the adoption and use of ceramics (Eerkens, Neff and Glascock 2002). However, evidence accumulated in recent years disputes these traditional explanations by highlighting the widespread production and use of pottery by small-scale, semi-sedentary, hunter-gatherer communities (Jordan and Zvelebil 2009). This chapter contributes to the growing knowledge of hunter-gatherer pottery technology by investigating the manufacture and use of ceramics among maritime foragers in the remote Kuril Islands of Northeast Asia. In these islands, foraging populations produced pottery for nearly three millennia despite strong environmental limitations. This work explores the question of why Kuril populations continually produced and used pottery in this remote and challenging environment. Results of the research suggest that pottery was not only used in cooking activities but also served as an important technology for the production of marine oil and the economic livelihood of Kuril inhabitants

Replication Data for: Competition and extinction explain the evolution of diversity in American Automobiles

Five datasets are included here. The largest is the first and last year of production for American car models from 1896 to 2014. This is the dataset to be used with the PyRate program to estimate diversification dynamics. Fields in this dataset include: clade, a unique identifier for the auto manufacturer; species, a unique identifier for the car model; ts, the year of model origination; and te, the year of model extinction. Three covariate datasets are also included: raw GDP from 1896 to 2014, the price of oil (adjusted for inflation) from 1896 to 2014, and the total number of American car models during the same time period. All datasets are scaled so that the most recent time period is 0 (2014). Finally, a dataset that includes the first and last years of production for battery electric and hybrid electric vehicles is also provided, organized in the same structure as the American car models

Of Pots and People: Investigating Hunter-Gatherer Pottery Production and Social Networks in the Kuril Islands

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Washington, 2014Ethnographic and archaeological research shows that hunter-gatherers have colonized and inhabited a diverse range of environmental settings. One example of this is the occupation of the unique sub-arctic, island environment of the Kuril archipelago located in Northeast Asia. This research aims to investigate the strategies used by hunter-gatherers to meet the challenges associated with colonization and habitation of this dynamic landscape. Building from a human behavioral ecology framework, this research develops a model that provides a series of predictions for the structure of social networks in response to differing levels of environmental uncertainty within the Kuril Islands. Using a novel methodological approach, models of social relationships are derived from the compositional data of pottery indicating the movement of artifacts across the landscape. Once network models from archaeological data have been constructed, social network analysis methods are utilized to visually and quantitatively assess archaeological networks in relation to model expectations. In addition to investigating social network patterns, this research also provides a thorough and systematic approach to understanding the production and use of pottery within maritime foraging societies of the Kuril Islands. This includes the development of a regional pottery typology that contributes to the growing body of knowledge concerning the occupation history of the region. The research also investigated the technological attributes of pottery remains by utilizing a range for archaeometric methods to infer the pottery production process as well as regional and cultural differences in the use of pottery technology. Results of this research suggest that the colonization and settlement of the Kuril Islands is a complex process highly influenced by a range of environmental, cultural and demographic factors. In contrast to the theoretical expectations about the influence of biogeography, results suggest that environmental and geographic variables are not the primary influence on the colonization and long-term habitation of the Kuril Islands. Changes in the production and use of pottery vessels as well as differences in social network structures suggest the major differences recognized in the archipelago are primarily due to socio-cultural influences. This research supports a growing body of knowledge that living in marginal island landscapes is not comparable to living in geographic isolation but rather populations in these regions are highly influenced by broader political and economic conditions

Geographical and social isolation drive the evolution of Austronesian languages

The origins of linguistic diversity remain controversial. Studies disagree on whether group features such as population size or social structure accelerate or decelerate linguistic differentiation. While some analyses of between-group factors highlight the role of geographical isolation and reduced linguistic exchange in differentiation, others suggest that linguistic divergence is driven primarily by warfare among neighbouring groups and the use of language as marker of group identity. Here we provide the first integrated test of the effects of five historical sociodemographic and geographic variables on three measures of linguistic diversification among 50 Austronesian languages: rates of word gain, loss and overall lexical turnover. We control for their shared evolutionary histories through a time-calibrated phylogenetic sister-pairs approach. Results show that languages spoken in larger communities create new words at a faster pace. Within-group conflict promotes linguistic differentiation by increasing word loss, while warfare hinders linguistic differentiation by decreasing both rates of word gain and loss. Finally, we show that geographical isolation is a strong driver of lexical evolution mainly due to a considerable drift-driven acceleration in rates of word loss. We conclude that the motor of extreme linguistic diversity in Austronesia may have been the dispersal of populations across relatively isolated islands, favouring strong cultural ties amongst societies instead of warfare and cultural group marking