Phylogenetic methods offer a promising advance for the historical study of language and cultural relationships. Applications to date, however, have been hampered by traditional approaches dependent on unfalsifiable authority statements: in this regard, historical linguistics remains in a similar position to evolutionary biology prior to the cladistic revolution. Influential phylogenetic studies of Bantu languages over the last two decades, which provide the foundation for multiple analyses of Bantu sociocultural histories, are a major case in point. Comparative analyses of basic lexica, instead of directly treating written words, use only numerical symbols that express non‐replicable authority opinion about underlying relationships. Building on a previous study of Uto‐Aztecan, here we analyse Bantu language relationships with methods deriving from DNA sequence optimization algorithms, treating basic vocabulary as sequences of sounds. This yields finer‐grained results that indicate major revisions to the Bantu tree, and enables more robust inferences about the history of Bantu language expansion and/or migration throughout sub‐Saharan Africa. “Early‐split” versus “late‐split” hypotheses for East and West Bantu are tested, and overall results are compared to trees based on numerical reductions of vocabulary data. Reconstruction of language histories is more empirically based and robust than with previous methods.

Strategic commodificationThe object biography of Tibetan thangka paintings in contemporary China Ming XUE, American Museum of Natural HistoryThis article focuses on Tibetan thangka and thangka painters in Amdo Rebgong (Qinghai, China), who are caught between a state-fostered tourist market promoting Tibetan thangkas as folk art and an intermediate market where clients pursue the religious authenticity and efficacy of thangka paintings. My study rejects any simple dichotomy of sacred object and commodity and views the object biography of Tibetan thangkas as contingent on the sites of thangka within the complex structure of the art market, the context of the actual exchanges, and the specific relationships forged between painters and their clients, an important narrative that has been missing in previous studies of Rebgong thangka art and its commodification. I argue that commodification should be understood as a strategic process where some Rebgong painters tactically participate in the market in order to authenticate their religious identity, preserve a cultural tradition, or establish artistic authority within and beyond Tibetan communities.

The article examines how the life experiences of a Tibetan female thangka painter, Lutsojam (known as Lutso), are intertwined with the meaning of her artworks, in particular, with the thangka painting, “Avalokiteśvara with Mind at Rest,” which I followed from its birth in Amdo Rebgong (Qinghai, China), to its visit to an art gallery in Beijing, and finally to its entry into the collection of an ethnographic museum in New York. Through painting thangkas and training her own apprentices (especially female apprentices), Lutso is able to support her family, empower other Tibetan women, and authenticate a religious identity that has been elided in the official narrative of Tibetan thangka art.