Seshat: The Global History Databank

Turchin, Peter; Brennan, Rob; Currie, Thomas E.; Feeney, Kevin; François, Pieter; Hoyer, Daniel; Manning, J. G.; Marciniak, Arkadiusz; Mullins, Daniel; Palmisano, Alessio; Peregrine, Peter N.; Turner, Edward; Whitehouse, Harvey

doi:10.21237/c7clio6127917

Cited by 93 publications

(127 citation statements)

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“…In the coming years, more quantitative phylogenies for the major language families will be published, and the number and richness of comparative cultural databases will undoubtedly grow (7,92 In the analysis, 4,200 of the most likely possible trees were used, and the consensus tree is a summary of these trees for illustrative purposes. The gray at each of the internal nodes represents the proportion of trees sampled without this node and provides an indication of phylogenetic uncertainty.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Cultural macroevolution matters

Gray

Watts

2017

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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Evolutionary thinking can be applied to both cultural microevolution and macroevolution. However, much of the current literature focuses on cultural microevolution. In this article, we argue that the growing availability of large cross-cultural datasets facilitates the use of computational methods derived from evolutionary biology to answer broad-scale questions about the major transitions in human social organization. Biological methods can be extended to human cultural evolution. We illustrate this argument with examples drawn from our recent work on the roles of Big Gods and ritual human sacrifice in the evolution of large, stratified societies. These analyses show that, although the presence of Big Gods is correlated with the evolution of political complexity, in Austronesian cultures at least, they do not play a causal role in ratcheting up political complexity. In contrast, ritual human sacrifice does play a causal role in promoting and sustaining the evolution of stratified societies by maintaining and legitimizing the power of elites. We briefly discuss some common objections to the application of phylogenetic modeling to cultural evolution and argue that the use of these methods does not require a commitment to either gene-like cultural inheritance or to the view that cultures are like vertebrate species. We conclude that the careful application of these methods can substantially enhance the prospects of an evolutionary science of human history. cultural evolution | macroevolution | phylogenetics | religion | Big Gods D arwin's On the Origin of the Species ends with the poetic phrase, "From so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved" (1). The central challenge for evolutionary biology is to explain this diversity of endless forms. Evolutionary biologists tackle this task by studying both microevolution (changes in gene frequency within a population) and macroevolution (changes between species over much longer time periods). The aim is to have a mechanistic understanding of the evolution of biological diversity that integrates microlevel processes and macrolevel patterns. This work examines ways in which evolutionary thinking and methods can be extended into the realm of culture, extending the scope of biology to include questions that have traditionally been restricted to the humanities and social sciences. Human cultures also display a vast variety of most beautiful and most wonderful forms. We speak ∼7,000 different languages, engage in hundreds of different religious practices, build many different types of houses, exploit different resources for subsistence, use numerous different kinship systems, and abide by a striking array of marital, sexual, and child-rearing norms (2). The cultural processes that produce such striking cultural diversity must be explained. The field of cultural evolution is currently beginning to blossom (Fig. 1). There is a new cultural evolution society, a proposed journal, and an inaugural conference (3). However,...

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Cultural macroevolution matters

Gray

Watts

2017

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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“…One model is provided by Seshat, which is attempting to use historical and archaeological data from 30 specific locations to examine cultural stability and change over long periods of time (Turchin et al 2015). This is a model that has already been used in archaeology and history, and by combining the two Seshat will provide an extremely useful resource for the study of cultural evolution.…”

Section: University Of Connecticut Corresponding Author's Email: Xygamentioning

confidence: 99%

Developing the Field Site Concept for the Study of Cultural Evolution

Wilson¹,

Whitehouse²

2017

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“…The challenges identified in this paper come from the author's experiences developing semantic data quality tools (Feeney, 2014, Feeney, 2017 and applying them to large, international data collection efforts like large, international social science datasets , Turchin, 2015 or major linked data hubs (Meehan, 2016). Interactions with dataset stakeholders over a number of years have suggested that despite the advantages of semantic data quality approaches, e.g.…”

Section: Background Experiences and Related Workmentioning

confidence: 99%

Challenges for Value-driven Semantic Data Quality Management

Brennan

2017

Proceedings of the 19th International Conference on Enterprise Information Systems

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Abstract:This paper reflects on six years developing semantic data quality tools and curation systems for both largescale social sciences data collection and a major web of data hub. This experience has led the author to believe in using organisational value as a mechanism for automation of data quality management to deal with Big Data volumes and variety. However there are many challenges in developing these automated systems and this discussion paper sets out a set of challenges with respect to the current state of the art and identifies a number of potential avenues for researchers to tackle these challenges.

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Seshat: The Global History Databank

Cited by 93 publications

References 50 publications

Cultural macroevolution matters

Cultural macroevolution matters

Developing the Field Site Concept for the Study of Cultural Evolution

Challenges for Value-driven Semantic Data Quality Management

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