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7 lines
1.2 KiB
<[[Brennen]]> TrackingAcademics
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* [http://cladistics.coas.missouri.edu/ home]
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* [http://cladistics.coas.missouri.edu/pubs.html publications]
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* [http://cladistics.coas.missouri.edu/bio.html bio] (see quote below)
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:Lately I’ve concentrated on the use of phylogenetic methods, especially cladistics, in archaeology. This is extremely controversial, as is the application of evolutionary principles to cultural phenomena generally. The argument has been made that cultural evolution is anagenetic (in a straight line) rather than cladogenetic (branching). I do not support this notion. Another argument is that “biological” methods cannot resolve cultural phylogeny because culture involves horizontal as opposed to strictly vertical transmission. As a result, cultural phylogeny is too reticulate to be understood by using cladistics or any other phylogenetic method. Of course, this pessimistic view overlooks the fact that much of nature is reticulate—for example, the best guess is that 40% of angiosperm taxa are “hybrids.” But this hasn’t caused naturalists to throw up their hands in defeat. Rather, they work around the problems or take them apart bit by bit using a battery of clever methods and techniques. I’m trying to do the same thing.
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