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Analysing the Diversification of Cultural Variants using Longitudinal Richness Data

One of the most significant challenges for cultural evolution is the inference of macroevolutionary patterns from historical and archaeological sources of cultural data. Here, we examine the utility of diversification rate analysis for observing trends in the mode and tempo of cultural evolution using simulated cultural data sets. We explore a range of scenarios in which transmission modes, population size, and innovation rates change over time and generate population-frequency data. From this data, we extract longitudinal richness and further reduce its completeness through time-averaging and random sampling. Given that perfect population-level frequencies can rarely be assumed or even approximated from historical data, these simulated scenarios provide the grounds for exploring the inferential power of longitudinal richness data. Results suggest that diversification rate analysis can identify profiles of underlying changes in population size, innovation rates, and cultural transmission. Furthermore, our results highlight a series of methodological outcomes that can be used to enhance future research into the dynamic patterns of cultural evolution.