1A COMPARATIVE PHYLOGENETIC APPROACH TO AUSTRONESIAN CULTURAL EVOLUTION

Phylogenetic comparative methods were used to test hypotheses about cultural evolution in ethnolinguistic groups from the Austronesian language family of the Pacific. The case for quantitative statistical approaches to the empirical evolution of linguistic and cultural features was presented. Phylogenetic trees of 67 Austronesian languages were constructed using maximum parsimony and Bayesian Markov Chain Monte Carlo likelihood algorithms on a database of lexical items. The predominant transmission mode of 76 cultural traits was examined at the macroevolutionary level with (i) partial Mantel matrix tests and (ii) multiple regression on phylogenetic and geographic nearest neighbours. Mantel tests showed that both geographic and phylogenetic transmission was correlated with cultural diversity. Geographic distance had a greater overall partial correlation with cultural distance than did phylogenetic distance, but only phylogenetic correlations were found with kinship/social traits. Multiple regression on individual traits found that phylogenetic nearest neighbours predicted more cultural traits, especially those involving the inheritance of resources