Identifying post-marital residence patterns in prehistory: A phylogenetic comparative analysis of dwelling size

0532302 - ARÚ 2021 RIV US eng J - Journal Article
Hrnčíř, Václav - Duda, P. - Šaffa, G. - Květina, Petr - Zrzavý, J.
Identifying post-marital residence patterns in prehistory: A phylogenetic comparative analysis of dwelling size.
PLoS ONE. Roč. 15, č. 2 (2020), č. článku e0229363. ISSN 1932-6203. E-ISSN 1932-6203
R&D Projects: GA ČR(CZ) GA19-16304S
Institutional support: RVO:67985912
Keywords : post-marital residence * cross-cultural research * phylogenetic methods
OECD category: Archaeology
Impact factor: 3.240, year: 2020
Method of publishing: Open access
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0229363&type=printable

Post-marital residence patterns are an important factor for the study of human kinship organization. However, their identification in prehistory is challenging, as they leave almost no direct traces in the archaeological record. Bioarchaeologists have employed several approaches to overcome this limitation, such as analyses of sex-specific morphological variations or analyses of strontium isotopes and ancient DNA. Cross-cultural researchers, on the other hand, attempted to find material indicator of post-marital residence patterns through statistical analysis of a large sample of randomly selected societies. Several studies have demonstrated that in agricultural societies, large dwellings are strongly associated with matrilocality - or the practice where new families live in the same community as the wife's family. In contrast, smaller dwellings are strongly associated with patrilocal societies, where newlyweds live in the communities of the husband. This finding was gladly received by archaeologists, as the size of houses on settlements is usually easy to detect, and the association has been already applied in several archaeological contexts, for example, historical northern Iroquoian groups, Chaco Canyon region, Hohokam culture or Neolithic Greece. In this contribution we present the results of our study, which aimed to test abovementioned association on a different sample using a time-calibrated “supertree” based on published genetic and linguistic data as a phylogenetic control. This approach accounts for differing degrees of relatedness across cultures, that arises through patterns of shared common ancestry, and thus allows distinguishing “functional” from “historical” correlations. We also tested for the effect of several other explanatory variables, specifically stability of settlement, type of building material and presence of agriculture.
Permanent Link: http://hdl.handle.net/11104/0310892