Abstract
The classification of kin into structured groups is a diverse phenomenon which is ubiquitous in human culture. For populations which are organized into large agropastoral groupings of sedentary residence but not governed within the context of a centralised state, such as our study sample of 83 historical Bantu-speaking groups of sub-Saharan Africa, cultural kinship norms guide all aspects of everyday life and social organization. Such rules operate in part through the use of differing terminological referential systems of familial organization. Although the cross-cultural study of kinship terminology was foundational in Anthropology, few modern studies have made use of statistical advances to further our sparse understanding of the structuring and diversification of terminological systems of kinship over time. In this study we use Bayesian Markov Chain Monte Carlo methods of phylogenetic comparison to investigate the evolution of Bantu kinship terminology and reconstruct the ancestral state and diversification of cousin terminology in this family of sub-Saharan ethnolinguistic groups. Using a phylogenetic tree of Bantu languages, we then test the prominent hypothesis that structured variation in systems of cousin terminology has co-evolved alongside adaptive change in patterns of descent organization, as well as rules of residence. We find limited support for this hypothesis, and argue that the shaping of systems of kinship terminology is a multifactorial process, concluding with possible avenues of future research.
Highlights
Kinship and AnthropologyHuman kinship, consisting of networks which group individuals as relatives, is a feature of social organization which is globally recognized, and given importance to [1]
For populations which are organized into large agropastoral groupings of sedentary residence but not governed within the context of a centralised state, such as our study sample of 83 historical Bantu-speaking groups of sub-Saharan Africa, cultural kinship norms guide all aspects of everyday life and social organization
The cross-cultural study of kinship terminology was foundational in Anthropology, few modern studies have made use of statistical advances to further our sparse understanding of the structuring and diversification of terminological systems of kinship over time
Summary
Human kinship, consisting of networks which group individuals as relatives, is a feature of social organization which is globally recognized, and given importance to [1]. Kinship is not to be conflated with biological relatedness, as it has long been acknowledged that different cultures ascribe variable social importance to different kin types, in a way which does not necessarily reflect degrees of genetic similarity. In the words of Wagner, “the essence of kinship is interpretation of genealogy, rather than genealogy itself” [2]. A Phylogenetic Comparative Study of Bantu Kinship Terminology and 43 were used, as detailed in the methods section of the manuscript
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