Application of a Markovian ancestral model to the temporal and spatial dynamics of cultural evolution on a population network

Abstract

Cultural macroevolution concerns a long-term evolutionary process involving transmission of non-genetic or cultural traits between populations as well as birth and death of populations. To understand the spatial dynamics of cultural macroevolution, we present a one-locus model of cultural diffusion in which a cultural trait is transmitted on a network of populations. Borrowing the method of ancestral backward process from population genetics, our model explores the lineage of a trait variant sampled in the present generation to quantify when and where the variant was invented. Mathematical analysis of the model enables us to predict the distribution of cultural age in each population of the network, estimate the frequencies of trait variants originating from given populations, and discuss the time it takes for a trait variant to diffuse between a given pair of populations. We also perform numerical analysis on random scale-free network of populations to investigate the effect of network topology and innovation rate on the age and origin of variants in each population. The result suggests that trait variants are more likely to derive from a population with higher innovation rate. Our numerical analysis also shows that trait variants invented in populations with higher network-centrality values are likely to be maintained at a higher frequency and transmitted to other populations in a shorter time period.