Limited Scope for Group Coordination in Stylistic Variations of Kolam Art.

N-Han Tran,Šimon Kucharský,Bret A Beheim,Silke Atmaca,Timothy M Waring

doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2021.742577

Abstract

In large, complex societies, assorting with others with similar social norms or behaviors can facilitate successful coordination and cooperation. The ability to recognize others with shared norms or behaviors is thus assumed to be under selection. As a medium of communication, human art might reflect fitness-relevant information on shared norms and behaviors of other individuals thus facilitating successful coordination and cooperation. Distinctive styles or patterns of artistic design could signify migration history, different groups with a shared interaction history due to spatial proximity, as well as individual-level expertise and preferences. In addition, cultural boundaries may be even more pronounced in a highly diverse and socially stratified society. In the current study, we focus on a large corpus of an artistic tradition called kolam that is produced by women from Tamil Nadu in South India (N = 3, 139 kolam drawings from 192 women) to test whether stylistic variations in art can be mapped onto caste boundaries, migration and neighborhoods. Since the kolam art system with its sequential drawing decisions can be described by a Markov process, we characterize variation in styles of art due to different facets of an artist's identity and the group affiliations, via hierarchical Bayesian statistical models. Our results reveal that stylistic variations in kolam art only weakly map onto caste boundaries, neighborhoods, and regional origin. In fact, stylistic variations or patterns in art are dominated by artist-level variation and artist expertise. Our results illustrate that although art can be a medium of communication, it is not necessarily marked by group affiliation. Rather, artistic behavior in this context seems to be primarily a behavioral domain within which individuals carve out a unique niche for themselves to differentiate themselves from others. Our findings inform discussions on the evolutionary role of art for group coordination by encouraging researchers to use systematic methods to measure the mapping between specific objects or styles onto groups.

Highlights

Cooperation in humans requires groups of individuals to successfully coordinate and work together toward common or mutually beneficial goals
In contrast to predictions from ethnic marker theory that ethnic markers should be most prominent along cultural boundaries (McElreath et al, 2003), we show that kolam artworks only weakly covary along caste, neighborhood, or migration boundaries using a statistical approach
Using a state-based Markov approach to systematically study the link between styles or patterns in art and group affiliations, our findings inform discussions on the evolutionary role of art for group coordination by encouraging researchers to use systematic methods to measure the mapping between specific objects or styles onto groups

Summary

Introduction

Cooperation in humans requires groups of individuals to successfully coordinate and work together toward common or mutually beneficial goals. To investigate the long standing and growing interest in quantitative detection of ethnic markers across disciplines, we present an Bayesian analysis of a large corpus of material art created by women from Tamil Nadu in South India, called kolam drawings. Using this corpus of kolam art, we test whether stylistic variations in art can be mapped onto caste boundaries, migration and neighborhoods, and how much variation in styles can be accounted for by these factors. We illustrate how we can exploit the Markovian nature of the art system to our advantage to build a hierarchical model that is able to describe and partition the variation in the complex, sequential drawing compositions in order to better understand the role of art for social coordination

Methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusion