Time-averaging and the spatial scale of regional cultural differentiation in archaeological assemblages

Abstract

The degree to which societies differ in dress, diet, laws, and language appears to be such an integral part of today's human experience that some researchers think of it as a hallmark of so-called “modern human behavior.” Yet it remains unclear to what extent the current pattern of relatively low within-region cultural variation paired with relatively high between-region cultural variation can be assessed in time-averaged Paleolithic assemblages. Here, we use a spatially explicit agent-based model to begin to examine how time-averaging can affect the spatial scale of similarity among culturally transmitted variants in archaeological assemblages. Our results show that time-averaging, alone, can increase the scale of local spatial association among the relative frequency of the most prevalent cultural variant in an archaeological landscape. Our findings have important implications for archaeological interpretations of the spatial scale of regional cultural differentiation (or lack thereof) in the Paleolithic record and beyond.

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