Publications

Papers Published

1. McCall, LW., Studying cultural evolution at the tips: Human cross-cultural ecology, Evolution: Education and Outreach 2: 1936-6426. (2009) [PDF].
   (last updated on 2009/01/22)

   Abstract:
   Does cultural diversification simulate a natural experiment in cultural group-level evolution? Or is cultural diversity simply the result of human behavioral flexibility? Comparing 97 indigenous language communities from around the world, I find that while the non-neutral geographic variation of a few cultural traits can be explained with the evolutionary reasoning of "soft group selection" (Mayr 1997), many cultural traits are proportionately dispersed and do not violate the expectation of neutral biogeography.