Resumen de The Applications and Challenges of Cultural Phylogenetics in Archaeology: An Introduction
Inferring and explaining cultural patterns and the ways in which human groups relate and interact over large spans of time or space is one of the biggest challenges for archaeologists. When dealing with either the remote past or the present, researchers struggle to learn about the conditions and mechanisms by which cultural traits originate, move, change, and disappear. The use of phylogenetic methods, originated in evolutionary biology to measure relatedness between species, can help to make signifi cant advances toward those aims. This introduction maps the fi eld of cultural phylogenetics, considers its potential for archaeological research, and summarizes the proposals laid out by the contributors of this book.
