Cambio Cultural Inn

Society for American Archaeology
Cultural Transmission and Stochastic Network Growth

Author(s): R. Alexander Bentley and Stephen J. Shennan
Source: American Antiquity, Vol. 68, No. 3 (Jul., 2003), pp. 459-485
Published by: Society for American Archaeology
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3557104
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ARTICLES
CULTURAL TRANSMISSION AND STOCHASTIC NETWORK GROWTH
R. Alexander Bentley and Stephen J. Shennan
Archaeological theory has traditionally presupposed the existence of "battleship curves" in stylistic
understanding about what governs the width (variant frequency) or length (variant lifespan) of th
these variables, we propose that there is a testable difference between independent decisions, unbi
biased transmission in cultural evolution. We expect independent decision making to be represented b
tribution of variant prevalence in the population. In contrast, unbiased transmission tends to be chara
law or log-normal distribution of prevalence, while biased transmission should deviate significantly f
The difference between these categories may be fundamental to how cultural traits spread and per
analytical predictions for unbiased transmission, we adapt a model of stochastic network growth t
demonstrating the inherent nonlinearity in unbiased transmission, can explain why afew highly popular
to emerge in the course of cultural evolution. For the most part, this model predicts the frequencies
remarkably well over a 400-year span of Linearbandkeramik settlement in the Merzbach valley. Be
quencies of actual motifs are somewhat less than predicted by our unbiased transmission model, w
formist, or pro-novelty, bias in the later phases of the Neolithic Merzbach Valley.
La teoria arqueologica ha presupuesto tradicionalmente la existencia de las "battleship curves" en la

con poca comprensidn sobre que dicta la anchura (variable frecuencia) o la longitud (variable lapso d
Con estas variables, proponemos que hay una diferencia comprobable entre decisiones independient
gada y transmisidn sesgada en la evolucidn cultural. Encontramos que la toma de decisi6n independient
una distribucidn exponencial del predominio variable en la poblacidn. En contraste, la transmision
ser caracterizada por una distribucion power-law o una distribucion log-normal delpredominio, mientr
misidn sesgada se diferencia del caso de transmision no-sesgada. La diferencia entre estas categorias pu
para la evolucidn cultural. Para hacer las predicciones de la transmision no-sesgada, adaptamos un mode
imiento en el que, demostrando cuantitativamente la no-linealidad inherente en la transmision no-
como se puede esperar que algunos estilos altamente populares emerjan en el curso de la evolucidn
predice notablemente bien lasfrecuencias de las decoraciones de la ceramica durante 400 aiios de la e
de Merzbach. Porque nuestro modelo predice mds estilos de la cerdmica con alta frecuencia de los que h
tificamos un sesgo anticonformista, ofavorable a la novedad en lasfases mas tardias del valle Neolit
In anthropological theory today, thereconsidered

is no con-possible within approaches that allow
sensus on the significance of culture in culture to replicate at least semi-independently
the evo-
lution of human behavior. Some behavioral from human reproduction (e.g., Boyd and Richer-
son 1985; Cullen 1996; Durham 1991; Henrich
ecologists and evolutionary psychologists see cul-
and Boyd 2001; Lumsden and Wilson 1981;
ture as a relatively minor extension of biological
Neiman 1995). One such approach is the dual inher-
evolution that has brought about an adaptive ratio-
nale promoting beneficial decision making (Booneitance framework of Boyd and Richerson (1985),
and Smith 1998; Flinn 1997). In this view, culture,
which holds that humans acquire tendencies to par-
as a means of achieving the normal evolutionary
ticular modes of behavior through (1) the genetic
goals of survival, reproduction, and successful system
par- that they share with all living creatures and
enting, does not have any cumulative conse-
(2) a cultural system that, although not unique to
quences. In contrast, cumulative consequenceshumans,
are is certainly developed to an unprecedented
R. Alexander Bentley and Stephen J. Shennan * AHRB Centre for the Evolutionary Analysis of Cultural Behaviour,
Institute of Archaeology, University College London, 31-34 Gordon Square, London WC1-OPY, United Kingdom
American Antiquity, 68(3), 2003, pp. 459-485

CopyrightO 2003 by the Society for American Archaeology
459
460 AMERICAN ANTIQUITY [Vol. 68, No. 3, 2003
of cultural transmission routes can be modeled

degree among them. In this view, "culture is infor-
mation capable of affecting individuals' pheno-
mathematically using variations on existing popu-
lation genetic and epidemiological models (Boyd
types which they acquire from other conspecifics
and Richerson 1985; Cavalli-Sforza and Feldman
by teaching or imitation" (Boyd and Richerson
1985:33). 1981) to see what sort of outcomes they produce
An important realization of dual inheritance the- at larger temporal and spatial scales. This has been
ory is that cultural transmission acts like an inher- one of the advantages of using genetic transmis-
itance system, producing significant similarities sion as the basis for models of cultural transmis-
between those passing on the information and those sion.
learning, which could not be accounted for by However, there are limits to strictly biology-
genetic transmission or continuity of environment based models of cultural evolution because the ana-
(Boyd and Richerson 1985:46-55). Cultural tradi- logues of the processes that affect gene frequencies
tions, like particular gene distributions, can persist in populations-mutation, selection, and drift-do
in the face of changing environmental conditions not exhaust the set of processes that affect cultural
to which different practices would be better adapted attribute frequencies. It is becoming apparent that
(Boyd and Richerson 1985:55; Edgerton 1971; cultural transmission processes are much more cen-
Guglielmino et al. 1995; Henrich and Gil-White tral to sociocultural evolution than has been
2001; Henrich et al. 2001). assumed before (Boyd and Richerson 1985; Hen
In order for archaeologists to study human rich and Boyd 2001; Henrich and Gil-White 2001
behavior and its history from a Darwinian stand- Henrich 2001). The simplest form, termed unbiase
point, they must address two complications that transmission by Boyd and Richerson (1985), occurs
the existence of cultural traditions poses for evo- when each individual acquires his/her behavior
lutionary change. The first is that differences in simply by copying from another individual within
people's survival and reproductive success can the population. If the process is purely unbiased
occur through natural selection on their cultural transmission, then children are as likely to copy
traditions, not simply on their genes via their genet- other people as to copy their own parents. The result
ically inherited dispositions. The second concerns of unbiased transmission, as we will explore in
cultural transmission, in that the frequencies of cul- detail in this paper, is that each individual is equally
tural attributes may change through time, not only likely to be copied, while each variant is copied in
as a result of natural selection affecting people's proportion to its frequency.
survival, but also as a result of their conscious and A rather different process, which affects the fre-
unconscious decision making. The aim of this paper quency with which information is handed on to
is to examine quantitative patterns that distinguish future generations, or even to next week, and there-
different routes of cultural transmission. In pre- fore affects the frequency of cultural attributes in
dicting quantitatively how a few highly popular the population through time, is prestige-biased
styles may be expected to emerge in the course of transmission (Henrich and Gil-White 2001; cf.
unbiased cultural transmission, we offer a quanti- indirectly biased transmission of Boyd and Rich-
tative null model, deviations from which can be erson 1985). Prestige-biased transmission takes
meaningfully explained as biased transmission. place when an individual adopts the cultural
attribute of someone who appears to be more suc-
Modes of Transmission
cessful in terms of some locally accepted criterion,
In considering the importance of transmission in if the attribute concerned is not actually the
even
cultural evolution, our focus is to model thereason
evo- for their success. An example is copying the
lution of neutral traits through time, rather mode
than of speech or dress of successful musicians
those strongly subject to natural selection. In orthe
actors. This may have a genuinely positive result
absence of selection forces, neutral traits are sorted
in that it can be an efficient shortcut to becoming
successful oneself. Henrich and Gil-White (2001)
by drift and random differences in transmission
(e.g., Braun 1991; Dunnell 1978; Lipo et al. 1997;
argue that prestige is equivalent to "the size and lav-
Neff 1992; Neiman 1995; O'Brien 1996; O'Brienishness of a given model's clientele." Because this
size and lavishness is the main cue that others use
and Holland 1995). The large-scale consequences
Bentley and Shennan] CULTURAL TRANSMISSION AND NETWORK GROWTH 461
mission is defined (e.g., Dunnell 1978; Plotkin

in deciding whom to copy (Henrich and Gil-White
2001:174-178), those who have prestige tend toUnfortunately, archaeologists do not fully
1994).
become more prestigious. As Boyd and Richerson
agree on the units involved in cultural inheritance,
which remain the object of ongoing debate and
(1985:287) point out, this can be a runaway process,
because the very act of "keeping up with theinvestigation.
Jone- Evolutionary archaeologists argue
ses" adds prestige to whatever it is that the that
Jone-the best way to know what the analytically
appropriate
ses do and adds cultural legitimacy to a practice that cultural units are is to monitor their
may have no adaptive value in terms of thereplicative
outer success over time (Allen 1995; Braun
(non-social) environment. Consider the basketball
1991; Dunnell 1978; Leonard 1998; Lipo and Mad-
star Michael Jordan, for example. Through asen 2001; Lipo et al. 1997; Lyman and O'Brien
brand
1998,2001; Neff 1992; O'Brien and Holland 1995;
of sneakers, Jordan's name appears on millions
more feet than the name of anyone who plays Pocklington
recre- and Best 1997). In this view, archae-
ationally, and he is thus millions of times ologists
more are entreated to follow paleontologists and
likely to be "copied" than any one of us.1 Another
monitor the evolution of diachronic lineages, which
important form is conformist-biased transmission
are in a constant state of becoming, rather than syn-
(Boyd and Richerson 1985; Henrich andchronic
Boydinterpretations of artifact styles which exist
only
2001), which is the tendency to copy the most at a certain point in time and space (Dunnell
fre-
quent behavior in the population. In cause, 1982; Eldredge and Gould 1972; Gould and
this is
Eldredge 1993; Hull 1982; Lake 1998).
quite different from prestige-biased transmission.
For example, Jordan's sneakers may be popular One way forward is to allow that, if we follow
because they are seen everywhere, ratherthe than
appearances of a repeatedly copied behavior,
because of people's desire to "be like Mike."
there will be time spans within which certain cul-
In effect, however, prestige-biased andturalcon-
traits may be conveniently treated as discrete
formist-biased transmission can be hard to untan- replicates. For the present study we make the sim-
gle, since both can favor the popular trait. Thus, inplifying assumption that we may treat distinctive
archaeology, we have a hard time distinguishingartifact variants as having a discrete nature in many
whether a pot style was popular because the potscases (Barkow 1989:247-252; Boyd and Richer-
were highly visible (conformity) or because whatson 1985:75; Cavalli-Sforza and Feldman 1981:33;
or whom the style represented was highly presti- Lumsden and Wilson 1981:7, 27). In the treatment
gious. Both may be forms of biased transmissionwe present below, we use the abstract unit of cul-
that cause successful variants to become even more tural "variant." Because our analysis involves sim-
successful than they would under unbiased trans-ple mathematical models, it should be applicable
mission, with the winners often benefiting fromto a range of different interpretations, as long as we
fortuitous initial conditions, rather than survivalcan agree that a cultural variant exists for some
through superior adaptation. As discussed below,finite time, and that it can be copied. The examples
the even-more-confounding problem with prestige we discuss in this paper, including the smoking
bias is determining how the prestige of the varianthabit, computer viruses, first names, and distinc-
itself relates to its own frequency, especially since tive decorative motifs on early Neolithic pottery,
some things are prestigious largely because they arecan all be considered variants by this definition.
difficult to copy! For this reason, if one wants to In this paper, we explore the effects of cultural
go beyond distinguishing between prehistoric casestransmission, one of which can be vast differences
of biased and unbiased transmission to make the in the frequencies of cultural variants. While many
further distinction between conformist bias and productive efforts have been made to understand
prestige bias, it may be necessary to look at other
the change in assemblage variability over time (e.g.,
Lipo et al. 1997; Neiman 1995; Shennan and
archaeological information, which we do for our
case study from Neolithic Germany. Wilkinson 2001), less work has been done on trac-
ing the survival rates of individual variants them-
Useful Units
selves. Through models and examples we make
Some argue that we cannot have a theory for socio- general predictions for independent decisions,
cultural change unless the unit of cultural trans- unbiased and biased transmission in terms of the
sion of Neiman's (1995) model below, let us call

prevalence and survival times of cultural variants.
We make use of modem data and an especially the innovation rate p, a constant between 0 and 1.0,
good record of pottery decoration from Neolithic
such that p = 0 implies the variant pool is unchang-
ing, and p = 1 implies a full turnover per unit of
Central Europe. In the case of pottery production
in Neolithic Germany, application of our modeltime.
of In the particular case where all variants have
unbiased transmission leads to a predictable anevo-
equal chance of surviving to the next time step,
lution in the distribution of stylistic frequencies,
the characteristic probability that a variant survives
such that established, older, styles have an advan-
for t time steps is (1 - p)'. If p is small, this prob-
tage over new styles. ability can be approximated by a Taylor series,2 giv-
ing the probability for a variant to have lifetime t:
Our Analysis
Below, we consider the survival of variants in three
P(t) _ e-t (1)
general cases: (1) independent decisions, (2) unbi- In analogy with discarded artif
ased transmission of stylistic traits, and (3) biased like to know the total number ns of
transmission of stylistic traits. We discuss Neiman's ant left behind during its lifetime
(1995) analysis of stylistic variation as a model for new variant copies are made and
unbiased transmission. As an alternative model for carded" after each time step, ns sh
unbiased transmission that is better for making age frequency multiplied by its
quantitative predictions of individual trait fre- average number of variants is k,
quencies, we present and adapt a model of sto- quency of each one is I/k, and we
chastic network growth by Adamic and Huberman We substitute t = kns into equation
(2000). We then argue that the stochastic network
P(ns) =_ e-kgns(
model can be adapted to make reasonable predic- (2)
tions for the frequencies of pottery designs in a This is an exponential decay function with
case study from Neolithic Europe, using only a respect to ns. An exponential function such as this
small number of parameters. is easy to recognize graphically, as it is simply a
straight line on a plot with a logarithmic y-axis.
Case 1: Independent Decisions
Thus as a function of ns, the exponential function
The absence of transmission, which we will call in equation (2) should plot as a straight line on a
individual decision making, is the case where each semi-log plot with slope -kp.
individual decides whether or not to adopt a cer- We can compare these predictions with real-
tain variant based strictly on his/her own personal world examples that we suspect to be dominated
preference. This is thus the extreme case for styl- by selection. It is interesting to look at computer
istic variants (which have no function and hence viruses on the Interet, given some archaeologists'
no associated fitness value) in which each individ- models of behavioral "viruses" among human pop-
ual chooses based on his/her own personal prefer- ulations (e.g., Cullen 1996; Wilkinson 1997). The
ence, which is effectively random from our process by which viruses on the Internet differen-
standpoint. We assume for ultimate simplicity that tially survive against the selective pressure of anti-
(1) regardless of its relative frequency, each vari- virus software can be seen as analogous to a
ant is known to all members of the population, and reservoir with inputs and outputs. If there is a char-
(2) each variant has the same chance probability of acteristic survival probability per unit of time for a
surviving to the next time step p. The probability computer virus on the Internet, we expect an expo-
of any variant surviving for t time steps is then pt, nential distribution of virus lifespans. Indeed, Pas-
which is an exponentially decreasing function of t. tor-Satorras and Vespignani (2001 :Figure 1) found
We can consider a "reservoir" of variants, with that the survival times for computer viruses on the
innovation as the "input" and extinctions as the Interet follow a regular exponential decay: the
"output." In the state when the innovation and probability p of a computer virus surviving for T
extinction rates are approximately balanced, the months is simply p - e-cT, where C is a constant.
rate of turnover in the variant pool is the same as The exponential distributions form straight lines on
the innovation rate. In anticipation of our discus- a plot with a logarithmic y-axis (Figure 1). The
CULTURAL TRANSMISSION AND NETWORK GROWTH
Ben 463
1
dent decision
O boot and macro quits in any g
more than the
0 file
0.1 - shows that f
._
declined roug
o health agencie
0-
.01
ing campaigns
0.01 0 tic"half-life"
0
[] subpopulation
depend on fac
so on. The dec
0.001 I I I
more educated
0 10 20 30 range from ab
Survival elor's
time degree
(months) t
school educati
Figure 1. Survival times
ferences of
acro c
Internet (after Pastor-Satorr
nential decay
Figl). Only the y-axis is logar
function plots making
as a occur
straight line
In sum, it is f
exponential distribution
exponential d
viruses have a characteristi
highly simplif
months, depending
which is onsubst th
Satorras and tial Vespignanidecay in d 2
nential lifespan
texts. distribut
equation (1) for independ
Case 2: Unbiased Transmission
because a computer (or com
independentlyNeiman's (1995) Model. Neiman (1995)
whether orofferedn
a
An example of
model for use as a this expo
null hypothesis representing the
modem culture is
effects of drift alone, in thein
absence ofthe
other forces
whole, such as natural selection.
smoking may Neiman's treatment
be is an ch
100-
(b) Male smokers in U.S.
0~
a)
0
o
o
0-
E
E -
-71;~7rI
0 03
-- No high school *'

-- High school
-- Some oollege
10
-- Bachelor's degree I I
10 ,
1970 1980 1990 2000
1965 1975 1985 1995
Year Year
Figure 2. The decline of smoking in the U.S. (a) Male Smokers as a percentage of U.S. population in the past 35 years. (b)
Male smokers in the U.S., as classified by education level. The plot has a logarithmic y-axis.
elegant model of unbiased transmission, which

1970). We will thus refer to Neiman's (1995) model
becomes apparent if we review his presentationas in
the neutral-trait model from this point forward.
some detail. Neiman (1995:12, equation [1]) pre-
What happens when innovation is introduced?
sents a model for the equilibrium state of cultural
The probability that any individual will innovate in
a given time step Neiman defines as p, a constant
change undergoing drift. In Neiman's model, there
between 0 and 1.0. In the neutral-trait model, two
are N individuals, each characterized by a behav-
people might have copied their variants from the
ioral/stylistic variant, such as a pottery decoration.
At each time step, each individual produces a samenew antecedent, but if at least one of them subse-
variant by copying one from another individual.
quently adds an innovation, their variants will no
Neiman assumes perfect neutrality in that a person
longer be the same. Since the probability that nei-
ther
is only as likely to copy his/her own variant as to one has made an innovation is (1 - p)2, Neiman
(1995:14) modifies eq (3), which becomes
copy anyone else's. Neiman (1995:12) introduces
a measure for "homogeneity," which he defines as _N N
"the probability that two randomly chosen indi- (4)
viduals in the population carry variants that are
1 N ( N1 ) '-1 2
copies of the same antecedent variant." Neiman By assuming the process goes to equilibrium,
where the innovation rate balances the extinction
defines this probability Ft recursively, as a function
of the homogeneity in the previous period (Neiman
rate, and also that p is small, Neiman (1995:14) pre-
1995: equation [1]): dicts that the "effective" number of variants will be
proportional to 2NI, where p is the innovation rate.4
Note also that since Neiman (1995) defines a fixed
FtN - N - )1- t-I (3)
innovation rate per person, innovations should
appear at a rate proportional to the size of the pop-
where Ft, is the homogeneity during the previous
ulation.
time period t-l. The first term, I/V, on the right-
hand side of equation (3) represents "the probabil-We say that the neutral-trait model exemplifies
ity of drawing an individual who learned fromunbiased
the transmission because even though the
most common variants are the most likely to be
same model as some other randomly selected indi-
vidual in the previous time period" (Neiman
copied, no individual is any more likely to be copied
1995:12). This, however, is not the only reasonthan
two another. In the neutral-trait model, each indi-
vidual has equal chance (1 - 1)IN of being copied
people might have the same variant. If Jim and Jane
without innovation by another person in the sub-
both make pottery A, for example, there is a chance
that Jane copied it from someone other than did sequent
Jim. generation. If N is large, it follows mathe-
Thus the second term in equation (3), involving matically5
Ft l, that the probability P(t) of an individual
represents the probability that two individuals share
being copied at least once in t consecutive time steps
a common model some generations ago rather isthan
one generation ago. P(t) = pt, (5)
Neiman's model displays how, if drift is the only
where ps is a constant, meaning that all individu-
active process, the number of variants should als have
be the same probability of being copied at
steadily reduced until only one variant remains. least once in the next generation. Equation (5) cor-
The reason is that in each time step of his model,
responds to an exponentially decreasing probabil-
ity distribution with respect to t.
any variant might, by chance alone, fail to be copied
and thus become extinct. By modeling the homo- Shifting our standpoint to the variants, we see
for unbiased transmission that the chance that a
geneity recursively using equation (3), the homo-
variant is copied is directly proportional to its fre-
geneity Ft asymptotically approaches 1.0 with time.
This can be seen also by substituting Ft_ = Ftquency
for in the population. Neiman's (1995) pre-
diction for assemblage homogeneity in equation (4)
the final equilibrium reached at Fq = 1.0, which
reflects a population of only one variant. In this is missing information about the variant frequen-
way,
Neiman (1995) illustrates how drift destroys vari-
cies, and we would like to move forward by track-
ation, after the well-established neutral-allele ing how long the variants survive and how their
model from population genetics (Crow and Kimura frequencies change through time. Tracking variants
10 p=0
(a)
a 8
3:
a
_6 6
:t4
2
0
0 100 200 300 400 500
lime step
p = 0.05
10 (b)
8
6 6
0
0 100 200 300 400 500
lime steps
= 0.10 (c)
10
S
us8
a
16
it 4
0 100 200 300 400 500

Time step
Figure 3. Assemblage diversity in Neiman's (1995) model, run for 500 time steps. The runs shown represent three dif-
ferent innovation rates: (a) no innovation; (b) pt = .05; and (c) I' = .10. The model shown is for N = 20 individuals.
is a much more difficult task because (1) each indi- geneity F,, which can be solved for), we are left to
vidual can acquire a different variant in each time run it with a few different parameters and observe
step and (2) the frequency of each variant can the results. Figure 3 shows the number of different
change in every time step. Like many highly sim- variants in each time step of a run of the neutral-
plified models of complex dynamics (e.g., Bak trait model using N = 20 individuals and three dif-
1996; Paczuski et al. 1996; Turcotte 1999), the neu- ferent mutation rates, p = 0, p = .05 and p = .10.
tral-trait model is much more complicated than it The model is surprisingly complex, and we note a
would seem from its simple setup. few general characteristics. The first is that it never
Since we are not aware of an analytical solution quite reaches an equilibrium state such that the
for the neutral-trait model in terms of the distribu- homogeneity F, is constant from one time step to
tion of variant frequencies (as opposed to the homo- the next. There appears to be nominal equilibrium,
466 AMERICAN ANTIQUITY [
1~
0.1 -
'
0.01 -
I
-
._
ca
0.001 - -A
o
?0 A
0.0001 "
9
2
A cl
0.05
0.00001- *
A D1
A 0.10 x
*
0.15
0.000001-
x 0.20 C
0.0000001 I I l
10 100 1000 10000
Number of copies
Figure 4. Distribution of the number of variant copies after running Neiman's (1995) model with innov
time steps. N = 20 individuals, beginning with 20 different variants. For the first run, one innovation per tim
introduced (|p = .05). In subsequent trials, the innovation rate was increase by introducing two (pi = .10), t
and finally four (.t = .20) innovations per time step. Each distribution follows an approximately power-law fu
the slope (power-law exponent) increasing with innovation rate. The power-law slope for It = .05 is -1.67
power law fit vs. r2 = .734 for exponential fit); for jI = .10 is -1.75 (r2 = .975 for power law, .787 exponential)
is -1.99 (r2 = .971 for power law, .786 exponential); for ,t = .20 is -2.00 (r2 = .957 for power law, .863 expo
visualization, the dashed line shows a power-law fit to the it = .05 data; the dashed gray line shows an expo
however, as the number of variants generally

and stays
timing of the crash events. A highly influential
theory
most of the time within a range, which rises in explaining these emergent phenomena is
with
increasing innovation rate (compare Figurescalled
3b and"self-organized criticality" (beyond the
scope 3b
3c). In fact, the middles of the ranges in Figures of our paper, but see Bak 1996; Bak et al.
1987; Bentley
and 3c are only slightly higher than the number of and Maschner 2001; Turcotte 1999),
models of which are often similar to the neutral-
different variants ne that Neiman (1995:equation
trait
[6]) predicted for a steady state, ne = 2Np + 1, model in simplicity and abstraction.
which
Third, the neutral-trait model is characterized by
for p = .05 is two variants and for p =. 10 is five.6
A second observation is that one run is never a power-law distribution of variant frequencies. A
the same as another, even when all variables are power law means that a quantity n is proportional
to some power of another quantity x:
kept constant. This is due to the stochastic manner
of copying and innovation. By being predictable in n = C/xD (6)
general but absolutely unpredictable in particular,
where C is a constant and D is the exponent. A spe-
the neutral-trait model fits within the growing lit-
erature on similar models, in countless variations
cial quality of a power law is that it appears as a
representing the complex dynamics of financialstraight line, with slope -D, on a graph when both
axes have logarithmic scales (a "log-log" plot).
markets, species extinction, mechanical systems
and ecosystems, to name just a few applications
Since the power law has the same relative shape at
(see Buchanan 2001 for overview). A remarkableall scales, it is also referred to as a "scale-free" dis-
characteristic of these simplified models and the
tribution. This contrasts with the exponential decay
functions discussed above, which are straight lines
complex systems to which they refer is that they
on a semilog plot (log y-axis only), and which
"self-organize" to a state on the margin between
decrease quickly toward zero with increasing x.
stability and chaos. For example, the stock market
Figure 4 shows the distribution of the number of
may be somewhat predictable on the decadal scale
variant copies after running the neutral-trait model
in that the long-term rise in prices as well as a few
with N= 20 individuals for 2,000 time steps, begin-
crash events can be expected, but the daily activity
is quite unpredictable, as are the exact magnitude
ning with 20 different variants. The distribution is
0.1 -e,.
'"O.,
0.01
0..
.0?
0.001 - 0
2-
0
*.
o 0.0001 -
0 Female names 0
[1 Male names
0.00001 -
. ..... exponential
0.000001 - 0
0.0000001
0.00001 0.0001 0.001 0.01 0.1 1 10
Frequency (%)
Figure 5. Frequency distribution of first names, from 1990 U.S. Census data. The popularity of a name as a fraction of
the U.S. population. On this log plot, the power-law slope for males names is -1.10 (r2 = .992), and for female names -1.24
(r2 = .976). For comparison, the dashed gray line shows an exponential function fitted to the female name data. For con-
fidentiality reasons the U.S. Census does not provide the data for the most original names, so the distributions are trun-
cated on the left.
a power law for four different innovation rates, p resemble the unbiased copying of variants in the
= .05, p =.10, p =-.15 and p = .20. A higher inno- neutral-trait model. If so, we would expect a power-
vation rate makes the slope steeper, such that high law distribution of name frequencies. Figure 5
frequencies are less likely. shows the frequencies of both female and male first
Most of the plots we show in this paper display names as listed in the 1990 U.S. Census.7 Each dis-
the probability distribution, which is equivalent to tribution-appearing as a straight, downwardly
the fraction of the sample expected to fall within sloping line on the log-log plot-is an approximate
each bin of a histogram. Because most of these dis- power law overall. Interestingly, the slope is steeper
tributions have long tails, we bin the data using log- for female names than for male names, in the same
arithmic bin sizes. In order to plot the probability way the slope is steeper for the higher innovation
distribution using logarithmic bins, the number rate in the model (Figure 4). This suggests that the
within each bin must be normalized by the increas- innovation rate is higher for girls' names, perhaps
ing sizes of the bins. For example, with the top of because girls in American culture are given a wider
the bins at 1, 2, 4, 8, 16... we must then divide the variety of original names than boys, whose names
contents of each bin by 1, 1, 2, 4, 8, . . ,respec- may be more traditional. Further discussion of this
tively. This way, the cumulative version of the interesting topic would lead beyond the focus of
power law in equation (6) still forms a straight line this paper (but see Hahn and Bentley 2003).
with slope -D on a log-log plot. In contrast, an An Analytically Predictive Modelfor Unbiased
exponential probability distribution plots as a Transmission: The Stochastically Growing Net-
straight line when only the y-axis is logarithmic, work. What Neiman (1995) and we have demon-
so it is easily distinguishable from a power law. strated for the neutral-trait model is something
With our observation that the neutral-trait model rather counterintuitive: over time, unbiased trans-
leads to a power-law distribution of variant fre- mission naturally leads to a highly skewed distri-
quencies, we can consider a cultural example in the bution of variant frequencies. If we want to use
way people choose names for their children. Babies unbiased transmission as a null model, we need to
are often named after real people, and if the chance be able to predict explicitly the expected distribu-
a particular name is chosen is proportional to its tions over time. This would be useful because
frequency in the population, the process may biased transmission skews the frequency distribu-
tion beyond the already skewed distribution portional

that to its frequency. This is the case for
results from unbiased transmission. However,Neiman's
as model, and it defines unbiased trans-
mission.
discussed above, while the neutral-trait model is a
For the case of unbiased transmission we adapt
perfectly appropriate null model to represent unbi-
ased transmission, we are unaware of an analytical
a model of stochastic network growth, which comes
out of the rapidly growing study of the statistical
solution (in terms of the variant frequency distrib-
ution, not homogeneity) except in the case mechanics
of a of complex networks (see Albert and
Barabasi 2002 for a comprehensive review).
large population in steady-state equilibrium.8 This
leaves us without any way of predicting the Recently,
time a new theory (Barabasi and Albert 1999;
but see also Simon 1955) was offered to explain
evolution of the distributions of variant frequencies,
short of observing the results of many trial simu-
the stochastic growth of networks that leads to the
lations. power-law distributions observed to emerge among
various phenomena such as the Internet (Albert et
We therefore turn to an approximate, mean-field
al. 1999), economic, and even human social net-
approach to the neutral trait model that does pre-
dict how frequency distributions change over works
time (e.g., Amaral et al. 2000; Bentley and
under unbiased transmission, using a model Maschner
bor- 2003; Newman 2001). The math we pre-
sent in the following section, which some readers
rowed from the field of graph theory and network
analysis. Rather than focusing as Neiman (1995)
may wish to skip, is not crucial to understanding
did on the individuals who carry the variants,the
theprocess, which is fairly simple. The emergent
phenomenon, known as a "scale-free network," is
network approach that we introduce below takes
the result of stochastic network growth according
the perspective of the variant itself, by proposing
to two basic principles (Barabasi and Albert 1999).
that a variant "acquires" copies of itself in approx-
imate (normally distributed) proportion to its The
cur-
first is that the network grows continuously by
rent frequency. In graph theory, a network is new nodes, and the second is that new con-
adding
nections attach preferentially to those nodes that
composed of nodes, which could represent people,
are already well-connected (i.e., the frequency-
airports, or webpages, and connections, which
dependence
would be their social interactions, airline flights, or inherent in unbiased transmission).
This simple process may apply whether these "ver-
hyperlinks. In such cases, the links between nodes
tices" are Internet webpages, people in complex
do not represent physical distances, just whether
or not there exists a connection between two nodes.
societies, or market commodities (Amaral et al.
1998;
In the case of stylistic variants, we picture each vari- Barabasi and Albert 1999; Bentley and
ant as a node and each copy of the variant toMaschner
be a 1999, 2000, 2001; Huberman and
referential link or arrow pointing toward that Adamic
vari- 1999). The Internet is apparently a scale-
ant.9 As discussed above, we wish to steer clear of network because it has grown continuously
free
since its inception and because webpages connect
an entangled debate over whether stylistic variants
are "real," so we assume that what each node to each other through preferential attachment
rep-
(Adamic and Huberman 2000; Albert et al. 1999).
resents (such as a pottery design motif) remains
clearly distinct from the others for the time Similarly,
span scale-free network growth also may char-
covered by our analysis. Each time a new copy of
acterize an idea catching on (Bentley and Maschner
the variant is made, another connection is added to or economic agents producing commodities
2000),
and(1)accumulating wealth (Bouchaud and Mezard
it. Hence three things can change in this model:
2000;
the number of nodes (can increase or decrease), (2) Burda et al. 2002).
the total number of connections in the network An example of how unbiased transmission can
lead to a scale-free distribution can be tracked in
(always increasing), and (3) the rate at which new
connections are added to the network. With unbi- the scientific journal literature.10 The theory of self-
ased transmission, the more popular a variant organized criticality (Bak et al. 1987) has grown
becomes, the more chances it has to be copied andrapidly as a subject of journal articles in the last 15
the more incoming connections it acquires. If this years, as the seminal paper (Bak et al. 1987) has
relationship is linear, then the chance that an indi-inspired hundreds of related papers in many other
vidual copies a particular variant is directly pro-fields. Each of these new papers in turn may inspire
0 .1 I..""
0.1-
0.01
._
0.001
c,
0
o
0.0001 -
PO
.
0.00001 O DLA
.
* SOC
- --exponential .
0.000001 -
0.0000001
1 10 100 1000 10000

Times cited
Figure 6. The citations of journal articles on particular topics. The x-axis shows the number of other papers that had
cited each article by the end of 1999. One distribution is for articles (N = 1131) with "self-organized criticality" (SOC)
in the title or keywords from its origin in 1987 (Bak et al. 1987), and the other for articles on "diffusion limited aggre-
gation" (DLA) from its origin in 1981 (Witten and Sander 1981). Despite the two different topics and dates of introduc-
tion, the probability distributions are similar, each with an approximately power-law tail, with slope (exponent) - 2.1 ?
.2 for SOC, and -2.1 ? .2 for DLA. The dashed gray line shows an exponential function for comparison.
variations in more specialized subfields, and each ution of the lifespans of pottery styles, exemplified
new article cites at least most of the papers that by brand names from seventeenth- to early twen-
inspired it. The distribution of the number of times tieth-century New York State, exhibit a "fat tail,"
these papers were cited through 1999 exhibits a i.e., approximately power law or log normal in form
power-law tail (Figure 6), indicating that a scale- for lifespans longer than about 20 years (Figure 7).
free network of papers and their citations has If lifespan is one measure of success, it would
formed (Bentley and Maschner 2000). The reason appear that pottery brands in historical New York
the left-hand side of this distribution is not a power State were prone to the rich-get-richer effect. Pres-
law is the least-cited articles tend to be the newest, tigious styles like Wedgewood, while high-quality
and the production of new articles has fallen behind to be sure, benefited also from their very promi-
what is required to retain the power law all the way nence, and therefore had especially long life spans
to the left. This should become clearer when we (Bentley and Maschner 2001). Hence Figure 7 sug-
discuss the stochastic growth model below. Nev- gests that pottery consumption in the New York
economy was dominated by unbiased transmis-
ertheless, in this network the rich can get richer sim-
ply through unbiased transmission. While Bak et sion. In the next section we adapt a detailed model
al. (1987) continue to be cited by almost all new relevant not just to a static end result as in Figure
papers coming out on self-organized criticality,
7, but also to the dynamics of the formation of these
distributions.
each new report is lucky to be cited once or twice
in the future. Figure 6 shows that this pattern is not The Stochastic Growth Model of Adamic and
Huberman (2000). In this subsection, we describe
unique, as virtually the same distribution has also
a mathematical model of stochastic network
formed in the citations of "diffusion limited aggre-
growth, which we believe to be applicable to unb
gation," another highly influential physics topic of
the last twenty years (Witten and Sander 1981). ased transmission. While the model was design
We can extend the model from this academic to simulate web pages on the Internet, it is gener
enough to apply to people in a society, or hous
citation example to a market economy by explor-
holds in a community. As mentioned above, in orde
ing whether or not the success of brand names fol-
lows a similar stochastic growth process. Bentley
to form a scale-free network-a special case of sto
and Maschner (2001) have shown that the distrib-
chastic network growth-a network of intercon
*..,
0.1
.
0.01
:_
,^
PO
,0
I 0.001
0.0001
0.00001
10 100 1000
Lifespan (years
Figure 7. The number o

State, ca. A.D. 1650-195
also that the overall fu
for comparison. The da
nected Adamic
agents an
must
ple guidelines
g is (Bara
norma
new connections
mally (e.
dist
sites) are give rise
continually t
nectivity
preferentially attac
nodes, andprocess
(2) the in
ne
population of
the agent
probab
However,tions
because th
after
ential
attachment, ca
growing, let
P(ns) _ us
1 (lnn- turn
gt)2
chastic n s t2n 2 26J tgrow
network
connected nodes, A
model the
where gogrowth
is the mean value of g over time, with in
stan-
a node has at
dard deviation time
s. The log-normal function in equa- t
nections it already
tion (8) is not h
as complicated as it may seem at first.
In fact, the log-normal looks like a normal distrib-
n,(t + 1) = ns(t)
ution when the x-axis is made logarithmic.1' An
where g(t) expresse
important aspect of equation (8) is that both the
between agents
position got and width o2t ofare ad
the log-normal peak
can increase with time t, such that
fluctuate it moves outward and
rando
spreads out with
connections in time on equatio
a logarithmic scale.
tiplied by In applying
the this to prehistoric cultural evolution,
curre
This means that
equation (8) predicts that, over time, asa log-normalt
time, thedistribution
resulting
of frequencies will develop among vari- f
copies ofants introduced
a at the
pottery same time into a cultural net-
work dominated
connected node by unbiased transmission.
(e.g., It also
than for
predictsa poorly
that over time their accumulation will
process increase as a whole (the peak moves outward) and
described b
plicative because,
the disparity among them will increase (the ovpeak
the spreads out).
growth Because the distribution
rate g spreads
mu out
develop on
in a logarithmic
the scale, the disparity
distbecomes one
Now the preferential attachment is proportional to

of orders of magnitude, even if the initial differ-
ences in variant frequencies had been fairlyn,small
rather than just ns. Note that if the exponent c
(see Crow and Shimizu 1988 for more on howinmul-
equation (9) is one, then we simply have the
unbiased transmission case of equation (7). If ao i
tiplicative stochastic growth leads to a log-normal
distribution). larger than one, then the nonlinear relationship
This stochastic growth model produces a favors
scale- well-connected nodes and there is con-
free network if there is continuous growth formist-biased
in the transmission. This has been called
population of its agents. Adamic and Huberman
superlinearpreferential attachment by researchers
in net-
(2000) show that if the number of agents in the complex networks (Albert and Barabasi 2002:77;
work increases exponentially with time, then the
Krapivsky et al. 2000), which results in a "winner-
distribution of variant frequencies becomes atakes-all"
power phenomenon. In the superlinear case of
scale-free growth, we expect the "winner" to have
law. Even if the growth of the network is not exactly
exponential, a nearly power-law distribution can
more connections than predicted by the power law
develop-picture the mixture of log-normal through
curves the rest of the data. For example, by the
end of 1999, Bak et al. (1987) had been cited 1,263
stacking up from narrow and tall (recently created)
on the left to fat and short (older) on the times,
right.which falls slightly to the right of the power
Added together, the result can appear to be alaw in Figure 6. Because authors are inclined to cite
fairly
straight line on a log-log plot, even if it is notsuch seminal articles even more faithfully than
a per-
fect power law (e.g., Bentley and Maschner
other frequently cited articles, Bak et al. (1987)
2000:Figure 8). However, what if the population
were cited by almost every paper on their respec-
tive
of network agents is not growing at all? In this topics. This subtle winner-takes-all effect raises
case,
we still have a mixture of log normals whoseBak et al. (1987) slightly above the frequency
mag-
dependence of unbiased transmission, and there-
nitudes depend on the number of agents introduced
fore we identify a limited degree of conformist-
in a particular time step and whose widths depend
on the time that has passed since they were biased
intro- transmission.
Another possible bias might be termed anti-con-

duced. If the number of agents is constant or declin-
formist
ing, the youngest log-normal curves will still be biased transmission. In network terms, this
corresponds
narrow, but not as tall. Hence when we add up the to the sublinear preferential attach-
ment described by Krapivsky et al. (2000) and
curves the leftmost portion of the overall distribu-
tion will be fairly flat. At the same time, as the old- and Barabaisi (2002:77), which refers to the
Albert
case where the exponent a in equation (9) is less
est log-normal distributions continue to spread
than
outward over time, the high end of the overall one. The result is that the most frequent vari-
dis-
tribution still extends to a form approaching a not as frequent as expected under the unbi-
ants are
power-law tail. This will all become clearerased transmission model. Reasons for sublinear
as we
present our case study from Neolithic Europepreferential attachment include the physical limit
below. on the maximum number of connections, the
"aging" of connections or nodes and an increasing
Case 3: Biased Transmission
cost of new connections, all of which amount to an
We have just described how a model of stochastic
anti-conformist bias. In Figure 5, for example, the
highest-frequency female names fall slightly short
network growth can be used to represent unbiased
transmission, since the probability of a nodeof(vari-
the power law extrapolated from the rest of the
data.
ant) gaining connections (being copied) in the nextIt may be that a name currently common
among
time step is linearly proportional to its current fre- adult women might be seen as too old-fash-
ioned for a baby girl (aging), or so common as to
quency. The case of conformist-biased transmission
is accounted for by introducing a non-linear rela-
lack originality (cost/maximum limit). These same
anti-conformist
tionship between frequency and the chance of being tendencies could also apply for
copied. In other words, we introduce an exponent
design motifs on prehistoric pottery, as we will dis-
o to equation (7) such that cuss in our case study below.
The easiest way to envision prestige-biased
n,(t + 1) = n,(t) + g(t + 1)[ns(t)ftransmission
(9) is to picture people as nodes in a net-
work, with arrows between people corresponding

Along a 1.3-km stretch of the Merzbach river (see
to who copied whom. Many arrows would point
Shennan and Wilkinson 2001:Figure 1), at least
toward an influential scientist or a celebrated artist,
160 Linearbandkeramik (LBK) longhouses were
while few arrows would point toward the average
occupied over a time span of almost 500 years, ca.
person (Milgram 1967). For example, Michael 5300-4850
Jor- B.C. Each house may have been occu-
dan is a prestigious person, and each pair of shoes
pied for a generation, perhaps about 25 years each
(Ammerman and Cavalli-Sforza 1984:74). Stehli
bearing his name is a "connection" leading toward
(1989)
him. Prestige bias in this case is more difficult to reconstructed a 15-stage sequence of the
deal with than conformist bias because Michael
number of occupied houses in the Merzbach val-
Jordan's prestige need not be related to the fre-
ley, beginning at 5300 B.C. and ending at 4850 B.C.
quency of his shoes in any simple way. Hence,According to this sequence, there was a steady
increase in the number of houses for the first 200
identifying prestige-biased transmission may
require additional, qualitative information, specific
years, followed by a leveling off in that growth. In
to the case studied. For example, by 1987 Per this
Bak sense the archaeological sequence suggests
was already well known, having published scores that carrying capacity was reached for the number
of houses in the local area. The drastic decline in
of papers in refereed journals. However, the ten arti-
cles he published prior to Bak et al. (1987) have
the number of houses during the final archaeolog-
only been cited 393 times to date, less than 40 ical
per phase in the Merzbach valley may be con-
article. Hence Bak's prestige as an author, although
nected with increasing conflict and warfare during
the Late LBK.
significant, does not explain the massive citation
of Bak et al. (1987). The deep, ovoid bowls of the Merzbach ceramic
Even more complicated is predicting how theassemblage are decorated with distinctive incised
bands. Through seriation into 25 intervals, Frirdich
prestige of the variant itself affects its own trans-
mission. It might be that prestigious variants(1994)
are has produced a chronology of band-type fre-
quencies from these sites. These different band
copied preferentially, leading to the superlinear
types defined by the excavation team-35 in all-
preferential attachment described by equation (9),
with the exponent a greater than one. However, are made up of incised lines, strokes and indenta-
tions (Frirdich 1994; also see Shennan and
some things are prestigious because they are rare,
like a Rolls Royce. Hence prestige-bias might Wilkinson
also 2001: Figure 3), with denticulate and
resemble the sublinear case, with the exponent oa
spatulate decoration becoming more frequent over
less than one. Because we simply do not have a The chronological sequence for the Merzbach
time.
good understanding of how prestige-biased trans-
valley was based on a detailed stratigraphic and spa-
mission is related to the variant frequency, wetial
do analysis of the LBK sites (Stehli 1994). Frirdich
not offer a quantitative model for it. (1994) linked these occupation phases with the 25
In sum, biased transmission results in a variant
seriation intervals of pottery band types, allowing
frequency distribution that deviates from the us to define a chronology of both houses and motifs
null
model of unbiased transmission. Determiningbased the on the 15 occupation phases. The first six
form of biased transmission involves observing phases are based on site stratigraphy and spatial
analysis and, because the band-type frequencies
whether the highest frequencies exceed or fall short
of the null model prediction, as well as invokingcannot be distinguished from each other and seri-
other lines of evidence. ated, phases 1-6 are grouped together as phase 6
in the following analysis. Frirdich (1994) gives a
LBK Pottery chronology of the frequencies of the motifs at each
We now turn to an example of Neolithic settlementof six settlements, including Langweiler 2, 8, 9 and
in the Merzbach valley. Our analysis is made pos- 16, Laurenzburg 7, and the Niedermerz cemetery.
sible by an exceptionally rich and detailed reportMost (- 75 percent) of the houses and archaeolog-
of excavations and Linear Pottery ceramics from ical assemblage comes from the two largest sites,
this area (Lining and Stehli 1994). Before the area, Langweiler 8 and Laurenzburg 7, about a kilome-
near Bonn in western Germany, was destroyed by ter apart.
lignite mining, it was almost completely excavated. Frirdich (1994) suggested that the Merzbach
Bentley 473 an
a
25 - b 25 .
20 - Pess 15
20 -
15 15 - qo
10 - * Diffrent band types

10
o Diffrent band typeshome
5 5-
II I 0
co
I
(F GSoCI I
5 10 15 0 500 1000 1500

Phase Sample size
Figure 8. (a) The number of decorative pott

to 4900 B.C., as divided into 15 phases. Also
archaeologically reconstructed sequence of
struct the pottery chronology. Each occ
Scatterplot comparing the sample size for e
ence/absence) in use during the phase, and (2
motifs were valley versus

representative the ch
of social id
is consistent
with the at
motifs study
each by
siteS
Wilkinson (2001), who, there
whole in comparin
is a fa
between
sity in the Merzbach the change
data against the
dicted by the neutral-trait
creation/loss ofmodpot
hypothesis, foundrelation is favor
a bias in about of
one
n
later suggesting
chronological a one-to
periods that may h
the effort to households and
express motifs.
social distinctive
it appears that each household
For the purposes may
of our null hypothesis, we find
sented itself over generations with
its own distinctive 12 pottery motifs.
be the simplest explanation for an a
to-one correlation between
8- the numbe
houses through time and the concur
of different band4-types (presence/a
0
used. Figure 8a shows the number o
used at each settlement *over
/ the ch
0 * / *
phases. Also shown on the plot is th
houses occupied in the valley as a wh
u -4-4
- y = 1.13x+ 1.55
poral trends parallel
S.0
each other, and t
R2 = 0.69
decorative variations is clearly correla
number of houses in-8 the valley rather t
ple size (Figure 8b). In fact, Figure 8
the number of band-12 types per occu I I I I I
near 1 (average = 1.75)

-12 for
-8 -4 all
0 4 sampl
8
for the last phase (15), Change

when there
n ho
occupied house. This correlation is a
Figure 9. The chan
plotting the percentage
number change of per
occup
total number of number
occupied
of decorative motifs in use.houses in t
474 AMERICAN ANTIQUITY [Vol.
o00 (a) 1000 (b)
11,
C)
1
= 0.71
Ce *.
00
r2 .78 100
2 *
tL 5
a
et r20=0.71
10
0 5 10 15 20 0 5 10 15 20
Occupied houses Occupied houses
Figure 10. (a) Comparison of the number of houses occupied during eac
motif copies during that phase. (b) comparison with the frequency of the m
it reasonable to model these and the number

band types of occupied
as repre-houses is also expo-
nential (Figure
senting household identities, with one lOb). When we
or two look at the effect of
band
the phase in which
types per household. This is supported by a motif was introduced, we also
evidence
that various craft traditions inan Neolithic
find Europe
overall exponential relationship (Figure 11)
with both the average and maximum
were often maintained by families/households for pottery fre-
quenciestheir
generations, perhaps preserving in each phase. We do not have a ready
associated
decorative motifs as well (Collard and
explanation for Shennan
the bump in the trend representing
2000; Shennan and Wilkinson the
2001
extra ). Several
popularity other
of band types from phase 11.
studies suggest that cultural
For transmission was
now, we note the value of exploring the data in
this way, as it is rather
mainly if not entirely vertical/oblique what made this
than interesting anom-
aly observable.
horizontal during the Neolithic of central Europe.
At late Neolithic lake-village sites in Switzerland
and eastern France, inter-household variation sug-
gests that each house had its own pottery micro-
10000 * Average
tradition and that pottery making was passed on in
-X--- maximum
the same vertical/oblique way as in known ethno-
graphic cases (Arbogast et al. 1997:600; Main-
berger 1998:244). 1000
The linear correlation between occupied houses

.
and the number of different motifs is consistent .
with the neutral-trait model, which predicts that Eh 100

effective number of variants will be 2Np, which is * . a
o
0
linearly proportional to the population size N. Now a
let us look at the variant frequencies rather than their

10
presence/absence. Certain nonlinear patterns in
these frequencies suggest unbiased transmission I
may have predominated. Figure 1 Oa shows an expo-

1
nential correlation between the average motif fre-
5 10 15
quency and the number of occupied houses in each
chronological phase. The correlation is significantly Phase begun
better for an exponential relationship (r2 = .78 +

Figure 11. The average and maximum frequency of
.08) than a linear one (r2 = .58 + .06). The rela- Merzbach pottery motifs shown according to the chrono-
tionship between the maximum motif frequencylogical phase in which they were begun.
Bentl 475
0.1
0.01
^ 0.001
0.000
0.00001
0.000001 I I
1 10 100 1000 10000
Copies
Figure 12. Frequency distribution of Merzbach pottery motifs. The probability distribution looks somewhat like a power
law (black line), but the data are better fit by a log-normal function (dotted gray line). An exponential function (dashed
gray line) is shown for comparison.
It should be no surprise that there are more Applying the Stochastic Network Growth Model
copies of older pottery motifs, produced over a to the Merzbach Data
longer period of time, or motifs from times of larger
populations to produce them. What is not neces- We can now model the change in the Merzbach
sarily expected is that these relationships would be motif frequencies by using the model of Adamic
nonlinear. Following our discussion above, our and Huberman (2000). As their model demon-
model of independent decisions implies that each strates, the log-normal distribution such as we see
band type had an equal probability of being copied in Figure 12 may result from the same rich-get-
and that the total number of copies of a variant richer process that produces a power law or, as dis-
should be linearly proportional to its lifetime. cussed above, a combination of log normals if there
Instead, the nonlinear relationship in Figure 11 sug- is not continual increase in the number of agents
gests that older, established styles were copied in in the network. During the LBK era in the
preference to newer styles. Furthermore, Figure 12 Merzbach valley, prehistoric populations rose, sta-
shows a clear log-normal distribution of band-type bilized, and then declined over a period of about
frequencies in the Merzbach valley for its entire 400 years. Hence we would not expect the distrib-
occupational time span. In contrast, the prediction ution in Figure 12 to be a power law because the
for independent decisions is an exponential decay network did not grow continuously throughout the
in the distribution of frequencies (equation [2]). period. Instead, it could be a mixture of log-nor-
Hence we are lead to reject independent decision mal distributions that developed according to the
making as a hypothesis. Instead, the transmission model of Adamic and Huberman (2000).
process appears to be analogous to stochastic net- We can adapt the model of Adamic and Huber-
work growth, in which older, established motifs man (2000) to explain the evolution of pottery motif
were reproduced in proportion with their existing popularity in the Merzbach Valley. In order to do
frequency. This may seem to contradict the result this, we assume that each pottery motif is a node
of Shennan and Wilkinson (2001), who found a pro- of the network, and copies of each motif are con-
novelty bias in the later Merzbach phases. How- nections leading toward that node. The number of
ever, as we discuss below, this result can be used "connections" leading toward each node is equiv-
to explain the difference between the null hypoth- alent to the number of copies of the motif. Sto-
esis of stochastic network growth and the actual chastic network growth implies that new
Merzbach data. connections (motif copies) are preferentially
Table 1. Variables used in Equations (14) and (15).
Phase New Occupied

begun motifs Lifetime t houses nh nh nt In(ns) (n)max C2
6 18 13 16 11.3 121 4.109 1545 4.990
7 5 9 17 11.7 105 4.678 539 2.844
8 0 8 10 11.0 80 xx xx xx
9 2 7 12 11.1 78 3.388 73 1.630
10 4 6 14 11.0 66 3.344 58 .764
11 3 5 15 10.4 52 3.025 119 1.650
12 0 4 16 9.3 37 xx xx xx
13 1 3 12 7.0 21 .693 2 xx
14 0 2 8 4.5 9 xx xx xx
15 0 1 1 1.0 1 xx xx xx
attached to
data.
(copied
Final
nodes (motifs).
go(i) = anh
Mathematical
ber ofApp
occ
can attempt
motif
to mode
that
to equation (8), whi
variables (s
normal we arrive at a model for the distribution of
function motif
that
with frequencies
time. We begun in the same phase:
apply
ested in the detailed
( -\2
r (lnn
section,
P(ns) = 2 exp - anht (10)
comparing
delineate the
nS t2n(2 2c2 t
pottery
in which they were
tion (8) where, to reiterate:
represent th
begun in ns chronolog
is the number of copies of the pottery motif
mize the accumulated
a prioriby time t info
we start nh is the average number
with the of houses in
simthe val-
maintainedley during the time from
t t
which they a and 6 are parameters
were whose values we need
in
occupationto determine. of phas
result of We now look to estimate the parameters a and
incorporat
Thus the a2 from the data. A prediction of equation (10) is
lifetime, d
motifs begun
that the position of the peak in pha
of each log-normaldis-
9, for example. We
tribution in motif frequencies will depend on anht , t
of houses
which isoccupied
just a multiplied by the cumulative num- d
of the study area
ber of houses occupied over a time span t. In Fig-co
km2, so ure 13a we see a can
we good linear relationship
be (r2 = .92) r
porary between nht and ln(ns), where the bar over the
households w
and of all latter
thequantity indicates decorat
the average value of ln(ns).
Since For a log-normal distribution,
larger populati ln(ns) is the posi-
tially tion of the peak
copy a on the x-axis. Hence Figure 13a
particu
growth shows that the log-normal
rate g(i), peaks moved out ana
at a
constant rate, just as predicted
proportional to by equation
the (8). We p
the phase. Using
find the constant a from the slope of the line the
in Fig-
estimate ure 13a, such that ln(ns) = .0466 nht. We also
population
a is a constant.
expect the width of the peak toBecaus
increase with time,
history of
with variance g, we
(2t, so we plot the do
variance in ln(ns)
over vs. t (Figure
time. To 13b). Although the linearity is not as a
find
tion (8), we
good as in Figure will esti
13a, the slope of the best-fit line
5-
(b)
(a)
4 -
sCa
y = .0466x
R2 = .93
2-
I
.C 1
1-
O0
5 10
O0 50 100 150
nht = (ave Phases existed t

houses)*(phases existed)
Figure 13. (a) Comparison of nht versus the average value of ln(ns) for the Merzbach pottery motifs. The linear relatio
ship between the average value of In(ns) and nht is just as predicted by equation (9). The line has been fitted through t
origin, giving the simple relation In(ns) = .0466nht. (b) Comparison of motif lifetime t versus the variance of In(
motifs begun in the same phase. Equation (9) again predicts a linear relationship (through the origin), for which the b
fit gives variance [ln(n)] = .261t.
From this equation we generated a m

in Figure 13b allows us to estimate that 02 = .261.
Plugging these values into equation (10), we nowution of motif frequencies for any p
have an equation for the distribution of motif fre- Comparing the Model of Stochast
Growth
quencies as a function of time and the number of with the Merzbach Data. Fig
houses occupied nh: the model distributions generated by
for motifs begun in phases 6-11. Each
P(n,
1)=
x (nnI - 0.0466nht)
exp - (11) is log normal, with a skewed bell shap
n,/0.522irt 0.522t (
log plot. Notice that as the phases get o
tributions
where the motif lifetime t is measured move outward and spread
in phases.
0.1
0.01
>-4
0.001
I
0
2
sv
0.0001
, 7 ' 0 "P
- - % --- ". X
0.00001
10 100 1000 10000
Copies
Figure 14. The modelled distribution of Merzbach pottery motif frequency, after equation (12). As the phases get older,
the peak of the log-normal distribution moves toward the right and also spreads out. Note that since the spread is along
a logarithmic axis, motifs from phases 6 or 7 are likely to be tens or hundreds of times more frequent than those from
phases 11-13.
0.1
8 or 12). Since the data are limited, we had to com-
bine phases 9-13 to have enough data for a his-
* A
0.01
A togram. We want to keep our model relevant to the
*x archaeological data that we were forced to com-
bine like this, so for comparability we generated
^ 0.001 +~~* ~the model distribution by binning the modeled
a * X probabilities in the same way,13 and also combin-
0.0001
ing them to get a prediction for phases 6, 7 and
9-13. Figure 16 compares the model and the data
Phase 6 and shows that the model and data are close for
0.00001
Phase 7 phase 7 and phases 9-13.
A
Phases 9-11 With phase 6, however, the model does not fit
0.000001
well, as the actual distribution has a higher pro-
1 100 10oo 1000o portion of low-frequency motifs. Even so, the data
Copies from phase 6 confirm the general expectation of our
model that the log-normal peak moves outward
Figure 15. Frequenc
motifs for three time y distribtion
spans of Merach pttey and spreads out as the phases get older. For this rea-
by initial phase.
son, the only motif with over a thousand recovered
copies comes from phase 6. The reason for the mis-
his process is that the most-pop- match between model and data is that many band
important about tf
ular motifs from older phases are likely to have types originating in phase 6 went extinct well before
thousands of time -s more copies than the popular phase 15 (Figure 17), violating our model assump-
motifs from younlger phases. tion that all motifs lasted until the end of the occu-
Now we can c ompare the model and the data. pation. We note that the pro-novelty bias observed
Because there are not enough data from each phase by Shennan and Wilkinson (2001) for the late occu-
to show a distribi ution, Figure 15 shows the fre- pation phases helps to explain this, although sev-
quency distributicns for motifs begun in phase 6, eral of the band-types from phase 6 were abandoned
phase 7, and phases 9-13 (no motifs from phases already in phase 7. Whatever the reason for this, if
0.1
0.01
0.001
a
;.
?
0.0001
0.00001
0.000001
10 100 1000 10000
Copies
Figure 16. The modelled distributions versus the actual data from the Merzbach pottery. Model 1 assumes all band types
survived until the end of the occupation at phase 15. The data on several phases had to be combined in order to have
enough data for a histogram. For comparability, we calculated the modelled distributions by combining the same phases
and binning data the same way as for the actual data (see note 7).
15 (D number of occupied houses during its lifetime,

14 Qm O CD o along with two empirically determined constants.
13 0 When we add the actual lifespans, the model fits
12 the late-phase data even better.
11 For the earlier phase motifs, we suspect there
10 0 Merzbach was an anti-conformist (pro-novelty) bias that did
9 0
band types not allow them to reach the frequencies predicted
8 under our model of unbiased transmission (cf.,
7 Shennan and Wilkinson 2001). Perhaps it reflects
6 0 the fact that, as certain family lineages (households)
5 came to an end, so did their associated band types.
5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13
Conclusions
Phase begun
For those interested in cultural evolution, archae-
Figure 17. The phase begun ological
for each data areof
uniquely
thevaluable in that they may
35 Merzbach
band types vs. the phase ended. The
exhibit plotover
patterns shows
enoughthat nottoall
generations see the
lasted to phase 15, as assumed for Model 1.
effects of variation, transmission, and natural selec-
tion on the long-term evolutionary time scale (e.g.,
Dunnell
we incorporate the actual 1978, 1982, 1989).
lifespans of Of these band-
the three evolu-
tionary processes, transmission-even
types into the model, we arrive at a closer match unbiased
between the model and data transmission-may
(Figure be 18).
an underestimated phe-
In sum, we find a remarkably nomenon in prehistoric
good fit cultural evolution. Unbi-
between
the stochastic network model of Adamic and ased transmission results when no individual is
Huberman (2000) and the later-phase Merzbach copied preferentially, such that the probability that
a cultural trait is chosen simply depends on how
pottery data, considering that the model uses only
two variables, the phase begun and the average prevalent it is already. By being more available
0.1
0.01 --'
0.001 -
0 o.ooo1 Data, phase 6

a
A
Data, phase 7
Data, phases 9-13
0.00001
Model phase 6
Mll
Model phase 7
Model phases 9-13
0.000001
10 100 1000 10000
Copies
Figure 18. Model 2 vs. actual data from the Merzbach band types. Model 2 is the same as Model 1 in Figures 15 and 17
except that the actual lifespans of the band types were used rather than assuming all survived to phase 15.
IM/
;,IvY/t/ _
I>// /
..."
K211=
1,1/
1'
- -
Figure 19. Modeling a case of unbiased transmission as stochastic network growth. In our example from Neolithic
Germany, we model LBK households as the nodes of the network, and copies of pottery motifs, which we take to repre-
sent the different household identities, as connections leading toward each node (which can be one's own household, as
represented by arrows curving back again). LBK motifs after Frirdich (1994), LBK longhouse after Liuning (1984).
and/or visible, more trusted and/or sought-after, a sion, as exemplified by trial simulations of
popular cultural trait may gain an advantage Neiman's (1995) adaptation of the neutral-trait
through unbiased transmission simply by virtue of model, generates an approximately power-law dis-
its being popular. In addition, the most popular tribution of variant frequencies. In order to make
traits are usually the ones that got into the growth quantitative predictions, this effect can be modeled
process early. A modern analogy is the success of as a process of stochastic network growth after
a brand of cola begun in the early 1900s vs. a new Adamic and Huberman (2000), which also gener-
brand begun in the 1980s-they both taste the same, ates a power law or log-normal distribution of vari-
but there is a distinct advantage to having gotten ant prevalence. In the stochastic network model,
started first. those agents with more of a particular attribute are
In this paper, we have explored models of the more likely to acquire even more of it in the future,
evolution of variant frequencies evolving under at a rate proportional to what they already have.
independent decisions and under unbiased trans- Conformist-biased transmission implies that there
mission. Independent decision making is expected is an extra preference for the most popular trait, in
to exhibit an exponential distribution of variant addition to this frequency dependence. Conformist-
prevalence in the population. Unbiased transmis- biased transmission should produce a highly
skewed distribution of variant frequencies in

inlight
which
of our evidence that these decorative motifs
the most common variants are even more common may have been connected with household identi-
than they would be for unbiased transmission. Pres-ties during the LBK in the Merzbach valley. One
tige-biased transmission, however, is difficult toindication of this is an almost one-to-one correla-
identify just from variant frequencies, because there tion between the numbers of houses and different
is no obvious relationship between the prestige ofband types through time. If the Merzbach band
an object and its frequency. On one hand, it is rea-types were indeed identified with houses, we would
sonable to argue that prestigious people are moreappear to have conflicting evidence for vertical
often copied. On the other hand, it would be rea-transmission on one hand (cf. Collard and Shen-
sonable to argue that prestigious items by defini-nan 2000), and horizontal on the other. One possi-
tion must be difficult to copy, since once theyble solution is that both were in operation, as people
become widespread they cease to be prestigious. balanced a need for personal identity with the desire
For the later phases of Merzbach Valley for group association. In terms of our example
sequence, the frequency distributions of decorativeabove, one might wear Michael Jordan sneakers
band types on pottery appear to agree well with ourover one's own homemade socks. In this view, each
model for unbiased transmission. Our adaptationMerzbach household would have had its own
of the stochastic network growth model of Adamicunique "identity" motif, while members of each
and Huberman (2000) does well to predict thehousehold were free to copy motifs from other
archaeological data by matching not just the static,houses. Viewed this way, each household, via its
cumulative distributions of the band-type frequen-identifying motif, was effectively a node and the
cies but also various characteristics of their changescopies of its motif are referential "links" toward the
through time. That this model of unbiased trans-household (Figure 19). This may have gone on for
mission fits is especially remarkable because it onlymany generations, as LBK houses were often
uses two variables-the phase in which the band rebuilt for what appears to have been the same fam-
type began, and the number of houses occupied dur-ily/household renewing its residence (Bogucki and
ing the lifespan of the band type. When the actualGrygiel 1993; Gronenbor 1999). In this way, the
lifespans from the archaeological data are added,frequencies of band types may have evolved by
the model fits even more closely, yet without infor- unbiased transmission, while the variation in the
mation about sampling, social networks, potterypresence/absence of band types mirrored the num-
production technology, etc. For each beginningber of households.
phase, there is a log-normal distribution of band- The possibility that the Merzbach motifs repre-
type frequency that moves outward and spreads sented different households raises another ques-
out through time. The result is that band types beguntion: could the potting traditions of certain
in an older phase are more numerous in general,households have become prestigious simply by
with a more dispersed distribution of frequencies, virtue of the orders-of-magnitude differences in
such that the most popular band types can be hun-their motif frequencies? Unaware that unbiased
dreds or even thousands of times more prevalenttransmission produced those differences, people
than the most popular from the more recent phases. may have begun to ascribe some intrinsic prestige
At the lowest frequencies, however, the distribu-to the most popular motif. However, they clearly
tion of the oldest motifs (Phase 6) lies above thedid not copy these motifs preferentially, as the old-
prediction of Model 1 for unbiased transmissionest and most frequent Merzbach motifs (phase 6)
(Figure 16). In terms of our network model, thisactually occur very close to the prediction for unbi-
suggests the sublinear preferential attachment case,ased transmission (Figure 18). Hence, if anything,
which is similar to the pro-novelty bias found byunbiased transmission led to sublinear preferential
Shennan and Wilkinson (2001). By demonstratingattachment, where frequent motifs are copied in
this effect on the frequencies of motifs, we feel wenonlinear proportion to their frequency, with an
have made an important advance on the study byexponent oa less than one. This could have been anti-
Shennan and Wilkinson (2001), who focused on the conformist bias, in that there was a pressure for
diversity of motifs. originality or people simply got tired of motifs that
This pro-novelty bias takes on extra importancebecame too common. Alternatively, certain for-
merly popular motifs may have acquired a prestige

Arbogast, R. M., V. Beugnier, N. Delattre, F. Giligny, A. Maitre,
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Henrich, J. R. Boyd, S. Bowles, H. Gintis, and E. Fehr 1998 Das Moordorf von Reute. Teraqua CAP, Staufen.
2001 In Search of Homo Economicus: ExperimentsMilgram, in 15 S.
Small-scale Societies. American Economic Review 1967 The Small World Problem. Psychology Today
91:73-78. 2:60-67.
Neff, H. Notes
1992 Ceramics and Evolution. Archaeological Method and
Theory 4:141-193. 1. After having thought of this example, we discovered
Neiman, F. D. that Henrich (2001) had also used Michael Jordan to make
1995 Stylistic Variation in Evolutionary Perspective: Infer- the same point. Our choices of the same person for an illus-
ences from Decorative Density and Interassemblage Dis- trative example demonstrates prestige-biased transmission in
tance in Illinois Woodland and Ceramic Assemblages. itself!
American Antiquity 60:7-36. 2. The Taylor series is a method of approximating a func-
Newman, M. E. J.
tion by the sum of its derivatives. The function e-x has the
2001 The Structure of Scientific Collaboration Networks.
Taylor series expansion
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA
98:404-409. 2 3
x x2 x3
O'Brien, M. J. e- =1 ---+ +...
1! 2! 3!
1996 The Foundations of Evolutionary Archaeology. In
If pp.
Evolutionary Archaeology, edited by M. J. O'Brien, x is small, then the terms on the right are ne
17-23. University of Utah Press, Salt Lake City. have e-x - 1 - x.
O'Brien, M. J., and T. Holland 3. The distribution has leveled off in recent years, and the
1995 The Nature and Premise of a Selection-based Archae-
distribution may be better described as S-shaped (Henrich
ology. In Evolutionary Archaeology: Methodological
2001). Nonetheless, most of the decline has been exponential.
Issues, edited by P. A. Teltser, pp. 175-200. University of
4. Neiman uses a term for the effective population, Ne
Arizona Press, Tucson.
Paczuski, M., S. Maslov, and P. Bak which accounts for the fact that not all individuals in the pop-
1996 Avalanche Dynamics in Evolution, Growth, andulation are potential carriers of a certain behaviour. For sim-
Depinning Models. Physical Review E 53:414-443. plicity, we refer only to a population N without losing the
Pastor-Satorras, R., and A. Vespignani character of his model.
2001 Epidemic Spreading in Scale-free Networks. Physi- 5. In this case, the chance of not being copied faithfully
cal Review Letters 86:3200-3203.
by a particular person is [1 - (1 - I)/N], and the chance of
Plotkin, H. C.
being ignored by everyone is [1 - (1 - p)/NIN. Therefore, the
1994 The Nature of Knowledge: Concerning Adaptations,
probability Ps that anyone's own personal variant (not some-
Instinct and the Evolution of Intelligence. Allen Lane, Lon-
don.
one else's identical version) survives to the next time step is
the same as the chance that it is not totally ignored:
Pocklington, R., and M. L. Best
1997 Cultural Evolution and Units of Selection in Repli-
cating Text. Journal of Theoretical Biology 188:79-87.
Shennan, S. J., and J. R. Wilkinson
2001 Ceramic Style Change and Neutral Evolution: A Case
If N is large, then (I - u)/N is small and we can make the Tay-
Study from Neolithic Europe. American Antiquity
lor series approximation (see note 2) that 1 - (1 - p)/N - e("-
66:577-594.
l)/N and equation (3) becomes:
Simon, H. A.
1955 On a Class of Skew Distribution Functions. Biomet- p _1 N
rica 42:425-440.
p,1- e N =1 -e-1.
Stehli, P.
1989 Merzbachtal-Umwelt und Geschichte Einer Band-
keramischen Siedlungskammer. Germania 67:51-76.Thus Ps is approximately constant. Note that u < 1, so ps gets
1994 Chronologie der Bandkeramik im Mcrzbachtal.smaller
In as p gets larger. The probability P(t) of being copied
Die Bandkeramik im Merzbachtal auf der Aldenhovenerfor t consecutive time steps is:
Platte, edited by J. Liining and P. Stehli, pp. 79-192.
Habelt, Bonn. P(t) = p.
Turcotte, D. L.
6. Neiman (1995:14) arrives at this formula through the
1997 Fractals and Chaos in Geology and Geophysics. Cam-
approximation that N is very large and p is small. If we
bridge University Press, Cambridge.
assume p is not quite so small, it would follow from Neiman
1999 Self-organized Criticality. Reports on Progress in
Physics 62:1377-1429. (1995: equation[2]) that ne= (2Np + 1)/(1 - 21). From this we
United States Census Bureau predict and average of 3.2 variants for p = 0.05 and 6 variants
for p = 0.10, which are in good agreement with Figures 3b
1995 "Documentation and Methodology for Frequently
and 3c.
Occurring Names in the U.S. - 1990." <http://www.cen-
sus.gov/ftp/pub/genealogy/www/freqnames.html> 7. The frequencies of names among 6.3 million persons,
Wilkinson, J. R. about one fortieth of the U.S. population, were collected in
1997 Ceramics as Viral Quasi-Species. Unpublished M.A. the 1990 Census from sample areas around the country. These
dissertation, Institute of Archaeology, University College
data, with 3519 different surnames, 4275 female and 1219
London.
Witten, T. A., and L. M. Sander male first names, are on a publicly accessible file (U.S.
1981 Diffusion LimitedAggregation, a Kinetic Critical Phe-
Census Bureau 1995).
nomenon. Physical Review Letters 47:1400-1403. 8. Kimura and Crow (1964) predicted the equilibrium
neutral allele (variant) frequency distribution ?(x) in a large
population as: that the position of the peak occurs at ln(ns) = got, and the wid
of the peak (2t is set on a logarithmic scale.
(x) = x-l( - x) - 1
12. To produce a histogram to be displayed with a loga-
where x is the frequency of a given allele and 0rithmic
is a measure
x-axis, the data must be converted to log form befor
of the variability in a population equal to 4NA, (as in the
they are text,
binned. The bin values can then be converted back
N is the effective population size and u is the neutral mutation
regular form to display on the plots. To produce a compar
rate). ble distribution from the model, we bin the model distributio
9. Some readers may want a more explicit definition of in the same way. The modeled probability of being betwee
our network metaphor, having perhaps asked, "does the vari- xI and x2 (x1 < x2) is equal to the area under the probabili
ant copy also have a corresponding link?" For our particular curve between xi and x2. This is the same the cumulative d
model, the answer is no, not an incoming link. By our defini- tribution at x, subtracted from its value at x2. The cumulativ
tion, a copy has only an outgoing link that points to the vari- log-normal function (Turcotte 1997:36) is:
ant, which for metaphorical purposes could be considered the 1 Inx- y
"blueprint" of the variant. An additional copy adds another F(x) = -erfc
2 2o
incoming link to the variant, but not to existing copies. So
only the variant nodes are included when we tally how many where erfc is the complimentary er
incoming links the different nodes have, since only the vari- to equation (16), we have
ant nodes, and not their copies, have any incoming links. This 1 (ln x-0.0466n~
definition, which we hold to consistently in our analysis, is P(n,2 > x)= erfc -( 46
0.2534t
practically necessary. Among archaeological remains, we
could never hope to identify links to individual variant copies for the probability that the num
(like we can with journal references, for example). If we x. The probability that ns is withi
could, it would add enormously to our sample (later copies ference between the cumulative
potentially having many outgoing links, just like journal arti-
cles obligated to have large bibliographies), but our model P(x P(x <n erfc
< n, < X<2)= = 1- 0er (ln x2
2 0.2534t
could easily accommodate this change in the nature of the
data (see Bentley and Maschner 2000).
Another option for our study in particular (discussed later 1 erfc _(lnxl - 0.0466nht)
--erfc -
in this paper) is to model LBK houses as the nodes, and 2 0.2534t
copies of the motifs that may represent household identities
as the network links. While this function would b
10. The "Web of Science" (WOS) database (www.webof- it is simple to do on any spr
science.com) lists journal articles published between 1987 error function, such as Excel
and the end of 1999 with certain keywords. Articles before 13. To combine phases w
1987 were found using the Social Science Citations Index. from each phase given by e
Both databases are maintained by the Institute of Scientific distribution of motif frequ
Information. have:
11. Note the similarity between equation (8) and the nor-
_1 _ _ (n ns -anht)2
P(n= S) = exp -
mal (bell-curve) distribution,
1 (x-x) where () is the number of new motifs begun at phase i.
f(x)= 1 exp - 22 where k(t) is the number of new motifs begun
in which x is the average value, or position of the peak of the

bell-curve, and c2 is the variance, a measure of its width. Sim-
Received
ilarly, when the log-normal distribution in equation (8) is plot- January 4, 2001; Revised July 11, 2
December
ted with a logarithmic x-axis, it looks like a bell-curve 11, 2002.
except

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Society for American Archaeology

Cultural Transmission and Stochastic Network Growth

CULTURAL TRANSMISSION AND STOCHASTIC NETWORK GROWTH

R. Alexander Bentley and Stephen J. Shennan

La teoria arqueologica ha presupuesto tradicionalmente la existencia de las "battleship curves" en la

In anthropological theory today, thereconsidered

American Antiquity, 68(3), 2003, pp. 459-485

of cultural transmission routes can be modeled

mission is defined (e.g., Dunnell 1978; Plotkin

sion of Neiman's (1995) model below, let us call

(b) Male smokers in U.S.

-- No high school *'

elegant model of unbiased transmission, which

0 100 200 300 400 500

10 100 1000 10000

however, as the number of variants generally

0.00001 0.0001 0.001 0.01 0.1 1 10

tion beyond the already skewed distribution portional

1 10 100 1000 10000

Figure 7. The number o

Now the preferential attachment is proportional to

Another possible bias might be termed anti-con-

work, with arrows between people corresponding

10 - * Diffrent band types

o Diffrent band typeshome

5 10 15 0 500 1000 1500

Figure 8. (a) The number of decorative pott

motifs were valley versus

near 1 (average = 1.75)

for the last phase (15), Change

o00 (a) 1000 (b)

Occupied houses Occupied houses

it reasonable to model these and the number

The linear correlation between occupied houses

with the neutral-trait model, which predicts that Eh 100

linearly proportional to the population size N. Now a

let us look at the variant frequencies rather than their

may have predominated. Figure 1 Oa shows an expo-

better for an exponential relationship (r2 = .78 +

1 10 100 1000 10000

Table 1. Variables used in Equations (14) and (15).

Phase New Occupied

nht = (ave Phases existed t

From this equation we generated a m

10 100 1000 10000

10 100 1000 10000

15 (D number of occupied houses during its lifetime,

0 o.ooo1 Data, phase 6

10 100 1000 10000

skewed distribution of variant frequencies in

merly popular motifs may have acquired a prestige

Hennch, J., and F J. Gil-White

1 (x-x) where () is the number of new motifs begun at phase i.

f(x)= 1 exp - 22 where k(t) is the number of new motifs begun

in which x is the average value, or position of the peak of the

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