Analysing Cultural Frequency Data: Neutral Theory and Beyond

Abstract

In this chapter we review the application of neutral theory to archaeological case studies. In particular, we focus on commonly used neutrality tests and discuss the interpretation of their results. We argue that one needs to be careful with interpreting the consistency (or inconsistency) of archaeological data with theoretical neutral expectations as evidence for the absence (or presence) of selective force in the population. While neutral theory does very well in replicating various population-level frequency patterns, many alternative processes of cultural transmission may do so, too, making the pattern-matching approach a fairly weak approach for inferring underlying transmission processes. We advocate the use of generative inference frameworks as one possibility to go beyond the hypothesis testing approach. These frameworks do not only allow for the identification of the most likely underlying learning process given the empirical data but for a description of the breath of processes that could have produced these data equally well. This brings us a step closer to understanding the limits to inferring underlying transmission processes from population-level frequency data and therefore the kinds of questions can be answered with which kinds of data.