ArticleEvolutionary human sciences2020
Coding culture: challenges and recommendations for comparative cultural databases.
Article in Evolutionary human sciences, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 13 papers.
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Who cites it
13 citing papers in PubMed.
- Carneiro's global dataset of cultural traits in ethnographic and historical societies: a digital edition.Scientific data · 2026Article
- Target trial emulation shows that supported causal effects of religious attendance on well-being are selective.Evolutionary human sciences · 2026Article
- Mapping nonhuman cultures with the Animal Culture Database.Scientific data · 2025Article
- A global database on blowguns with links to geography and language.Evolutionary human sciences · 2025Article
- The Expanded Natural History of Song Discography, A Global Corpus of Vocal Music.Open mind : discoveries in cognitive science · 2025Article
- Cultural evolution: A review of theoretical challenges.Evolutionary human sciences · 2024Review
- Geography is not destiny: A quantitative test of Diamond's axis of orientation hypothesis.Evolutionary human sciences · 2024Article
- Inferring Cultural Landscapes with the Inverse Ising Model.Entropy (Basel, Switzerland) · 2023Article
- Best practices for spatial language data harmonization, sharing and map creation-A case study of Uralic.PloS one · 2022Article
- Claude Lévi-Strauss as a humanist forerunner of cultural macroevolution studies.Evolutionary human sciences · 2022Review
- Article
- Historical, archaeological and linguistic evidence test the phylogenetic inference of Viking-Age plant use.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2021Article
- The uses and abuses of tree thinking in cultural evolution.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2021Review
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Authors and funding
7 authors.
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No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Considerable progress in explaining cultural evolutionary dynamics has been made by applying rigorous models from the natural sciences to historical and ethnographic information collected and accessed using novel digital platforms. Initial results have clarified several long-standing debates in cultural evolutionary studies, such as population origins, the role of religion in the evolution of complex societies and the factors that shape global patterns of language diversity. However, future progress requires recognition of the unique challenges posed by cultural data. To address these challenges, standards for data collection, organisation and analysis must be improved and widely adopted. Here, we describe some major challenges to progress in the construction of large comparative databases of cultural history, including recognising the critical role of theory, selecting appropriate units of analysis, data gathering and sampling strategies, winning expert buy-in, achieving reliability and reproducibility in coding, and ensuring interoperability and sustainability of the resulting databases. We conclude by proposing a set of practical guidelines to meet these challenges.
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