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Distance decay is a geographical term which describes the effect of distance on cultural or spatial interactions. [1] The distance decay effect states that the interaction between two locales declines as the distance between them increases.
[18]: 158 Kehoe concludes with the theory of transoceanic contact and makes clear that she is not asserting a specific theory of how and when cultures diffused and blended, but is instead offering a plausible, and testable, example of how civilizational similarities may have arisen without hyperdiffusionism, namely by independent invention and ...
Taylor saw geography in a synthesising role between explanations of the physical world and the diffusion and evolution of the human species. The fittest tribes evolve and survive in the most stimulating regions; i.e., where living is not so hard as to stunt mental development, and not so easy as to encourage sloth and loss of initiative.
"Diffusionism", in its original use in the 19th and early 20th centuries, did not preclude migration or invasion.It was rather the term for assumption of any spread of cultural innovation, including by migration or invasion, as opposed "evolutionism", assuming the independent appearance of cultural innovation in a process of parallel evolution, termed "cultural evolutionism".
In cultural anthropology and cultural geography, cultural diffusion, as conceptualized by Leo Frobenius in his 1897/98 publication Der westafrikanische Kulturkreis, is the spread of cultural items—such as ideas, styles, religions, technologies, languages—between individuals, whether within a single culture or from one culture to another.
The concept of global cultural flows was introduced by anthropologist Arjun Appadurai in his essay "Disjuncture and difference in the global cultural economy" (1990), in which he argues that people ought to reconsider the Binary oppositions that were imposed through colonialism, such as those of ‘global’ vs. ‘local’, south vs. north, and metropolitan vs. non-metropolitan.
A sprachbund (/ ˈ s p r ɑː k b ʊ n d /, from German: Sprachbund [ˈʃpʁaːxbʊnt] ⓘ, lit. 'language federation'), also known as a linguistic area, area of linguistic convergence, or diffusion area, is a group of languages that share areal features resulting from geographical proximity and language contact.
Writing in response to institutional arguments, Diamond agreed that institutions are an important cause, but argued that their development is often heavily influenced by geography, such as the clear regional pattern in Africa where the northern and southern countries are wealthier than those in the tropical regions.