A non-phylogenetic conceptual network architecture for organizing classes of material artifacts into cultural lineages

The application of phylogenetic techniques to the
documentation of cultural history can present a distorted
picture due to horizontal transmission and blending.
Moreover, the units of cultural transmission must be
communicable concepts, rather than conveniently measurable
attributes, and relatedness between elements of culture often
resides at the conceptual level, something not captured by
phylogenetic methods, which focus on measurable attributes.
(For example, mortars and pestles are as related as two
artifacts could be, despite little similarity at the attribute
level.) This paper introduces a new, cognitively inspired
framework for chronicling material cultural history, building
on Lipo's (2005) network-based computational approach. We
show that by incorporating not just superficial attributes of
artifact samples (e.g. fluting) but also conceptual knowledge
(e.g. information about function), a different pattern of
cultural ancestry emerges.