Holden Clare Janaki, Mace Ruth
Department of Anthropology, University College London, Gower Street, London WC1E 6BT, UK.
Proc Biol Sci. 2003 Dec 7;270(1532):2425-33. doi: 10.1098/rspb.2003.2535.
Matrilineal descent is rare in human societies that keep large livestock. However, this negative correlation does not provide reliable evidence that livestock and descent rules are functionally related, because human cultures are not statistically independent owing to their historical relationships (Galton's problem). We tested the hypothesis that when matrilineal cultures acquire cattle they become patrilineal using a sample of 68 Bantu- and Bantoid-speaking populations from sub-Saharan Africa. We used a phylogenetic comparative method to control for Galton's problem, and a maximum-parsimony Bantu language tree as a model of population history. We tested for coevolution between cattle and descent. We also tested the direction of cultural evolution--were cattle acquired before matriliny was lost? The results support the hypothesis that acquiring cattle led formerly matrilineal Bantu-speaking cultures to change to patrilineal or mixed descent. We discuss possible reasons for matriliny's association with horticulture and its rarity in pastoralist societies. We outline the daughter-biased parental investment hypothesis for matriliny, which is supported by data on sex, wealth and reproductive success from two African societies, the matrilineal Chewa in Malawi and the patrilineal Gabbra in Kenya.
在饲养大型牲畜的人类社会中，母系继嗣很少见。然而，这种负相关并不能提供可靠证据证明牲畜与继嗣规则在功能上相关，因为由于人类文化之间的历史关系（高尔顿问题），它们在统计学上并非相互独立。我们以撒哈拉以南非洲地区68个说班图语和班图oid语的人群为样本，检验了这样一个假设：当母系文化获得牛群时，它们会转变为父系文化。我们使用系统发育比较方法来控制高尔顿问题，并以最大简约法构建的班图语系语言树作为群体历史模型。我们检验了牛群与继嗣之间的共同进化。我们还检验了文化进化的方向——是在母系制度消失之前就获得了牛群吗？结果支持了这样的假设：获得牛群导致了以前说班图语的母系文化转变为父系或混合继嗣文化。我们讨论了母系制度与园艺相关以及在畜牧社会中罕见的可能原因。我们概述了母系制度的女儿偏向型亲代投资假说，来自马拉维的母系契瓦族和肯尼亚的父系加布拉族这两个非洲社会的性别、财富和生殖成功数据支持了这一假说。
