Salali Gul Deniz, Dyble Mark, Chaudhary Nikhil, Sikka Gaurav, Derkx Inez, Keestra Sarai M, Smith Daniel, Thompson James, Vinicius Lucio, Migliano Andrea Bamberg
Department of Anthropology, University College London, London WC1H 0BW, UK.
Leverhulme Centre for Human Evolutionary Studies, Department of Archaeology, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, CB2 1QH, UK.
Evol Hum Sci. 2020 Jun 1;2:e24. doi: 10.1017/ehs.2020.26. eCollection 2020.
Cultures around the world are converging as populations become more connected. On the one hand this increased connectedness can promote the recombination of existing cultural practices to generate new ones, but on the other it may lead to the replacement of traditional practices and . Here we examine the process and causes of changes in cultural traits concerning wild plant knowledge in Mbendjele BaYaka hunter-gatherers from Congo. Our results show that the BaYaka who were born in town reported knowing and using fewer plants than the BaYaka who were born in forest camps. Plant uses lost in the town-born BaYaka related to medicine. Unlike the forest-born participants, the town-born BaYaka preferred Western medicine over traditional practices, suggesting that the observed decline of plant knowledge and use is the result of replacement of cultural practices with the new products of cumulative culture.
随着人们之间的联系日益紧密，世界各地的文化正在趋同。一方面，这种日益增强的联系能够促进现有文化习俗的重新组合，从而产生新的文化习俗，但另一方面，它也可能导致传统习俗的被取代。在这里，我们研究了刚果姆本杰莱·巴亚卡狩猎采集者关于野生植物知识的文化特征变化过程及原因。我们的研究结果表明，出生在城镇的巴亚卡人所知晓和使用的植物比出生在森林营地的巴亚卡人更少。城镇出生的巴亚卡人失去的植物用途与医药有关。与出生在森林的参与者不同，城镇出生的巴亚卡人更喜欢西医而非传统疗法，这表明观察到的植物知识和用途的减少是文化习俗被累积文化的新产品所取代的结果。
