Discussion
Kline et al. (2013) examined the relationship between the nature of transmitted skills and how they are learned. Kline et al. classified cultural skill according to difficulty, strength, and importance, and demonstrated with ethnographic research in Fiji that teaching is most common among closely related kin and least common where no genetic relationship exists, although domains requiring greater skill will be associated with higher levels of oblique transmission, where experts may be selected from non-kin as mentors.
The L2 condition in our simulation stands for partly vertical and partly oblique transmission, as transmission occurs not only between genetically related agents but also between persons related through marriage.How to choose a master may vary according to the nature of the cultural skill. For highly visible, easily transmitted types of skill, transmission may not be restricted to kin. In the case of the Jomon-Yayoi transition, a set of complex skills related to wet rice agriculture spreads together with a new style of material culture. Building wet rice fields and managing all the agricultural tasks are a complex, difficult skill, which constitutes an important aspect of daily life. So it would be reasonable to assume that it is likely to be taught by those with a high level of skill who are available in the community. Making a new style of pottery with a newly adopted forming technique is also likely to be learned from the most skilled person available. Here, “available” means that the person is living close to the learner, as learning such skills requires repeated teaching for many years. Apprentices may try to find the most skilled person in the area for acquiring a rare, special skill, but that is unlikely for agricultural and pottery-making skills that belong to important domains in daily life. Thus, the patterns observed with the L2 condition may give us an inspiration for a possible explanatory model for the Jomon-Yayoi transition.
As has been shown in previous sections, indigenous people are considered to have played more major roles in areas farther from northern Kyushu where Yayoi culture was born under the influence of immigrants from the Korean peninsula.
The pattern of spread of cultural skill under the L2 condition suggests that if everyone decides to learn a new cultural skill when possible, the new skill spreads reasonably quickly without significant population movement and genetic influence (Figs. 11.3 and 11.8). Although cultural transmission is restricted to relatives within two degrees of relationship, one may learn from a relative by marriage, for example a brother- or sister-in-law, from whom the learner does not inherit any genetic trait. Such a situation seems natural in the prehistoric context. Based on these insights, we may be able to construct a new scenario for the Jomon-Yayoi transition which differs from the typical wave-of-advance model, and may better conform to archaeological evidence. We should further examine the archaeological data with this new possible scenario in mind.It should also be noted that the marriage rules and conditions for the migration rate adopted in our simulation do not produce results that fit the physical anthropological evidence in northern Kyushu, as has been examined by preceding simulation studies (Nakahashi and lizuka 1998, 2008; lizuka and Nakahashi 2002, Sakahira and Terano 2014). A high level of the Yayoi genetic trait in area A cannot be maintained for 500 years under any condition in our simulation. This supports the conclusions of previous studies that differences in reproduction and/or polygamy need to be included in the model of the transition.
11.5
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