Summary
This paper covers important developments in the use of computers for quantitative research in cultural anthropology, particularly in areas which (unlike statistics) are uniquely anthropological. These fall into statistical topics and topics in scaling and measurement. By far the largest single usage of computers by cultural anthropologists is for statistical summaries of field data and for simple statistical tests such as thechi-squared for the analysis of field data or for cross-cultural studies. As the discipline develops this situation will remain the same. In fact, the proportion of people who use the computer primarily for contingency tables, frequency counts, and correlation analysis may very well increase, since there are many potential users who would fall in this category and only a few potential users who would perform other operations such as multi-dimensional scaling or simulation. The few other computer techniques that would be relevant to anthropology, and for which the technology already exists, include linear regression, as practiced by economists, and linear programming (also practiced by economists), both of which could be extremely useful in the study of peasant economy. Careful research with such models could dispel some of the controversy which has been hindering the development of economic anthropology for the last fifteen years. The training of anthropologists who can understand the relevance of such models to their work may be far in the future, since the majority of them are still skeptical of most formal methods and of the computers which make them work.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Burton, Michael L.Multidimensional Scaling of Role Terms. Stanford University Ph.D. dissertation, 1968. Ann Arbor, University Microfilms No. 69-8160.
… “Semantic Dimensions of Occupation Terms.” In A. K. Romney, Roger Shepard, and S. B. Nerlove, eds.Multidimensional Scaling in the Behavioral Sciences. In press.
Colby, Benjamin N. “The Analysis of Culture Content and the Patterning of Narrative Concern in Texts.”American Anthropologist 68, i(1966): 473–88.
Coult, Allan D. and Richard R. Randolph. “Computer Methods for Analyzing Genealogical Space.”American Anthropologist 67(1965):21–30.
Cowgill, George. “Computer Applications in Archeology.”AFIPS Conference Proceedings, vol. 31. Washington, D.C.: Thompson Book Co., 1967.
D'Andrade, Roy G., N. R. Quinn, S. B. Nerlove, and A. K. Romney. “Categories of Disease in American-English and Mexican-Spanish.” In A. K. Romney, Roger Shepard, and S. B. Nerlove, eds.Multidimensional Scaling in the Behavioral Sciences. In press.
Driver, Harold and Karl F. Schuessler “Correlational Analyses of Murdock's 1957 Ethnographic Sample.American Anthropologist 69(1967):332–52.
Gilbert, John P. and E. A. Hammel “Computer Simulation and Analysis of Problems in Kinship and Social Structure.”American Anthropologist 68:71–94.
Goodenough, Ward H. “Rethinking ‘Status’ and ‘Role’: Toward a General Model of the Cultural Organization of Social Relationships.” In M. Banton, ed.The Relevance of Models in Social Anthropology. London: Tavistock Publications, 1965.
Gouldner, Alan W. and Richard A. Peterson.Notes on Technology and the Moral Order. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1962.
Harding, Joe R. “Multidimensional Scaling of Ixil Role Terms.” Paper presented at meetings of the American Anthropological Association, New Orleans, 1969.
Hymes, Dell. “The Uses of Computers in Anthropology.” The Hague: Mouton and Co., 1965.
Johnson, S. C. “Hierarchical Clustering Schemes.”Psychometrika 32(1967):241–54.
Kay, Paul. “A Guttman Scale Model of Tahitian Consumer Behavior.”Southwestern Journal of Anthropology 20,ii(1964): 160–67.
Kreps, Theodora. “Computer Analysis of Uto-Aztecan Kinship Systems.” Stanford University Ph.D. dissertation, 1964.
Kronenfeld, David. “Computer Analysis of Lineal Kinship Systems.” M.S., Stanford University, Department of Anthropology, 1967.
Kruskal, J. B. “Multidimensional Scaling by Optimizing Goodness of Fit to a Nometric Hypothesis.”Psychometrika 29(1964):1–27.
Osgood, C. E., G. J. Suci, and P. H. Tannenbaum. “The Measurement of Meaning.” Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1957.
Randolph, Richard R. and Allan D. Coult. “A Computer Analysis of Bedouin Marriage.”Southwestern Journal of Anthropology 24,i(1968):83–99.
Romney, A. K. and Roy G. D'Andrade. “Cognitive Aspects of English Kin Terms.”American Anthropologist 66,iii,part 2(1964):146–70.
——. “A Model for the Analysis of Endogamy.” In Paul Kay, ed.Explorations in Mathematical Anthropology. Cambridge: Massachusetts Institute of Technology Press, 1970.
—, and Ken Wexler. “Individual Variations in Cognitive Structures.” In A. K. Romney, Roger Shepard, and S. B. Nerlove, eds.Multidimensional Scaling in the Behavioral Sciences. In press.
Sawyer, Jack and Robert E. Levine “Cultural Dimensions: A Factor Analysis of the World Ethnographic Sample.”American Anthropologist 68(1966): 708–31.
Shepard, Roger N. “The Analysis of Proximities: Multidimensional Scaling with an Unknown Distance Function.”Psychometrika 27(1962):125–39.
—— “Metric Structures in Ordinal Data.”Journal of Mathematical Psychology 3(1966):287–315.
Siegel, Sydney.Non-Parametric Statistics. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1958.
Steffire, Volney. “Some Applications of Multidimensional Scaling to Social Science Problems.” In A. K. Romney, Roger Shepard, and S. B. Nerlove, eds.Multidimensional Scaling in the Behavioral Sciences. In press.
Textor, R. B.A Cross-Cultural Summary. New Haven: Human Relations Area Files Press, 1967.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Burton, M.L. Computer applications in cultural anthropology. Comput Hum 5, 37–45 (1970). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02404256
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02404256