How geography shapes cultural diversity (fwd link)

[Phillip E Cash Cash]

How geography shapes cultural diversity

Study offers evidence that long countries give better protection to
languages than those that are wide.

Zoë Corbyn
11 June 2012

One reason that Eurasian civilizations dominated the globe is because they
came from a continent that was broader in an east–west direction than
north–south, claimed geographer Jared Diamond in his famous 1997 book Guns,
Germs and Steel. Now, a modelling study has found evidence to support this
'continental axis theory'.

Continents that span narrower bands of latitude have less variation in
climate, which means a set of plants and animals that are adapted to more
similar conditions. That is an advantage, says Diamond, because it means
that agricultural innovations are able to diffuse more easily, with culture
and ideas following suit. As a result, Diamond's hypothesis predicts, along
lines of latitude there will be more cultural homogeneity than along lines
of longitude.

To test that prediction, researchers at Stanford University in California
used language persistence as a proxy for cultural diversity, and analysed
the percentage of historically indigenous languages that remain in use in
147 countries today relative to their shape. For example, the team looked
at the difference between Chile, which has a long north–south axis, and
Turkey, which has a wider axis running east to west.

Access full article below:
http://www.nature.com/news/how-geography-shapes-cultural-diversity-1.10808
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