Journal article
Forgotten books: the application of unseen species models to the survival of culture
- Abstract:
- The study of ancient cultures is hindered by the incomplete survival of material artifacts, so we commonly underestimate the diversity of cultural production in historic societies. To correct this survivorship bias, we applied unseen species models from ecology to gauge the loss of narratives from medieval Europe, such as the romances about King Arthur. The estimates obtained are compatible with the scant historic evidence. In addition to events such as library fires, we identified the original evenness of cultural populations as an overlooked factor in these assemblages’ stability in the face of immaterial loss. We link the elevated evenness in island literatures to analogous accounts of ecological and cultural diversity in insular communities. These analyses call for a wider application of these methods across the heritage sciences.
- Publication status:
- Published
- Peer review status:
- Peer reviewed
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- Files:
-
-
(Preview, Accepted manuscript, pdf, 208.4KB, Terms of use)
-
- Publisher copy:
- 10.1126/science.abl7655
Authors
- Publisher:
- American Association for the Advancement of Science
- Journal:
- Science More from this journal
- Volume:
- 375
- Issue:
- 6582
- Pages:
- 765-769
- Publication date:
- 2022-02-18
- Acceptance date:
- 2021-11-18
- DOI:
- EISSN:
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1095-9203
- ISSN:
-
0036-8075
- Language:
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English
- Keywords:
- Pubs id:
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1240059
- Local pid:
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pubs:1240059
- Deposit date:
-
2022-02-18
- ARK identifier:
Terms of use
- Copyright holder:
- Kestemont et al.
- Copyright date:
- 2022
- Rights statement:
- ©2022 The Authors, some rights reserved; exclusive licensee American Association for the Advancement of Science. No claim to original U.S. Government Works. https://www.sciencemag.org/about/science-licenses-journal-article-reuse This is an article distributed under the terms of the Science Journals Default License.
- Notes:
- This is the accepted manuscript version of the article. The final version is available from the American Association for the Advancement of Science at: 10.1126/science.abl7655
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