Confirmation of the role of geographic isolation by distance in among-tribe variations in beadwork designs and manufacture on the High Plains.

Understanding the patterns that result from intercommunity contact has long been an interest in anthropology. Although linguistically diverse, peoples of the Historic-period Great Plains came into contact through a diversity of means, both malevolent and benevolent in form. Accordingly, the idea that the Plains was an environment that led to high degrees of cultural interchange has long been held. Recently, it has been proposed that the among-tribe distribution of some material culture patterns, such as beadwork patterns on moccasins, is explicable in geographic terms. That is, geographically proximate groups exchanged cultural features at higher rates than those more geographically distant from each other. While logically sound, this pattern would only emerge at statistically significant levels if selective biases were not operating to prevent the "free flow" of information. However, there are viable and well-documented reasons why decorative features may be subject to such cultural selection. Moreover, previous assessments of the geographic hypothesis only examined the general layout of beadwork designs, rather than more detailed features such as motifs, beadwork techniques, and other decorative features. Here, the role of geographic spacing in explaining the among-tribe distribution of beadwork attributes on the High Plains during the Historic period is reexamined. A dataset describing motifs, beadwork techniques, and additional decorative features is used. These data are subjected to several sets of statistical analysis. The role of linguistic affinities is also considered. The results show that geographic "isolation by distance" does indeed explain the distribution of beadwork attributes among these ethnolinguistically diverse tribes, with no equivalent statistical effect for language patterns. In turn, these results highlight the role of specific processes operating among these communities. These results also underline the value of ethnographic museum collections for addressing the role of social processes among the people responsible for their manufacture, which can have anthropological relevance over much broader scales. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]