**update below**
following up from this…
“These data again demonstrate the political role of preferred marriage forms. Exogamy and lack of cousin marriage within large lowland nation-states aid in uniting disparate clans and villages. By contrast, the absence of exogamy and the presence of preferred cousin marriage intensify relationships within the small upland social units.”
…where in the world should we expect to find cousin marriage/inbreeding/endogamy vs. lack of cousin marriage/outbreeding/exogamy? note that i think this lowland/upland dichotomy particularly applies to agriculturalists vs. agri-pastoralists/pastoralists and (maybe) not so much to hunter-gatherers, so i’m ignoring hunter-gatherers for right now. (click on map for LARGER view):
>> inbreeding <<
- saudi arabia, yemen, oman, uae: check. especially, once-upon-a-time (i.e. before the spread of islam), in the western and southern regions of the arabian peninsula. dunno if that is true or not.
- the middle east: check. but not, once-upon-a-time (i.e. before the coming of islam?), in egypt. dunno if that is true or not.
- turkey, iran, turkmenistan, afghanistan, pakistan: check.
- southern, but not northern, india: check.
- ethiopia, most of east africa heading southwards except for coastal areas: the amhara of ethiopia (and ethiopian jews) have rules against close endogamy, but that’s probably/possibly largely a result of the introduction of christianity. other groups in ethiopia certainly practice endogamy. dunno about the rest of east africa.
- nepal, bhutan, other groups in the himalayas: i happen to know that the nepalese have a tradition of cousin marriage, just haven’t gotten around to posting about it yet. dunno about bhutan or other himalayan folks.
- northern parts of southeast asia, vietnam (talk about very stubborn guerrilas!), northern thailand: check.
- indonesia: more on borneo than most of the other islands. no idea.
- southern and western china, but not northeast china (including manchuria): my impression from the reading so far is that clans, so probably the cousin marriage that definitely occurred/s in china, were historically more prevelant in southern than northern china. further research is required. (~_^)
- japan: check.
- southern europe: spain, southern france, central and southern italy including sicily and sardinia, greece, the balkans — check, check, check, check, check. if you haven’t already, see mating patterns in europe series in left-hand column below ↓.
- alpine countries: switzerland, austria, etc. not sure.
- northern europe: scotland, wales, parts of ireland, norway. — check, check, check, not sure. again, see mating pattern in europe series.
- russian federation (better map here): from the urals westwards generally yes, although there are patches of lowland areas in the west. the west siberian plain should be a large area of outbreeding until you get to the central siberian plateau (unless western russians settled there bringing their marriage traditions with them?). dunno the details.
- north africa: esp. in the atlas mountains. not sure what the berber mating patterns were pre-islam. the cousin marriage rates are high today.
>> outbreeding <<
- northern europe: england, northern france, belgium, the netherlands, denmark, northern germany, northern poland — check, check, check, check, check, check, more-or-less. especially since the medieval period, but there was most likely cousin marriage/endogamy in all of these places pre-christianity. see mating patterns in europe series.
- iraq: around the tigris and euphrates — the garden of eden. lots of inbreeding, in fact, but that may have been introduced by the arabs along with islam — certainly father’s brother’s daughter (fbd) marriage likely was. dunno what the marriage practices of the populations there were pre-islam. i wonder what they were in ancient sumerian, etc., times? dunno.
- large parts of west africa: dunno. there appears to be some high cousin marriage rates in parts of guinea and nigeria, but that’s just where there are some highlands in west africa. dunno for sure.
- central africa: niger/chad area. dunno.
- coastal east africa: dunno.
- libya and egypt: pre-islam. dunno.
- northern india: check. relative to their neighbors anyway.
- parts of russia: see comments above in inbreeding section.
- northern china: see comments above in inbreeding section.
- parts of southeast asia: check.
- parts of indonesia: in particular the southeastern part of sumatra. dunno.
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**update 09/14: oops — forgot the new world (remember – agriculturalists only):
- western/southwestern north america, mesoamerica, anybody in the andes: should’ve been inbreeders. dunno for sure.
- eastern north america: groups in the midwest ought to have been outbreeders, relatively speaking. anybody in appalachia ought to have been inbreeding. florida groups (were they agriculturalists?) should’ve been outbreeders — according to this theory anyway. dunno for sure.
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previously: this one’s for g.w.
(note: comments do not require an email. where the inbred martians should be.)
