Trevor Denton

From InterSciWiki

[edit] Short Bio

Denton was an active faculty member of the Anthropology Department at Brandon University, and is now emeritus, residing at 657 Water Peterborough, ON K9H 3N2. He wrote some outstanding articles on long-range trends in human society using probabilistic inference to extrapolate instances of sigmoidal change over time from low frequency to high frequency items. He continues to publish and we expect new preprints of current work in coming weeks.

[edit] Pubs

1993 Denton, Trevor. Long-Range Time Series of Culture and Society. Cross-Cultural Research 27(1-2):5-27. http://ccr.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/27/1-2/5 https://vpn.nacs.uci.edu/http/0/ccr.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/27/1-2/5 Results for social class and jurisdictional levels.

1994 Denton, Trevor. Kinship, marriage and the family: eight time series, 35000 B.C. to 2000 A.D. International Journal of Comparative Sociology 35(3-4):240-51. http://cos.sagepub.com/archive/ (Will be available from the author. Author notes: Trends valid but not the correlations)

1995 Denton, Trevor. War: long range time series by conditioning. International Journal of Comparative Sociology Date: June 1. (Will be available from the author. Author notes: Trends valid but not the correlations) https://vpn.nacs.uci.edu/http/0/www.questia.com/googleScholar.qst;jsessionid=GCJFDT11RnGc15GmTyTsLt3DnvNNfpypDYWD11fDzLZypth2SCxw!-421176039?docId=5000313386 http://cos.sagepub.com/archive/ (Sage seems to be digitizing past issues)

Abstract: Six long range time series of war are presented. The time series extend from 35,000 B.C. to 2,000 A.D. The time series consist of probabilities that a discrete random variable X=x,x= 1,2,.... The method used to construct probabilities is conditioning on a discrete random variable Y, y=1,2,3 which is observable both in the archaeological record and in an ethnographic cross-cultural data base. Assumptions required by the method are clarified. An historical time series of literacy is constructed and used to support the assertion of good fit of the war time series to the empirical world.

1998 Denton, Trevor. Social and Structural Differentiation: Conceptualization and Measurement. Cross-Cultural Research 32(1):37-78. http://ccr.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/32/1/37 https://vpn.nacs.uci.edu/http/0/ccr.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/32/1/37 A measure of differentiation (occupational and productive specialization/interdependency) is developed, but no cross-cultural codes have been produced from these operational definitions.

1999 Denton, Trevor. Photo Essay Long Range Forecast of Society and Culture: Four Quantitative Methods from Cultural Antrhropology. Anthropologica. http://www.anthropologica.ca/past_issues/vol41-2.html (Will be available from the author.)

2002 Denton, T. Indirect reconstruction of prehistory by quantitative, ethnographic analogy: Methods using correlates of strictly increasing elementary societal processes. World Cultures, 13(2), 110-146. http://eclectic.ss.uci.edu/~drwhite/worldcul/13-2denton.pdf

2003 Denton, T. Reconstruction of prehistory by quantitative, ethnographic analogy: An illustration using division of labor. Unpublished manuscript. (Will be available from the author.)

2004 Denton, Trevor. Cultural Complexity Revisited. Cross-Cultural Research 38(1): 3-26. http://ccr.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/38/1/3 https://vpn.nacs.uci.edu/http/0/ccr.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/38/1/3

Abstract: Cultural complexity has been defined in at least two different ways. First, Murdock and Provost conceptualized cultural complexity not as a single construct but rather as a set of constructs by which societies may be distinguished along the lines of known developmental sequences. Second, many anthropologists have conceptualized cultural complexity as a single construct along the lines of Spencerian differentiation/interdependence or (more loosely) as cultural heterogeneity. Chick made several criticisms of past treatments of cultural complexity but, nevertheless, assumed cultural complexity to be a single construct. In the present article, the approach of Murdock is reasserted. With this approach, Chick’s criticisms disappear. It is shown why the subject area traditionally thought of as cultural complexity has so many impacts on other parts of culture.

2007 Denton, Trevor. Yet Another Solution to Galton's Problem. Cross-Cultural Research 41(1):32-45. http://ccr.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/41/1/32 https://vpn.nacs.uci.edu/http/0/ccr.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/41/1/32

2007. Denton, Trevor. Society to 2050 AD: Anthropological Forecasts Extrapolating Correlates of Modernization. World Cultures 16(1): 62-122. http://eclectic.ss.uci.edu/~drwhite/worldcul/16-1denton.pdf

2007. Denton, Trevor. Behavioral relations for components of recent preindustrial modernization: Quantitative assessment. Ethnology 45(3): 229-254. [Medline] [Order article via Infotrieve]

2007. Denton, Trevor. Unit of observation in cross-cultural research: Implications for sampling and aggregated data analysis. Cross-Cultural Research 41(1): 3-31. http://ccr.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/41/1/3

2007 jrnl Ethnology: another new paper coming out will cover warfare.

2008. Denton, Trevor. Indexes of Validity and Reliability for Cross-Societal Measures. Cross-Cultural Research 42(2): 118-147. http://ccr.sagepub.com/cgi/content/refs/42/2/118

2008. Denton, Trevor. Modernization Magnitude: An Interval Measure Applicable to Post- and Pre-Industrial Societies. World Cultures eJournal 16(2). Article 6 http://repositories.cdlib.org/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1016&context=wc/worldcultures

[edit] Note from Doug

One result relevant to my summer 2007 lectures is that Overall Frequency of War is predicted to decline. External and Internal war are not distinguished