Identical environments can require a century to erase distinct cultures.

Evidence

The cultural differences between the Nuer and the Dinka cannot be accounted for by subtle ecological differences between their territories. After 1820, the Nuer began successfully conquering and settling on Dinka lands. After more than 100 years of occupying the “Dinka environment,” no Nuer had become Dinka; however, many conquered Dinka had adopted Nuer practices. We cannot see how this, and similar examples, can be reconciled with the idea that environmental differences cause cultural variation. — Joe Henrich and Robert Boyd, The Evolution of Conformist…, 112

Categorization

Category: Factual Claims

• SEED: Article angle: conquest-as-natural-experiment — what cultural assimilation asymmetries reveal about which group traits are environmentally versus historically anchored.
• STORYSTEM: A hundred years of living on conquered land and still not becoming Dinka is a rich seed for a generational story about identity persistence under occupation.
• SHARE: Send to anyone working on ethnic boundary maintenance or cultural persistence under conquest.

Related

• Environment alone cannot explain cultural differences between groups (similarity 0.88)
• Similar environments and technologies produce divergent cultural systems. (similarity 0.80)

Broader Connections

• Demographic change makes cultural homogeneity permanent and unrecoverable #expands (0.80)
• A highly cooperative society can shed religion within a century. #expands (0.75)
• Full cultural assimilation cannot erase ineradicable traces of another place #qualifies (0.75)