Culture area

A culture area is a region in which the environment and cultures are very similar. The concept of culture areas was first developed around the turn of the nineteenth century, and despite significant limitations, has grown to become a useful tool to help anthropologists conduct ethnological studies.

Applications

Culture areas are commonly evoked in cross-cultural anthropology to facilitate the generalization of cultural phenomena and broad comparison of cultures that have developed in similar environments.

Shortcomings

Culture areas are limited in their usefulness because their borders are rarely well defined and their constituent peoples are usually far from homogeneous. It is quite likely that two neighboring ethnic groups that supposedly live in different culture areas will have more in common than two groups from opposite extremes of the same culture area. An example is the borderland between Mesoamerica and the Greater Southwest where ancient trade routes facilitated extensive cultural exchange - one might walk from Arizona to Guatemala and never notice an abrupt shift in traditional cultural patterns.