ABSTRACT
Consistent with David W. Brokensha’s emphasis on the utility of the anthropological perspective, this chapter considers contributions to the study of cultural transmission and applies them to development anthropology. It focuses on why some cultural traits or individuals with a particular cultural heritage may change rapidly while other cultural traits or individuals with a different cultural heritage may be more conservative. The chapter provides a cross-cultural examination of persistence and change in Sub-Saharan Africa as it applies to the cultural transmission model. Intracultural variability is expected in all human populations as many cultural traits are transmitted vertically. The role of cultural transmission in cultural persistence and change can be demonstrated in African history. The history of the European colonization of Africa demonstrates the variability in how different cultures respond to culture change. Europeans entered sub-Saharan Africa as colonial imperial states, and were far more stratified and technologically developed than the bands, tribes and chiefdoms of sub-Saharan Africa.
