Of nets and trees: Untangling the reticulate and dendritic in Madagascar's prehistory

Archaeological accounts of cultural origin and development often take one of two forms: a dendritic model of diversification and adaptation from a single root or a reticulate model of cultural blending and diversification from multiple ancestral stocks. Madagascar has been described as an example of a dendritic development. The formal features of dendritic and reticulate models are described, and then a summary is presented of the current evidence for Madagascar's settlement. These data neither strongly support a dendritic model nor support any specific reticulate model. The weaknesses of both of these models may derive from their implicit focus on origins, rather than historical process.