Forgotten books: The application of unseen species models to the survival of culture

The study of ancient cultures is hindered by the incomplete survival of material artifacts, so we commonly underestimate the diversity of cultural production in historic societies. To correct this survivorship bias, we applied unseen species models from ecology to gauge the loss of narratives from medieval Europe, such as the romances about King Arthur. The estimates obtained are compatible with the scant historic evidence. In addition to events such as library fires, we identified the original evenness of cultural populations as an overlooked factor in these assemblages' stability in the face of immaterial loss. We link the elevated evenness in island literatures to analogous accounts of ecological and cultural diversity in insular communities. These analyses call for a wider application of these methods across the heritage sciences.

Automated summary

The study of ancient cultures is hindered by incomplete material artifact survival, leading to underestimation of cultural diversity in historic societies. Without correcting this bias, the loss of narratives from medieval Europe may be underestimated. Similarly, the original evenness of cultural populations plays a crucial role in the stability of these assemblages in the face of immaterial loss.