Human Complex Systems

This paper describes methods used at the interface between anthropology and machine learning research. Charles Kemp, a graduate student at MIT in 2004, discovered my numerically coded Alyawarra kinship term applications data (Denham 1973; Denham, McDaniel and Atkins 1979; Denham and White 2005) and received my permission to use the data in his machine learning research. Since then, his co-authored papers (Kemp et al. 2004, 2006, 2010), and other works that cite his papers and mine, have played significant roles in the development of unsupervised pattern detection and machine learning technology as subsets of Artificial Intelligence research. Part 1 of the paper outlines how I produced the Alyawarra (Alyawara) kinship term applications dataset and introduces the structure and content of the dataset and supporting files. Part 2 briefly describes some simple ways to analyze the dataset either manually or with machine learning technology. Minimally these examples demonstrate some ways in which the ethnographic dataset is useful to the machine learning community now. More speculatively, the machine learning technology introduced here may enhance ethnographic research in the future. Part 3 provides links to a sample of 24 papers by Kemp et al. and other AI colleagues, all of which utilize the Alyawarra Kinship dataset. Part 4 contains links to some of my Alyawarra kinship data and documentation files that are available online. Part 5 briefly acknowledges support that I have received for this project over the last half-century.