A new technique for causal analysis of cross-cultural surveys is presented.
The epistemological assumption is that for any given sociocultural process,
the ethnographic universe contains societies that were at different stages of
the process when they were ethnographically described. To set up a causal
design, one must logically deduce the different stages through which a
particular society undergoing the process would pass. Thus, instead of
making a series of diachronic measurements of the variables in each
society, the diachronic changes in the variables would be represented by
a series of synchronic measurements made in different societies at different
stages of the process. Two examples of the use of this technique in previous
research are presented, and, as a further example, it is suggested how the
technique could be used to test Wallace's theory of Revitalization Move
ments.
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