ACCULTURATION

the processes of change in artifacts, customs, and beliefs that result from the contact of societies with different cultural traditions. The term is also used to refer to the results of such changes. Two major types of acculturation may be distinguished based on two classes of conditions under which changes take place. A free "borrowing" and modification of cultural elements may occur when people of different cultures maintain an interchange without the exercise of military or political domination of one group by another. These new elements may be integrated into the existing culture in a process called incorporation. The unconquered Navajo Indians, in frequent and varied contact with Spanish colonists in the 18th century, selected elements of Spanish culture such as clothing and metalworking techniques that were integrated into their own culture in their own way. Directed change, the second type of acculturation, takes place when one people establishes dominance over another through military conquest or political control. Directed change characterized the Roman conquest of the Mediterranean region and western Europe, the American conquest of the North American Indians, the European domination of Africa, and many other political expansions. Directed culture change, like incorporation, involves selection and modification, but the processes are more varied and the results more complex because they result from the interference in one cultural system by members of another. The processes that operate under conditions of directed change include assimilation, the almost complete replacement of one culture by another; cultural fusion, a new synthesis of cultural elements differing from both precontact cultures; and reaction against aspects of the dominant culture.