To summarise this section we can note the following key ideas:

Cultural Diversity:

1. The initial conclusion we can reach is that cultural variation is far more common than cultural similarity. Even where people are faced with the same types of problems or issues, there is a general tendency to see these solved in different ways by people of different cultures.

2. Perhaps the most startling cultural variations are found when we compare modern societies (such as Britain) with pre-modern societies (for example, the Lakker of Burma or Britain 1000 years ago).

3. Modern industrial societies (Britain, America, Germany and so forth) do tend to show less cultural variation and more similarity because of cultural integration - the fact that cultural influences are more easily passed from one modern society to another.