Franz Boas' student, Clark Wissler, divides the Americas into "fifteen different regional systems, each with its own characteristic customs, aesthetic styles, ways of obtaining and preparing food, and forms of social organization" (171)
Wissler eventually embraces eugenic ideas (he and Boas have a falling out). But Graeber and Wengrow nod approvingly at the culture areas concept, noting that "the original impetus for the [concept] was precisely to find a way of talking about human history which avoided ranking populations into higher or lower on any grounds"
Marcel Mauss "tackled the notion of 'culture areas' in a series of essays on nationalism and civilization written between 1910 and 1930" [can be found in Marcel Mauss: Techniques, Technology, and Civilization]
"Mauss [...] was convinced that the entire Pacific Rim had once been a single realm of cultural exchange"; that "all lands bordering the Pacific -- from Japan to New Zealand to California --could be treated, effectively, as a single culture area"
he studies, specifically, the cultural movement of games