Collaborative Historical Information Analysis

Manning, Patrick; François, Pieter; Hoyer, Daniel; Zadorozhny, Vladimir

doi:10.1016/b978-0-12-409548-9.09658-5

Cited by 2 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 65 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Our unit of analysis, here as in all other Seshat papers, is not the NGA, but a Seshat polity, which we define pragmatically as an independent political unit ranging in scale from autonomous villages (independent local communities) through simple and complex chiefdoms, to states and empires (Turchin et al, 2018). We populate our list by determining historical polities that occupied each of our sample regions (NGAs) over time, starting with the early modern period and working back in time to the Neolithic, or as far as available evidence allows (see François et al, 2016;Manning et al, 2017;Turchin et al, 2015).…”

Section: Developing a Coding Scheme For Quantitative Data Analysismentioning

confidence: 99%

Explaining the rise of moralizing religions: a test of competing hypotheses using the Seshat Databank

Turchin

Whitehouse

Larson

et al. 2022

Religion, Brain & Behavior

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The causes, consequences, and timing of the rise of moralizing religions in world history have been the focus of intense debate. Progress has been limited by the availability of quantitative data to test competing theories, by divergent ideas regarding both predictor and outcomes variables, and by differences of opinion over methodology. To address all these problems, we utilize Seshat: Global History Databank, a large storehouse of information designed to test theories concerning the evolutionary drivers of social complexity. In addition to the Big Gods hypothesis, which proposes that moralizing religion contributed to the success of increasingly large-scale complex societies, we consider the role of warfare, animal husbandry, and agricultural productivity in the rise of moralizing religions. Using a broad range of new measures of belief in moralizing supernatural punishment, we find strong support for previous research showing that such beliefs did not drive the rise of social complexity. By contrast, our analyses indicate that intergroup warfare, supported by resource availability, played a major role in the evolution of both social complexity and moralizing religions. Thus, the correlation between social complexity and moralizing religion would seem to result from shared evolutionary drivers, rather than from direct causal relationships between these two variables.

show abstract

Section: Developing a Coding Scheme For Quantitative Data Analysismentioning

confidence: 99%

Explaining the rise of moralizing religions: a test of competing hypotheses using the Seshat Databank

Turchin

Whitehouse

Larson

et al. 2022

Religion, Brain & Behavior

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Our unit of analysis, however, is not the NGA, but a Seshat polity, which we define pragmatically as an independent political unit ranging in scale from villages (independent local communities) through to simple and complex chiefdoms, and to states and empires (Turchin et al 2018). We populate our list by determining each historical polity that occupied each of our sample regions (NGAs) over time, starting with the early modern period and working back in time to the Neolithic, or as far as the available evidence allows (see Turchin et al 2015, François et al 2016, Manning et al 2017.…”

Section: Developing a Coding Scheme For Quantitative Data Analysismentioning

confidence: 99%

Explaining the Rise of Moralizing Religions: A test of competing hypotheses using the Seshat Databank

Turchin¹,

Whitehouse²,

Larson³

et al. 2019

Preprint

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The causes, consequences, and timing of the rise of moralizing religions in world history have been the focus of intense debate. Progress has been limited by the availability of quantitative data to test competing theories, by divergent ideas regarding both predictor and outcomes variables, and by differences of opinion over methodology. To address all these problems, we utilize Seshat: Global History Databank, a vast storehouse of information designed to test theories concerning the drivers of social complexity in world history. In addition to the Big Gods hypothesis, which proposes that moralizing religion contributed to the success of increasingly large-scale complex societies, we consider the role of warfare, animal husbandry, and affluence in the rise of moralizing religions. Using a broad range of nuanced measures of moralizing religion, we find strong support for previous research showing that institutions endorsing beliefs in supernatural enforcement arise after, not before, the sharpest rises in social complexity in world history. In addition, our analyses suggest that intergroup warfare, supported by resource availability, played a significant role in driving the rise of both social complexity and moralizing religions. The data, methods, and results presented in this paper have been made publicly available online for others to inspect and critique, allowing additional analyses to be run and alternative assumptions to be tested, in parallel with peer review and prior to publication.

show abstract

Collaborative Historical Information Analysis

Cited by 2 publications

References 65 publications

Explaining the rise of moralizing religions: a test of competing hypotheses using the Seshat Databank

Explaining the rise of moralizing religions: a test of competing hypotheses using the Seshat Databank

Explaining the Rise of Moralizing Religions: A test of competing hypotheses using the Seshat Databank

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About