Human social organization during the Late Pleistocene: Beyond the nomadic-egalitarian model

Singh, Manvir; Glowacki, Luke

doi:10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2022.07.003

Cited by 63 publications

(35 citation statements)

References 129 publications

(169 reference statements)

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“…Archaeological findings indicate that band societies were materialistically egalitarian; division of labour was probably restricted to hunting versus gathering, and possibly to some toolmaking [ 46 , 47 ]. Larger, semi-sedentary, non-egalitarian societies also existed, particularly in provident areas [ 48 ]. During the Early- and Middle Epipaleolithic, 24–15 kyr BP, some changes in the lifestyle of bands in southwest Asia took place, as expressed in novel archaeological findings from these periods.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Human societal development: is it an evolutionary transition in individuality?

Carmel

2023

Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B

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An evolutionary transition in individuality (ETI) occurs when a previously independent organism becomes a lower level unit within a higher hierarchical level (for example, cells in an organism, ants in a colony). Using archaeological and historical accounts from the last 12 000 years, I empirically examine the proposition that human society increasingly functions as a higher hierarchical level within which individuals integrate as lower level units. I evaluate human societal development with respect to three criteria that together indicate complexity in biological systems and serve as an operationalization scheme for ETIs: size, inseparability and specialization. The size of the largest polity has increased seven orders of magnitude, from hundreds to billions. Inseparability became nearly complete since Mesopotamian city-states, following the first appearance of intricate specialization (division of labour). Connectivity within a polity has increased rapidly during the last few centuries, and particularly within the last few decades. In view of these results, I formulate the following hypothesis: human society is undergoing an evolutionary transition in individuality, driven by socio-cultural-technological processes. This proposition requires a detailed theoretical basis and further empirical testing. I propose four predictions derived from the hypothesis that may be used to test it. This article is part of the theme issue ‘Human socio-cultural evolution in light of evolutionary transitions’.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Human societal development: is it an evolutionary transition in individuality?

Carmel

2023

Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B

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“…Members of the genus Homo likely had ties spanning distance by at least 300,000 years ago (Foley & Gamble, 2009 ), if not 500,000 to 1 million years ago (Layton et al, 2012 ); periodic aggregation (such as seasonal meetings at productive resource patches; Kelly, 2007 ) might have reduced the cost of forming and maintaining these relationships. By the late Pleistocene, long-distance relationships appear to have been a central feature of human sociality (Foley & Gamble, 2009 ; Singh & Glowacki, 2022 ; Sterelny, 2011 ). The movement of durable goods—such as stone, shells, and other materials that persist in the archaeological record—across tens to hundreds of kilometers provides supporting evidence; though these goods may have passed through multiple hands, researchers point to the movement of goods as evidence for social networks spanning large distances (Foley & Gamble, 2009 ; Gamble, 1999 ; Irwin et al, 2019 ; Whallon, 2006 ).…”

Section: Distinguishing Intergroup From Long-distance Relationshipsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In high-density, sedentary populations, an individual’s valuation of members of different groups is often guided by generalizations (Tooby et al, 2006 ), extended to those that share the same ethnic markers (Smaldino, 2019 ). In short, ethnic groups, and thus intergroup relationships, likely became prevalent during the Pleistocene as sedentism became more prevalent (Sterelny, 2016 ), perhaps as recently as 130,000 years ago (Singh & Glowacki, 2022 ). The use of religion as a marker of group identity likely came later, between 50,000 and 100,000 years ago (Sterelny, 2018 ).…”

Section: Distinguishing Intergroup From Long-distance Relationshipsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Distinguishing Intergroup and Long-Distance Relationships

Pisor

Ross

2022

Hum Nat

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Intergroup and long-distance relationships are both central features of human social life, but because intergroup relationships are emphasized in the literature, long-distance relationships are often overlooked. Here, we make the case that intergroup and long-distance relationships should be studied as distinct, albeit related, features of human sociality. First, we review the functions of both kinds of relationship: while both can be conduits for difficult-to-access resources, intergroup relationships can reduce intergroup conflict whereas long-distance relationships are especially effective at buffering widespread resource shortfalls. Second, to illustrate the importance of distinguishing the two relationship types, we present a case study from rural Bolivia. Combining ethnography and two different experimental techniques, we find that the importance of intergroup relationships—and the salience of group membership itself—varies across populations and across methods. Although ethnography revealed that participants often rely on long-distance relationships for resource access, we were unable to capture participant preferences for these relationships with a forced-choice technique. Taken together, our review and empirical data highlight that (1) intergroup and long-distance relationships can have different functions and can be more or less important in different contexts and (2) validating experimental field data with ethnography is crucial for work on human sociality. We close by outlining future directions for research on long-distance relationships in humans.

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“…1 Given that corporate group structure is absent among contemporary African foragers such as the Hadza and Ju/'hoansi, kin-based corporate groups are sometimes said to have developed later in sociopolitical evolution (Bellwood 2005;Flannery and Marcus 2012). However, converging lines of evidence suggest that corporate group structure may have been more common among recent foragers and, by implication, our pre-Neolithic ancestors (Singh and Glowacki 2022).…”

Section: Europe's Peculiar Social Structure Led To Higher Relational ...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Individualist moral principles and the expansion of the moral circle

Singh¹,

Hoffman²

2022

Preprint

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The last three centuries have witnessed a moral and political transformation. Groups previously denied equivalent moral standing—including propertyless men, women, ethnic and religious minorities, homosexuals, and slaves—became moral equals deserving of similar legal treatment. Here we argue that this process was driven by the reputational benefits of demonstrating commitment to individualist moral principles. These principles flourished in “fluid” social ecologies with high relational mobility and weak kinship institutions, both as individuals aimed to signal impersonal prosociality and as they strove to be governed under institutions that protected substitutable individuals unbound by formal obligations. As long as parties benefited from appearing committed to these principles, and denying rights to certain groups appeared inconsistent with these principles, then those parties were incentivized to grant those rights. Given the universalist nature of these principles, people signaling commitment were also incentivized to sanction rights-based violations in other countries, helping expand rights beyond their original context. We use this account to explain both expansions and contractions of the moral circle and reconcile the roles of ideas, markets, reasoning, reputation, the Catholic Church, argumentation, moral intuition, social organization, individual strategizing, and large-scale cultural evolution.

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Human social organization during the Late Pleistocene: Beyond the nomadic-egalitarian model

Cited by 63 publications

References 129 publications

Human societal development: is it an evolutionary transition in individuality?

Human societal development: is it an evolutionary transition in individuality?

Distinguishing Intergroup and Long-Distance Relationships

Individualist moral principles and the expansion of the moral circle

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