Disentangling the evolutionary drivers of social complexity: A comprehensive test of hypotheses.

Autor: Turchin P; Complexity Science Hub Vienna, Vienna, Austria.; Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT, USA.; Centre for the Study of Social Cohesion, School of Anthropology and Museum Ethnography, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK., Whitehouse H; Centre for the Study of Social Cohesion, School of Anthropology and Museum Ethnography, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK., Gavrilets S; Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Department of Mathematics, Center for the Dynamics of Social Complexity, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN, USA., Hoyer D; Seshat: Global History Databank, Evolution Institute, San Antonio, FL, USA.; George Brown College, Toronto, Canada.; Evolution Institute, San Antonio, FL, USA., François P; Centre for the Study of Social Cohesion, School of Anthropology and Museum Ethnography, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK., Bennett JS; University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA., Feeney KC; TerminusDB, Dublin, Ireland., Peregrine P; Lawrence University, Appleton, WI, USA., Feinman G; Field Museum of Natural History, Chicago, IL, USA., Korotayev A; National Research University Higher School of Economics, Moscow, Russia., Kradin N; Institute of History, Archaeology and Ethnology, Far East Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Vladivostok, Russia., Levine J; Evolution Institute, Tampa, FL, USA., Reddish J; Complexity Science Hub Vienna, Vienna, Austria., Cioni E; Seshat: Global History Databank, Evolution Institute, San Antonio, FL, USA., Wacziarg R; University of California Los Angeles, Anderson School of Management, Los Angeles, CA, USA., Mendel-Gleason G; TerminusDB, Dublin, Ireland., Benam M; Complexity Science Hub Vienna, Vienna, Austria.
Jazyk: angličtina
Zdroj: Science advances [Sci Adv] 2022 Jun 24; Vol. 8 (25), pp. eabn3517. Date of Electronic Publication: 2022 Jun 24.
DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.abn3517
Abstrakt: During the Holocene, the scale and complexity of human societies increased markedly. Generations of scholars have proposed different theories explaining this expansion, which range from broadly functionalist explanations, focusing on the provision of public goods, to conflict theories, emphasizing the role of class struggle or warfare. To quantitatively test these theories, we develop a general dynamical model based on the theoretical framework of cultural macroevolution. Using this model and Seshat: Global History Databank, we test 17 potential predictor variables proxying mechanisms suggested by major theories of sociopolitical complexity (and >100,000 combinations of these predictors). The best-supported model indicates a strong causal role played by a combination of increasing agricultural productivity and invention/adoption of military technologies (most notably, iron weapons and cavalry in the first millennium BCE).
Databáze: MEDLINE