This paper investigates two mechanisms of cultural evolution: peaceful diffusion and warlike migration. Two societies, one for each mechanism, were compared to a base society on 11 culture traits. Eight of the 11 traits diffused more readily through peaceful borrowing than through warlike migration. The authors conclude that eliminating warlike migration would slow cultural evolution but that peaceful borrowing is a favored mechanism for culture contact and change.

This book takes a cross-cultural, cross-historical approach to the study of military deterrence. Political, economic, and geographic correlates are considered, particularly military and diplomatic strategy. Several hypotheses are tested and some are supported.

This book investigates the evolution of military organizations and their activities. Hypotheses frequently relate military organizations to political variables. Data suggested that more politically centralized societies have more sophisticated military organizations which are more likely to be successful in conflict (though military sophistication does not appear to deter attack).

This article answers questions raised by Abrahamson (1969) about the relationship between warfare and political complexity. Significant correlations were found between political complexity and the frequency of being attacked and between frequency of attacking and military success.

This article reviews sociological and psychological explanations of suicide, focusing on a thwarting disorientation theory. This theory posits that a person who commits suicide is likely to have lost social ties and perceived someone to blame for that loss. The author examines seven cultural traits (wife-beating, marriage restrictions, divorce freedom, witchcraft accusation, drunken brawling, defiant homicide, and frequent warfare) that can cause thwarting disorientation.

An extension of the author's 1993 study, An Archaeological Correlate of War, this study examines the relationship between community permeability and war in the ethnographic record using Naroll's study on household and population as a model with the aim of making inferences to the archaeological record.

This study re-examines Otterbein's (1970) data on territorial expansion and military sophistication. The author finds that a society's level of "ferocity (or tendency to attack) is more highly correlated with territorial expansion than military sophistication.

This paper tests "theories which suggest that there are causal-functional relationships between the dependent variables peacemaking and peace stability on the one hand and certain independent variables, such as political complexity, warrior class, warfare objectives, cultural homology and intersocietal ties, on the other hand." Significant relationships were found between the last three independent variables.

This chapter includes cross-cultural tests of the relationship between social complexity of hunter-gatherer groups and warfare. Results suggest that more complex and equestrian hunter-gatherer societies tend to be more war-like and less complex hunter gatherer societies tend to be more peaceful.

This book investigates peaceful societies and the social and ecological conditions that discourage war. The author uses ethnographic examples, cross-cultural findings, primatology, and archaeology to examine war, social organization, human evolution, and conflict management.