After noticing that there are no cross-cultural phylogenetic studies of grandparent terminologies, the authors use the record from 134 Pama-Nyungan languages to explore the evolution of this kinship category and to evaluate the effects of social structures in this evolution. The authors suggest that there used to be four different terms for grandparents in the proto-Pama-Nyungan language family, which was supported by the data. The results show no evidence of co-evolution between these grandparent systems with neither community marriage organization nor post-marital residence. There is not a significant correlation between grandparent and cross-cousin terms; however, there is some evidence that grand-child terms are correlated to grandparent systems.

This study seeks to evaluate the degree to which classical kinship models are able to capture variation in kinship terminology. Following a description of the classical typologies of kinship, the authors use statistical approaches and a new database, Kinbank, to assess the internal coherence of these typologies; they find that these typologies are not necessarily accurate predictors of kinship terms across cultures. In addition, this analysis showed that the use of one sort of kinship typology for one generation may only weakly indicate its use in an adjacent generation. The authors set out to try and identify new typologies using statistical modeling based on the single-generation kinship terms of 306 languages. They successfully identify 9 clusters of kinship terms for just one generation alone, indicating that kinship terminology is much more diverse than previously thought. They conclude kinship typology and variation in kinship terminology needs to be investigated more thoroughly.

This book is a comprehensive analysis of many aspects of social structure including family, clan, community, kinship terminology, social organization, regulation of sex, incest taboos, and sexual choice.

Using Maximum Likelihood and Bayesian phylogenetic comparative methods, this study aims to answer how cultural meanings and linguistic forms develop in kinship terminology focusing on sibling terminology. It tests sequential models of change of sibling terminologies among the Austronesian language family to reconstruct: the historical state and evolutionary change of relative age and relative sex; whether these distinctions have independent or dependent evolutionary trajectories; and whether opposite-sex distinctions might have developed when no such distinction previously existed. The results suggest that the trajectories are independent and that there was an initial absence of relative sex distinction. Other findings are that the transitions from absence to complex elaborated terminologies and the disruption of elaborate distinctions are very unusual.

This study examines previous hypotheses concerning kinship terminologies, particularly the development of bifurcate merging. The roles of moieties, exogamy, unilinear kin groupings, unilinear descent, and preferential mating are considered.

This paper, the first cross-cultural study published in 1889 (reprinted here) asserts that tabulation and classification are important methodological tools to study anthropological subjects. The author investigates the development of institutions of marriage and descent, tabulating data on residence, descent, kinship terminology, wife capture, and exogamy.

This article re-examines previous hypotheses by Tylor regarding kin avoidance behavior. The author tests hypotheses on a sample of North American societies that accounts for genetic language families. Results provide partial support for hypotheses.

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.

The present study aims to evaluate correlations of private property from two of Murdock's datasets, one of 147 societies (1981) and the other of 312 societies (1967). Altogether the author tested 146 variables coded by Murdock against variables regarding the ownership of land and of movables drawn from Murdock (1967), Simmons (1937), and Swanson (1960). In total, there were 51 statistically significant correlations between private property ownership and other variables. Additionally, the author summarizes the results from this article and the two that preceded it stating that throughout all of the correlations he ran, the practice of agriculture, the use of cereal grains, and the presence of castes and classes were the only variables that predicted private property in all of the datasets that were utilized.

This paper describes a typology which is intended to indicate the kinds of family and kinship structures associated with the conflicting requirements of cohesion and differentiation of broader social structures.