The researchers, using principal component analysis, generalized additive models across 12 agriculture origin locations, and a model predicting hunter-gatherer population density, evaluate hindcasted population density trends to suggest predictors of the development of agriculture. Using domestication as an indicator of agriculture, they test 3 competing hypotheses regarding agriculture development. Their results are consistent with the "surplus" hypothesis, indicating that agriculture arose as population densities increased along with environmental capabilities.

The article discusses the role of land ownership in natural resource management and social-ecological resilience, and explores the factors that determine ownership norms in human societies. The study tests long-standing theories from ecology, economics, and anthropology regarding the potential drivers of land ownership, including resource defensibility, subsistence strategies, population pressure, political complexity, and cultural transmission mechanisms. Using cultural and environmental data from 102 societies, the study found an increased probability of land ownership in mountainous environments and societies with higher population densities. The study also found support for the idea that neighboring societies might influence land ownership. However, there was less support for variables associated with subsistence strategies and political complexity.

Using multiple logistic regression, the researchers compare the relative strength of predictors of land ownership across 102 societies. The analysis finds significant predictive power in factors such as neighbors' property system, population density, and geography.

This article reassesses the question of relative peacefulness/violence of preindustrial societies. It tests two materialist theories suggesting that more advanced subsistence techniques and population pressure will increase the likelihood of warfare.

This study employs a psychological theory and builds on the holocultural literature on male homosexuality. Two hypotheses relating homosexual behavior among men to social constructs for sexuality (the couvade, male transvestism) are derived from a study by Munroe (1980). The hypotheses are tested and supported in a sample of cultures drawn from Munroe's codes and the Human Relations Area Files.

This article examines the results of a study (Gaulin 1980) on male parental certainty and subsistence type. Methodological errors are assessed and the hypotheses are retested.

This study re-examines the hypotheses offered by Kleiman (1977) linking monogamy in humans to monogamy in other animals. Of seven hypotheses, only two were weakly supported when using a cross-cultural analysis.

This paper suggests that Fischer's (1961) "male security" variable is not adequate. Cross-cultural analyses suggest that male security in the realm of father-son interaction may be more important than male security in the realm of heterosexual interaction in explaining the line shape preference of a society.

This article re-examines Abernethy's (1974) hypothesis that female power within a marriage negatively affects male sexual functioning. Results do not support this hypothesis.

This article examines reasons for the variation in sexual foreplay practices cross-culturally. Results suggest that exclusive mother-child sleeping arrangements is significantly associated with the presence of foreplay.