This study is a reexamination of Bacon's (1965) previous cross-cultural study regarding drinking. The current study supports the dependency-conflict hypothesis that frequency of drunkenness is related to dependency needs in childhood and adulthood.

Causal factors to the development of crime are examined. Frequency of theft and personal crime are tested against these causal factors in a search for correlations.

This study explores cultural variables associated with frequency of drunkenness and ceremonial drinking. Particular attention was paid to childhood socialization variables, as well as politcal and social organization. Results show a low correlation between frequency of drunkenness and frequency of ceremonial drinking, and various other variables are associated with each.

This study explores predictors of variation in two dimensions of marital residence patterns among hunter-gatherers: 1) the tendency toward patrilocality versus matrilocality and 2) the tendency toward unilocality versus bilocality.

The present research investigates food sharing and labor sharing practices of 98 nonindustrial societies. The aims are to: 1) document the frequency and scope of sharing, and 2) test the theory that greater sharing is adaptive in societies subject to more resource stress (including natural hazards).

This article uses the Standard Cross-Cultural Samples to test the relationship between disease and economic growth among sub-Saharan African societies. The authors suggest that a higher disease prevalence limits social integration and economic development since pre-colonial times. The variable measuring economic growth is the complexity of large or impressive structures. The hypotheses are that 1) pathogen stress is negatively correlated to the presence of complex buildings, and 2) pathogen stress is positively correlated to increased ethnic diversity. The results support both hypotheses, and there are additional results, like 1) the negative correlation between pathogen stress and current income per capita and 2) the negative correlation between the increased ethnic diversity and current income per capita. Overall, this article shows the robust relationship between disease and economic development.

In this article researchers created a model to answer the question "What is a typical human life history of foraging skill?" While the immediate goal of this study was to create a model focused on age and relative skill, the larger purpose was to draw more clarity around the trajectory of human foraging skill over time. Researchers used data on hunting returns from 40 different study sites from around the world (Table 1) in order to assess the success of an expedition. While the model created here does not draw conclusions as to the absolute levels of production within or between societies, it can inform cross-cultural comparisons of relative skill at different stages of life. In conclusion, researchers found that the average hunter peaks at 33 years old, and by age 18, has 89% maximum skill (with the range of maximum skill being from ages 24-25). This skill was also found to decline slowly, such that it falls below 89% maximum after age 56. In terms of cross-cultural findings, the model found that cross-cultural variation is evident in the rate at which hunters develop peak skill, (meaning that within sites, the rate at which hunters develop skill is relatively homogeneous compared to the variation that distinguishes young hunters in different study sites), and individual hunters develop physical and cognitive abilities in concert, resulting in high hunting success by their late 20s and early 30s. In order to run the model, this study used the Hamiltonian Monte Carlo algorithm (in the Rstan package) for the sampling, and a Cobb-Douglas production function to express the observable foraging returns.

This study relates the type of games present in a society to the level of cultural complexity. Authors use a "game-type combination scale" that categorizes societies as having: 1) games of physical skill only; 2) games of physical skill and games of chance; and 3) games of physical skill, games of chance, and games of strategy. Results show a relationship between the game-type combination scale and indicators of cultural complexity.

This article considers the consequences of modernization. Factor analysis is used to identify four stages of modernization: 1) changes in education, government, and trade; 2) changes in health, technology, and transportation; 3) changes in family, religion, and toilet; and 4) changes in behavior. The authors then consider five trends they expect to be associated with modernization and test whether they develop over the course of the four stages. Results indicate that these 5 trends—increased cultural complexity, female status, pacification, suicide, and social stress—are associated with only the first and fourth stages.

This article investigates a cultural patterning of altered states of consciousness. The authors use an ordinal variable for a society's trance type; its four levels are 1) trance, 2) trance and possession trance, 3) possession trance, and 4) neither type. Results suggest that trance type is associated with measures of societal complexity and subsistence economy. Regional differences and the effects of diffusion are also examined.