This article examines cross-cultural variation in customary birth practices for men and women, testing a general hypothesis that birth practices represent tactics in negotiations over paternity. Data supports this hypothesis, and a series of related variables are tested in bivariate analysis and path analysis. Findings suggest that compensation demands at birth are associated with maternal restrictions from paternity-related agreements (e.g. maternal seclusion during birth), and fraternal interest groups are associated with the husband’s ritual involvement at birth (e.g. demonstration of the couvade).

Female genital mutilations within Africa are associated with strong fraternal interest groups, virginity tests, and conservative permarital sex norms. Codes and ratings for female genital mutilations, virginity tests, premarital sex norms, and female initiation rites are presented in this article.

Feuding and other responses to malfeasance are examined cross-culturally. The geographic distribution of responses are presented and odds ratios/logistic regression models are employed in analyzing the effect of socio-economic, historical and ecological variables on responses to malfeasance. Codes are included.

This article examines the relationship between grammatical forms and a society’s economic activity, particularly whether property-based societies are more likely to develop the possessive verbs. Analysis supports an association.

This article reviews aspects of cooperative breeding in humans and nonhumans. Life history characteristics, childcare helpers, and demographic implications of cooperative breeding are examined. Cross-cultural data is presented, though no empirical hypotheses are tested.

The author explicitly defines and provides code for male and female age organizations and secret societies in Africa, as well as their significant sociopolitical roles within society. The author conducts preliminary analysis using the codes to explore characteristics and regional patterns of such organizations and societies. The analysis is compared to existing studies in order to assess the code and better understand cross-cultural patterns and variances. The author identifies the usefulness of the code beyond Africa, and discusses avenues for future research. No explicit hypotheses were tested, but Ericksen includes some descriptive generalizations.

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.