This study examines relationships between subsistence type, population size, and sedentarism. Hunting, gathering, fishing, and herding societies tend to be smaller than horticultural and agricultural societies. Horticulture, agriculture, and fishing societies tend to be more sedentary.

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 article investigates factors influencing the division of labor by gender, including occupation specialization, the type of material labor involves, the presence of the plow, nomadism, and the advantage that a product may yield to either sex. Hypotheses are widely supported.

This study re-examines patterns of cross-sex kin relationships using new ethnographic data. The author looks specifically at cross-sex kin relationship in relation to marriage rules.

This paper examines the distribution and diffusion of the seven patterns of sibling classifaction given by the author. The author then studies the association between descent and sibling terminology.

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.

Data on the distribution of economic activities between the sexes is presented. Tabulations suggest that preindustrial societies have a strong tendency to segregate labor by gender, and that no occupation is exclusively assigned to women.

This paper presents a comprehensive list of kinship patterns for grandparents, grandchildren, uncles, aunts, nieces and nephews, siblings, cross-cousins, and siblings-in-law. The author based these typologies on over 1000 kinship terminologies from around the world. The geographical distributions of kinship patterns are also included.

This article examines the universal tendency for languages, regardless of their historical relationships, to develop similar words for mother and father on the basis of nursery forms. Findings suggest that Ma, Na, Pa, and Ta are significantly more common sound classes denoting the mother or father.

This chapter investigates the various socioeconomic variables that are associated with matrilineal and patrilineal institutions. Several variables were found to correlate significantly with matrilineal and patrilineal institutions.