This study replicates John L. Fischer's (1961) cross-cultural analysis to demonstrate the correlation between art styles and social hierarchy and postmarital residence. The author suggests that archaeological ceramics might be used to predict social characteristics of prehistoric societies.

This article tests several hypotheses related to the presence or absence of polygyny. Results suggest a negative relationship between polygyny and male provisioning, and positive relationships between polygyny and warfare, interpersonal aggression, and pathogen stress.

This article is mainly concerned with understanding the motivators toward egalitarianism through modeling via a game that combined elements from both hawk-dove and prisoners dilemma. While most of the article is focused on this model, the researchers also tested their hypotheses cross-culturally on a sample of forager societies. In both cases, they found evidence that the benefits of cooperation drove egalitarianism.

This study asserts that the structure of work organizations is affected more by production techniques than societal complexity. Empirical analysis suggests two trends: 1) production techniques that increase the importance of workers will influence rationality in work organizations, and 2) production techniques that increase the importance of workers and societal complexity will affect the bureaucratic elements of work organizations approximately equally. These findings challenge Udy’s (1970) thesis that complex peasant societies face more challenges than less complex societies in transitioning to modern industrial work forms.

Focusing on cultures of New Guinea, this article tests the relationship between subsistence type and various indicators of cultural complexity: population density, settlement size, and residential permanency. Subsistence type is examined through dependence on aquatic resources--specifically, the consumption of aquatic fauna. Relevance of social and political history of the region is also examined.

This article empirically examines Levi-Strauss’ (1966) theory on cannibalism, that “an analysis of cooking [and by extension cannibalism] as a language will reveal certain structural oppositions in society” (54). Theoretical and methodological weaknesses indicate cooking may not be analogous to language and therefore linguistic theory is not applicable for the analysis of cannibalism.

This book investigates individual and group responses to death and the problems that death can create in a society. Several hypotheses regarding grief and mourning, as well as their variation with other societal variables, are supported with cross-cultural tests.

Authors explore the relationship between privacy among newlywed couples and romantic love as a basis for marriage. Authors also consider the relationship between newlywed privacy and kin avoidence. Both associations are found to be statistically significant.

This article explores the relationship between marital residence and romantic love; results suggest that romantic love is most important in societies with non-neolocal marital residence. The author explores potential functions of romantic love, including bolstering against the divisive pressure of relatives, or to substitute for economic interdependence between spouses.

This study examines the consequences of birth order; results suggest that the firstborn child is more likely to have social authority as they grow older (they have siblings’ respect, they control property or head kin groups, etc.). The authors suggest that this authority may be legitimated by extra attention firstborns receive though elaborate birth ceremonies and teknonymy.