This article tests hypotheses put forth by Murdock that female contribution to subsistence is associated with matrilocal residence.

This article reviews interpretations of an established relationship between matrilocal residence, sedentarism, and local endogamy. The author offers an interpretation focused on succession of leadership in matrilocal societies: exogamy will be associated with achieved status while endogamy will be associated with a matrilineal succession of authority.

Using the compiled database "Seshat: Global History Databank," researchers sampled 30 societies from 10 distinct regions of the world, testing 51 variables that were condensed into 9 "complex characteristic" variables. Researchers tested for correlates in how societies evolve structurally. Utilizing principal component analysis it was demonstrated that the complex characteristic variables were strongly associated, leading to theorization of structural and social evolution predictability.

This article discusses the reasons behind advances in craft specialization particularly why there is a relationship between advances in craft specialization and the emergence of powerful elites. Hypothesis tests focused on political centralization.

This article tests for universal patterns in cultural evolution by Guttman scaling on two different worldwide samples of archaeological traditions and on well-known archaeological sequences. The evidence is generally consistent with universal evolutionary sequences.

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.