This article hypothesizes that ritual ecstasy was selected for as a way for hunter-gatherers to cope with resource uncertainty by unifying separate groups. Results support this hypothesis and suggest a relationship between resource stress and deities as well as dependence on animals and presence of zoomorphic deities.

A materialist approach is used to study the status of women in hunter-gatherer groups. Techno-ecological factors are tested as predictors of women's status.

Researchers examine the ethnographic record, sampling 82 hunter gatherer societies from the HRAF World Cultures database, for cross-cultural patterns of archaeological evidence of knowledge of astronomy and constellations. Surveying the data, researchers identified many patterns in the upper paleolithic, noting the importance of further examination of this topic.

This study examines the usefulness of three theoretical orientations in explaining sex differences cross-culturally: social constructionism, evolutionary psychology, and the authors’ biosocial theory. The biosocial model is tested in a thorough literature review, and the authors ultimately suggest that the patriarchy and division of labor by gender are due primarily to female reproductive activity and secondarily to male size and strength.

This study, primarily a review on the evolution of the human diet, also includes a small study on the distribution of meat-eating and its relationship with climate and cultural factors, namely subsistence type. The authors find that societies with subsistence strategies that prioritize fishing, hunting, or pastoralism also tend to consume more animal products, whereas those that focus on agriculture have more plant-based diets. The authors argue that these small-scale societies have a healthier approach to diet than industrialized societies regardless of their subsistence type or meat consumption.

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 authors examine musical diversity in India using cantometric data from 32 Indian societies with the goal of better understanding how music varies between and within cultures. They find very minor musical differences between language families, greater diversity between societies but within language families, and the most variation within societies.

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 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.