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.

Recent research has suggested a co-evolutionary relationship exists between religion and economic complexity. The goal of this study is to examine religion as a driver of economic complexity in the North American archaeological record. Building on and critiquing prominent theories like niche construction, Brian Hayden’s paleo-political ecology (PPE), and Watts et al. 2022 model, this study concludes that religion should not be considered a driver in this dataset but should not be left out of future considerations.

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.

An early cross-cultural study that sought to establish correlations between "stages" of economic culture and a variety of different social and political institutions, such as form of government and justice, marriage and kinship, and behaviors during warfare.

This study focuses on predictors of divorce, cross-culturally. Variables measuring infidelity, infertility, personality, economy, kin, absence, health, ritual and politics are tested. An evolutionary/adaptionist approach is found to be most useful in explaining the nature of conjugal dissolution cross-culturally.

This article discusses the ability of evolutionary theory to generate new hypotheses about human social behavior. Four hyotheses from a previous study are used to support these ideas.

This article suggests that Wilson's definition of sociobiology, which incorporates underlying principles of animal social behavior, can be applied to human bahvior. Specifically, Wilson's assertion that the major ecological conditions associated with monogamy in animal societies, is tested on human societies.

This study attempts to replicate earlier findings regarding transvestism using a larger sample and a different index of sex distinctions. It is asserted that societies that maximize sex distinctions will not have institutionalized male transvestism.