HRAF Academic Quarterly, Vol 2024-04

HRAF Academic Quarterly, Vol 2024-04

Colored wooden blocks in the shape of people

Francine Barone

This summary features some of the exciting research accomplished using HRAF data from the eHRAF World Cultures and eHRAF Archaeology databases as well as Explaining Human Culture (EHC), Teaching eHRAF, and other open access materials from HRAF. If you would like to stay informed of the latest eHRAF research, sign up here to receive an email when our next summary is available.

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The final issue of the Academic Quarterly for 2024 features cross-cultural research on hunter-gatherer locomotion; men’s contributions to marital dynamics; the association between cousin marriage and honor killings; and a critical overview of archaeological approaches to gender and social inequality. New research from HRAF anthropologists includes challenges of cataloging the world’s 7,000+ languages and cultural tightness and resilience against environmental shocks. In addition, HRAF researchers presented a series of papers at the American Anthropological Association Annual Meeting in November 2024. The HRAF panel, described below, focused on different kinds of exogenous forces such as war and climate and how they might affect cultural variation and change.

Featured Publications

Extensive locomotor versatility across a global sample of hunter–gatherer societies
George Brill, Marta Mirazon-Lahr, Mark Dyble

Studies of hunter–gatherer locomotion inform a wide range of academic fields, from human behavioural ecology and hominin evolution to sports science and evolutionary health. Despite celebrated ethnographic examples of hunter–gatherer locomotor proficiency in running, climbing, swimming and diving, there has been limited systematic analysis of cross-cultural variation in hunter–gatherer locomotor versatility. We conducted a systematic cross-cultural analysis of hunter–gatherer locomotion, coding locomotor behaviour from over 900 ethnographic documents. Our results indicated that high levels of locomotor versatility are common among hunter–gatherers, and that proficiency of running, climbing, swimming and diving is found in societies across the geographical and ecological breadth of the sample. Each locomotor modality was found to be relevant not only to food acquisition but also in leisure, ritual and violent conflict. Our results also indicated the prevalence of both male and female engagement within each locomotor modality, with climbing being the only modality to possess a notable bias towards male engagement in a substantial proportion of societies. The widespread habituality and functional significance of diverse locomotor proficiency in hunter–gatherers suggests that locomotor versatility represents a dimension of human adaptive lability, playing a major role in the ability of hunter–gatherers to thrive in almost every global ecology.

This study used the 57 societies from the Standard Cross-Cultural Sample (SCCS) defined as “hunter-gatherers” or “primarily hunter-gatherers” in eHRAF World Cultures (based on >56% dependence on gathering, hunting and fishing). Data from eHRAF was collected based on keyword searches for locomotor-related behavior across four types: running, climbing, diving and swimming. The OCM subjects “locomotion” and “athletic sports” (481 and 526, respectively) were also included in the search queries.

A Cross-Cultural Investigation of Marriage in Small-Scale Societies
Thomas Flint (PhD Thesis, Harvard University)

In our species mating, reproduction, and pair-bonding are inextricably linked to the cultural institution of marriage. Across societies marital norms influence sexual and economic activity, the recognition of and investment in offspring, the duration and quantity of reproductive unions, residential patterns, social networks, and transfers of wealth, among other dynamics. As such, the analysis of marital norms has proven crucial to understanding human behavior, biology, and psychology. In this dissertation, I explore three aspects of marriage in small-scale societies that have to this point received limited academic attention: cross-cultural variation in men’s age at marriage, rules governing the marital eligibility of young men and women, and changes in men’s work activity at marriage. In the first chapter, I review ethnographic accounts, historical documents, and unpublished anthropological data to construct and analyze an extensive crosscultural dataset of men’s age at first marriage, finding that young men’s economic contributions are a primary determinant of age at marriage and the onset of the reproductive career. In the second chapter, I identify and discretely characterize marital eligibility rules for young men and women across the 60 societies of the Probability Sample File. Through quantitative and qualitative analysis of this dataset and related ethnographic texts, I identify distinctions between eligibility rules for men and women and suggest that the criteria of these rules are shaped in part by cultural group selection. In the third chapter, I analyze time allocation data from several small-scale societies to investigate the relationship between commercial market integration and men’s behavioral change at marriage. In addition to finding empirical support for a general causal effect of marriage on men’s work activity, I conclude that integration into commercial markets tends to reduce the difference in time spent working between unmarried and married men. Combined, all three chapters suggest a centrality of men’s economic production to marital dynamics, highlighting the important role that male provisioning plays in the human reproductive pair-bond.

Men fixing groom attire for wedding in Hong Kong

Genetic markers of cousin marriage and honour cultures
Olympia L.K. Campbell, Cecilia Padilla-Iglesias, Grégory Fiorio, Ruth Mace

Honour cultures, characterized by violent responses to perceived threats to personal or family honour, are widespread. Honour killings, one of the manifestations of honour cultures, claims the lives of thousands of women each year, often at the hands of close relatives, representing not only a social problem but also an evolutionary puzzle. They typically follow accusations of sexual impropriety and are the most extreme manifestation of a range of punishments that control the sexual and marital choices of women. The origins of such practises remain unclear, though honour cultures frequently occur where cousin marriage is common. We propose that cousin marriage offers kin benefits through wealth consolidation yet may also generate parent-offspring conflict over marriage choices. In response, norms and punitive measures, including aspects of honour codes, may have evolved to enforce cousin marriage. To test this, we use the average genomic inbreeding coefficient of an ethnic group, as a measure of the historical practice of cousin marriage, to show that this is associated with the likelihood of endorsing honour killings across 52 ethnic groups. We interpret our findings within the context of parent-offspring conflict over consanguineous marriage and we contribute to the growing body of research exploring the relationship between intensive kinship and cultural traits.

Gender and Social Inequality
Penny Bickle, Marta Cintas-Peña

This chapter provides a critical overview of archaeological approaches to gender and social inequality, and suggests future perspectives and approaches. We argue that considering gender as a central framework through which to analyse past social inequality is long overdue in archaeology. Surprisingly, even under Processualism, which focused on the origins and development of social inequality, the issues of gender inequality were rarely raised. Today, in spite of the fact that feminist and gender perspectives have repeatedly demonstrated the significance of gender for the construction of social differences and identities in the past, we identify a continuation of earlier approaches. Much work remains to be done by archaeologists, both addressing gender inequality and placing it within the social context of change in different periods. We identify positive steps in this direction, and propose that multi-proxy approaches are a promising way to address these complex questions and bring social inequality into focus.

The authors conducted a brief qualitative survey differential status attribution between genders utilizing eHRAF World Cultures. The areas of concern that arose included “kinship relationships, ritual activity or religious practice, economic activity, health and diet, and educational possibilities. The status of a gender permeated each of these aspects of social life in different ways, ranging from how access could be permitted or restricted, freedom of choice, ability to influence the decisions of others, inheritance rights (to both the material and immaterial, such as titles), and the possibility of accumulation”.

HRAF Research

Tackling the Impossibility—and Necessity—of Counting the World’s Languages
Damián Blasi

A language scientist delves into historic and current efforts to catalog the planet’s 7,000-plus languages, uncovering colorful tales and Herculean challenges. Read the full essay at SAPIENS.

Chinese script on old background

Cultural tightness and resilience against environmental shocks in nonindustrial societies
Denis Tverskoi, Carol R. Ember, Michele J. Gelfand, Eric C. Jones, Ian Skoggard, Louise Toutée, Sergey Gavrilets

With climate change intensifying, building resilience against climate-related shocks is now a global imperative. Historically, many societies have faced natural hazards, with some adapting through specific social and cultural practices. Understanding these responses is key to developing modern sustainability strategies. Here, we address this issue by developing a mathematical model explicitly accounting for various environmental shock dimensions, cooperative activities common in nonindustrial societies, and decision-making based on material factors as well as personal values and social norms. Our results suggest that cultural looseness can be vital for effectively responding to mild, slow-onset shocks, leading to moderate cooperation and minimal cultural change. Conversely, coping with severe shocks requires an intermediate level of cultural tightness, fostering significant cultural transformation and high cooperation. While tight societies struggle with new shocks, they may handle regular, severe, fast-onset shocks better than do loose societies. Our research enhances understanding of environmental impacts on cooperation, cultural tightness, and social resilience, and highlights cultural adaptations useful in addressing current environmental challenges like global warming, floods, tornadoes, and soil degradation.

Cross-Cultural Studies of Societal Effects of Exogenous Forces
Panel Presented at the American Anthropological Association Annual Meeting in Tampa Florida, November 20-23, 2024

Chair: Ian Skoggard

Panel Abstract

In this panel, we focus on different kinds of exogenous forces such as war and climate and how they might affect cultural variation and change. Present-day climate change has heightened attention to the effects of weather and climate on human societies and culture. War is often another exogenous force that impacts societies and cultures and is also studied here. Over the past fifteen years, researchers at the Human Relations Area Files have been using eHRAF World Cultures to study the effects of war and climate on cultural variation and culture change to advance our understanding of societal responses to future cataclysmic events. By applying a cross-cultural research methodology to test hypotheses regarding these relationships, we produce knowledge that can be applied to mitigate climate change and possibly prevent wars.

Paper Abstracts

(Presenter names listed first)

Why Do We Have Rituals? A Cross-Cultural Exploration of the Predictors of Rituals
Ian Skoggard, Isana Raja, and Louise Toutee

The anthropology of religion has long been interested in explaining the role of rituals. In this study, we focus instead on how various socio-ecological factors may shape ritual performance. Expanding on previous research, we explore the link between hazards and communal rituals and find that the frequency of rituals is associated with the predictability and severity of hazards. We also investigate warfare as another exogenous force that may shape rituals. Our results reveal new associations between land acquisition during warfare and ritual intensity. We examine societal tightness and looseness and find that tightness in certain domains could predict the emotional intensity of rituals. Additional social factors are also being analyzed. As climatic shocks harm communities at an increasing rate, understanding how rituals function as resilience strategies in response to exogenous forces becomes part of a necessary praxis.

An Ethnographic Approach to the Global Study of Environmental Hazards
Samantha King, Anj Droe, Carol Ember, Cynthiann Heckelsmiller, Isana Raja, and Danielle Russell

Global knowledge about environmental hazards (like floods and droughts) is dominated by meteorological data such as weather observations and climate models. The human experience of hazards, however, often conflicts with meteorological analyses because the local cultural context shapes which events cause destruction and harm. This paper reports on a cross-cultural study designed to bridge this gap between local and global knowledge with the ethnographic record. Utilizing a world-wide sample of 132 societies, we scale-up on-the-ground data regarding hazard types and their impacts, thereby systematically investigating ethnographic variation at the global scale. Findings describe and analyze the human dimensions of hazards, both testing and building theory at the intersection of adaptation, culture, and environment.

On the Development and Functions of Unilineal Kinship: A Cross-Cultural Exploration
Teferi Adem, Anj Droe, Carol Ember, and Danielle Russell

Cultural tightness-looseness theorists argue that tighter in-group norms and stronger enforcement are adaptive in the face of heightened socio-ecological threats (e.g., resource stress and warfare). Might such threats also explain the emergence of more tightly structured kin groups? To help answer this question, we have coded attributes of unilineal kinship for over 100 societies in the ethnographic record. After briefly describing the relationships between resource stress, warfare, cultural tightness and a kinship tightness factor score, this talk focuses on what functions kinship groups play in everyday life. Our preliminary evidence suggests that more frequent activities such as lending and reciprocity occur among tighter descent groups such as localized lineages. By contrast, cooperation practices among remotely related and geographically dispersed descent groups, such as clans, tend to be intermittent and mostly limited to collectively organized rituals, most notably burials.

Flood waters flowing downstream

Food-Destroying versus Non-Food-Destroying Hazards: A Worldwide Comparison of
Differential Effects on Culture
Carol Ember, Anj Droe, and Michele Gelfand

Previous cross-cultural research suggests that climate hazards may have profound effects on a society’s culture. For example, in non-state societies serious food-destroying hazards strongly predict higher warfare frequencies and more customary beyond-household sharing. The research question addressed here is whether non-food-destroying hazards have similar or different effects on a range of cultural traits hypothesized to be adaptive responses. For the past two years our research team has coded the type and frequency of hazards for 132 societies in the ethnographic record using eHRAF World Cultures. Preliminary results suggest that frequent food-destroying and frequent non-food-destroying hazard profiles generally make very different predictions. For example, societies with more non-food-destroying hazards tend to have tighter cultures (stronger norms and severe punishment for norm violations). Food-destroying hazards in non-state societies predict more warfare, but non-food-destroying hazards predict less warfare. We present theory and causal models suggesting explanations for these divergent findings.

From Ethnographic Language to Ethnographic Knowledge: digital tools for text to knowledge
Michael Fischer, Francine Barone, Ben Kluga, and Sridhar Ravula

New digital methods–vector embeddings, neural networks & language models–support novel approaches to ethnographic analysis. Knowledge extraction tools aid in unraveling the intricacies of cultural processes described within ethnographic texts. Using the eHRAF World Cultures, we explore patterns emerging from linking kinship & other relationships to resource management, political action, & expressions of local knowledge. Narratives of cultural processes in ethnographic texts can be described as “process threads, “linking each agent’s states, actions, & transitions (i.e. in wedding ceremony: the bride; wearing white; meets the groom). From an ethnographic perspective, process threads help describe the intricate connections between people, their environment, and their culture & allow for possible alternative understandings of how factors interact & how these interactions may influence a process’s trajectory, serving as a powerful tool for understanding the dynamics of cultural processes.

Who Gets to Eat What, When and Where: How Natural Hazards Affect Food Conventions
Stefania Becerra Lavado, Anj Droe, Danielle Russell, and Ian Skoggard

In this cross-cultural study, we explore the possible effects of different types of hazards on food conventions. The food conventions we examine in a sample of 98 societies include: 1) differential access to food based on gender, or age, or class; 2) dining conventions, such as differences in seating arrangements and the order of serving meals; 3) differential food quality within the household; and 4) special occasions etiquette. In exploring the possible effects of hazards, we examine various dimensions of hazards such as velocity (slow or fast onset), frequency, predictability and whether food resources are destroyed. Some of our preliminary findings are that fast onset food-destroying hazards and more predictable hazards predict equal access to food based on class. Regarding gender, we find less gender inequality in food access in societies with more severe non-food-destroying hazards and faster onset food-destroying hazards. We theorize why this is so.

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References

Bickle, P. & M. Cintas-Peña 2024. Gender and Social Inequality. In Gender Trouble and Current Archaeological Debates (eds) U. Matić, B. Gaydarska, L. Coltofean & M. Díaz-Guardamino, 73–86. (Themes in Contemporary Archaeology). Cham: Springer International Publishing (available on-line: https://link.springer.com/10.1007/978-3-031-68157-8_6, accessed 1 November 2024).

Blasi, D. 2024. Tackling the Impossibility—and Necessity—of Counting the World’s Languages. SAPIENS (available on-line: https://www.sapiens.org/language/world-languages-counting-methods/, accessed 1 November 2024).

Brill, G., M. Mirazon-Lahr & M. Dyble 2024. Extensive locomotor versatility across a global sample of hunter–gatherer societies. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 291, 20242553 (available on-line: https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rspb.2024.2553, accessed 16 December 2024).

Campbell, O. L. K., C. Padilla-Iglesias, G. Fiorio & R. Mace 2024. Genetic markers of cousin marriage and honour cultures. Evolution and Human Behavior 45, 106636 (available on-line: https://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S1090513824001120, accessed 4 December 2024).

Flint, T. 2024. A Cross-Cultural Investigation of Marriage in Small-Scale Societies. Ph.D., Harvard University, United States — Massachusetts (available on-line: https://www.proquest.com/dissertations-theses/cross-cultural-investigation-marriage-small-scale/docview/3130474211/se-2).

Tverskoi, D., C. R. Ember, M. J. Gelfand, et al. 2024. Cultural tightness and resilience against environmental shocks in nonindustrial societies. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 121, e2403386121 (available on-line: https://pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2403386121, accessed 4 December 2024).

Photo Credits

Promoting diversity by Mungkhoodstudio’s Images via Canva
Groomsmen Fixing Grooms Traditional Wedding Attire, Hong Kong, by Dewey gallery from Pexels, via Canva
Ancient Chinese Script by benedek from Getty Images Signature via Canva
Flood by lopurice from Getty Images Signature via Canva