HRAF Academic Quarterly, Vol 2025-04

By 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.

***

This final HRAF Academic Quarterly for 2025 opens with cross-cultural research on hunter-gatherer locomotion and diversity in human leadership. There are two studies on gender: one on textile-related craft production and the other measuring gender inequality and market integration. From archaeology, there is new kinship research on Neolithic and Bronze Age residence patterns as well as modeling prehistoric Neolithic survival. Other fascinating research looks at categorizing objects by their cultural affordances; classifying human morals and values; and body-based numeration systems. Two examples of conservation studies using eHRAF data and Indigenous knowledge cover Amazonian fish migration and caribou conservation in Saskatchewan. From HRAF staff and affiliates, we have a poster presentation on Ethnography as Language Model presented at the American Anthropological Association Annual Meeting in November 2025, and a new study by King, et. al. outlining a global comparative approach to the study of natural hazards using ethnographic data.

 

Featured Research

The fitness costs and benefits of hunter-gatherer locomotor engagement
George Brill, Mark Dyble

Bipedalism is a distinguishing feature of our species and, as such, there has been much interest in the energetic costs and foraging returns of walking and running, especially among hunter-gatherer societies. However, humans routinely exhibit extensive locomotor versatility, with hunter-gatherers consistently also swimming, diving, and climbing. Additionally, the fitness costs and benefits of locomotion extend well beyond energy income and expenditure. Here, we review evidence from over 900 ethnographic documents across a worldwide sample of more than 50 hunter-gatherer societies to examine the fitness costs and benefits of walking, running, climbing, swimming, and diving. We show that the fitness costs and benefits of locomotor engagement consistently extend well beyond energetics to include, for example, currencies of status, protection from hazards, and risks of injury or death. These fitness factors differ in significance between locomotor modalities, with implications for the comparison of bipedal and non-bipedal locomotion. For example, while energetic demands represent the major cost of most bipedal engagements, the fitness implications of potential fall injuries may outweigh those of energetics in tree climbing. These results inform existing debates relating to hominin locomotor evolution and hunter-gatherer behavioural ecology.

The Multi-Capital Leadership Theory: An Integrative Framework for Human Leadership Diversity
Zachary H. Garfield, Christopher R. von Rueden, Edward H. Hagen

Human leadership and followership take many forms, shaped by the social, economic, political, and cultural contexts of our groups and societies. Underlying this complexity, we argue, are key elements of human social psychology regarding social comparison and the resolution of coordination and collective action problems. The Multi-Capital Leadership (MCL) theory posits that leader emergence and effectiveness depend on perceptions of individuals’ abilities to provide benefits or impose costs in solving challenges of group living, through the deployment of different forms of capital: material, social, somatic (e.g., physical formidability, height, immune functionality), and neural (e.g., knowledge, intelligence, personality, supernatural abilities). We integrate this framework with a review of leadership across human societies, including in non-state and non-industrial contexts, and with novel comparative analyses of ethnographic data. This synthesis highlights how context-specific demands for coordination and collective action, and the accuracy of social comparison, shape the structure and dynamics of leadership and followership across cultures.

Gender

Gendered cordage production in cross-cultural perspective
Ruth Burgett Jolie

Gender is essential to the organization of labor, especially among non-state societies. Cross-culturally, craft production is socially prescribed by gender; depending on the cultural group, either men or women dominate a particular craft’s production. This is true for pottery and textile-related crafts such as weaving and basketry. However, the production of cordage (synonymous with rope, string, twine, and yarn), the most basic unit in weaving, is typically not considered a craft product in and of itself in deference to the view that it is ‘merely’ raw material to produce other objects. Using the electronic Human Relations Area Files database, I here examine the evidence for gendered cordage production cross-culturally from ethnographic research over the last 150 years. Based on a sample of 120 cultural groups with data on plant—and animal—based cordage production, cordage production is a gendered task, with female-dominated production characterizing 57.5% of the sample. Only 12.5% of the groups surveyed document men as the producers of cordage. For 30% of the sample, when both men and women make cordage, they primarily do so using different technologies and raw materials or have different applications and end products in mind. Interpreting these data is challenging owing to uneven data quality and sample size, but despite these limitations, new questions about gendered cordage production suggest a need for renewed attention to cordage production both on its terms and concerning scholarship on gendered textile-related craft production.

Measuring Gender Inequality and Market Integration Among Rural Communities: Introducing the GIMI Survey (Pre-print)
Zachary H. Garfield, Maud Mouginot, Luke Glowacki

The Gender Inequality and Market Integration (GIMI) survey is a new methodological tool designed to assess economic and social transitions in rural and subsistence-based communities. Although anthropologists have long studied these populations, standardized measures of market integration and gender inequality remain rare, making cross-community comparisons and longitudinal analyses difficult. The GIMI survey fills this gap by incorporating key domains such as household wealth, labor participation, financial behaviors, material and social exchange, and mobility, offering a structured yet adaptable approach for field-based research. Market integration is an ongoing process shaped by environmental, economic, and social forces that vary across contexts. The GIMI survey captures both the drivers and consequences of economic transitions, allowing researchers to track how market participation alters social structures, economic stability, and inequality over time. A particular focus is given to gendered dimensions of market engagement, recognizing that shifts in labor, kinship obligations, and resource control have profound effects on gender disparities. By providing comparable and scalable measures, the GIMI survey enhances our ability to study economic transformation, inequality, and social change across diverse societies. We advocate for its adoption as a best practice for researchers working in subsistence-based populations, ensuring that ongoing transitions are systematically documented and better understood.

Archaeology

Was descent in Neolithic and Bronze Age Europe patrilineal or bilateral?
Léa Guyon, Evelyne Heyer, Raphaëlle Chaix

Many studies have attempted to gain insights into the kinship systems of past human populations using ancient DNA data. Several studies focusing on Neolithic and Bronze Age European sites reported a high male relatedness and a low Y chromosome diversity, and concluded that descent in these past societies was patrilineal and residence was patrilocal. Here, we used simulations to assess male and female relatedness as well as the uniparental genetic diversity expected under different types of descent and residence systems. We confirm that ancient DNA data from most of these sites are compatible with patrilocal residence; however, the claim that many Neolithic and Bronze Age European populations had patrilineal descent is not supported.

Surviving in the Early Neolithic. Causal Networks and Complex Systems in Archaeology
Olga Palacios, Laura Mameli, Juan Antonio Barceló

Difficulties surrounding the reconstruction of social systems in past communities have propitiated the development of multiple social theories and a variety of approaches to explain archaeological remains. The Bayesian Network approach has proved to be a crucial tool to model uncertainty and probability to estimate parameters and predict the effects of social decisions, even when some data entries are missing. This paper has the principal objective to present a research study centered on exploring how prehistoric early farmers survived in their environmental context by suggesting a causal complex model of a socio-ecological system. To achieve this, two different causal models are proposed, both based on probabilistic Bayesian Networks, one built from expert knowledge and the other learned from ethnoarchaeological data. These models are used to define what variables would have been relevant to the socioeconomic organization of early Neolithic communities and to predict their behavior and social decisions in hypothetical case scenarios. The ultimate outcome is exploring the use of the Bayesian Network for investigating socio-ecological systems and defining its potentialities as a research method.

Culture and Classification

Culture Affordance Atlas: Reconciling Object Diversity Through Functional Mapping
Joan Nwatu, Longju Bai, Oana Ignat, Rada Mihalcea

Culture shapes the objects people use and for what purposes, yet mainstream Vision-Language (VL) datasets frequently exhibit cultural biases, disproportionately favoring higher-income, Western contexts. This imbalance reduces model generalizability and perpetuates performance disparities, especially impacting lower-income and non-Western communities. To address these disparities, we propose a novel function-centric framework that categorizes objects by the functions they fulfill, across diverse cultural and economic contexts. We implement this framework by creating the Culture Affordance Atlas, a re-annotated and culturally grounded restructuring of the Dollar Street dataset spanning 46 functions and 288 objects publicly available at this https URL. Through extensive empirical analyses using the CLIP model, we demonstrate that function-centric labels substantially reduce socioeconomic performance gaps between high- and low-income groups by a median of 6 pp (statistically significant), improving model effectiveness for lower-income contexts. Furthermore, our analyses reveals numerous culturally essential objects that are frequently overlooked in prominent VL datasets. Our contributions offer a scalable pathway toward building inclusive VL datasets and equitable AI systems.

MoVa: Towards Generalizable Classification of Human Morals and Values
Ziyu Chen, Junfei Sun, Chenxi Li, Tuan Dung Nguyen, Jing Yao, Xiaoyuan Yi, Xing Xie, Chenhao Tan, Lexing Xie

Identifying human morals and values embedded in language is essential to empirical studies of communication. However, researchers often face substantial difficulty navigating the diversity of theoretical frameworks and data available for their analysis. Here, we contribute MoVa, a well-documented suite of resources for generalizable classification of human morals and values, consisting of (1) 16 labeled datasets and benchmarking results from four theoretically-grounded frameworks; (2) a lightweight LLM prompting strategy that outperforms fine-tuned models across multiple domains and frameworks; and (3) a new application that helps evaluate psychological surveys. In practice, we specifically recommend a classification strategy, all@once, that scores all related concepts simultaneously, resembling the well-known multi-label classifier chain. The data and methods in MoVa can facilitate many fine-grained interpretations of human and machine communication, with potential implications for the alignment of machine behavior.

Handy numerals: compositional elements in body-based numeration systems
Olga Dudojć, Andrea Bender, Chiara Anceschi

Body-based numeration systems represent numbers through the use of body parts and hence are subject to constraints imposed by human anatomy. Body parts are readily available and can be manipulated in three-dimensional space, but are also predetermined in shape and quantity, which creates both opportunities and obstacles. Strategies to produce composite numerals include the recruitment of compositional elements, such as numeral bases. This article aims to uncover which types of compositional elements (‘compositional anchors’) are present in body-based numeration systems and how they are represented. Analysing the data from the BodyBase database, we find that compositional elements appear in various types and values, showing both similarities with and differences from verbal and notational systems. The representations of main compositional anchors employ various strategies, including different types of movements, hand shapes and physical space. We discuss patterns of compositionality in body-based systems and how they are shaped by format-specific characteristics, and compare the systems of body-based representations with systems in other formats.

Ecology and conservation

Amazonian fish migration as a social–cultural–ecological process
LuLu Victoria-Lacy, Thiago B. A. Couto, Natalia C. Piland, Jesús Dámaso, Stephannie Fernandes, Simone Athayde, Elizabeth P. Anderson

In this study, we highlight the rich perspectives and explanations of fish migration held by Indigenous groups across the Amazon. We present the aspects of Indigenous cosmological stories, drawing from our exploratory review of cultural ethnographies and grey literature, as well as the authors’ own experiences. We ask, how do Amazonian peoples characterize fish migrations in story and cosmovision? We apply a movement ecology framework to present perspectives on fish migration across the Amazon. Indigenous descriptions of fishes and their movements are specific, relating to particular species, waterscape features, directions of movement and seasons; furthermore, fish migrations are important within Amazonian cosmologies, relating to broader processes of transformation and movement across space, time and worlds. Synthesis and applications: We posit that researchers and conservation practitioners can learn from Indigenous stories about fish and freshwater, and we encourage collaborations that protect biocultural riverscapes of the Amazon.

Values-Based Approaches to Intercultural Conservation Around Lac La Ronge, Saskatchewan
Max Pospisil (PhD Thesis, University of Saskatchewan)

This study takes an ontological and values-based approach to examine caribou conservation around Lac La Ronge, a large boreal lake in subarctic Saskatchewan. Affirming the Algonquian recognition of multispecies and multisentient actors, and through ethnographic and visual arts-based methods, the study documents Woodland Cree and Métis values regarding woodland caribou and intercultural conservation around Lac La Ronge, and considers their use and compatibility with existing Euro-Canadian conservation strategies. Findings highlight ontological differences between Indigenous and Euro-Canadian cultures as central to challenges of intercultural knowledge pairing, and, by extension, to the success (or failure) of intercultural conservation processes for woodland caribou more generally. The study produces a set of guiding principles and recommendations for conservation processes through a holistic, values-based framework, offering tools for weaving together multiple knowledge systems and creating ethical space for collaboration. Building on previous research that has begun to document Indigenous values regarding boreal caribou in Saskatchewan and across Canada, and adding to ongoing intercultural management efforts in Saskatchewan, these findings and recommendations have implications for developing more equitable and sustainable intercultural and interspecies relationships in Saskatchewan and elsewhere.

HRAF Research

Board #26 Ethnography as Language Model: Speaking Beyond the Text
Poster presented at the American Anthropological Association 2025 Annual Meeting
Michael Fischer, Ben Kluga

This poster session explores the use of Large Language Models (LLMs), or Generative Artificial Intelligence, as tools for dynamically evaluating ethnographic writing. Given that LLMs are frequently trained on extensive datasets that include a significant number of ethnographic texts, these offer a unique tool through which to examine and understand cultural representations. Rather than possessing inherent understanding, LLMs function as mediators, connecting myriad authors, voices and perspectives embedded within their training data to the reader. It is essential to recognize the “plural” in authors, as LLMs do not generate responses from a singular perspective but extrapolate from ranked, multiple sources. The generated text is an amalgamation of the diverse cultures and voices present in the training data.

LLMs operate primarily through pattern recognition, identifying relationships within the vast amounts of text processed. Their output is based on statistical correlations and contextual associations, producing text that echoes human language patterns. The meaning attributed to the LLM’s generated text is ultimately derived from the reader’s interpretation within their own cultural and cognitive framework. This research proposes utilizing LLMs to evaluate new ethnographic texts, examining the models’ ability to capture and reproduce culturally specific language patterns. By doing so, we can better understand the limitations and capabilities of LLMs in representing cultures, and potentially gain fresh perspectives on the practice of ethnographic writing itself. This approach opens up new avenues for using LLMs as tools for anthropological research and cultural analysis.

The capacity of Large Language Models (LLMs) to generate text is fundamentally tied to the inherent structure and usage patterns of human language, as captured within their diverse training datasets. These datasets, acting as comprehensive models of language use, enable LLMs to produce responses that readers perceive as meaningful. This observation carries profound implications. For instance, it suggests that the origins of language may be rooted more deeply in social interactions, cultural transmission, and the accumulation of knowledge within communities, rather than in biological adaptations.

Furthermore, this perspective has significant ramifications for our understanding of language more broadly, and for ethnographic writing specifically. If an LLM can construct a viable working model of language use simply by processing examples of language in practice, and then effectively mediate that model in communication with a person, it indicates that language is not merely a passive encoding of internal cognitive functions. Instead, it suggests that language is a dynamic, adaptive system that conserves and transmits knowledge. Language, in this view, serves as a medium for shared external cognition, playing a crucial role in the very process of cultural transmission.

From local knowledge to global patterns: a cross-cultural study of the dimensions of hazards and adaptive capacity
Samantha K. King, Cynthiann Heckelsmiller, Carol R. Ember, Eric C. Jones, Sebastian Wang Gaouette, Anj Lee Droe, Danielle Russell, Jacqueline Heitmann, Isana Raja, Michele Gelfand

Understanding the human impacts of environmental hazards is a growing concern. While there is a plethora of research on climate adaptation, the literature is highly fragmented, and empirical studies are rarely carried out with global samples. This lack of comparative work limits our ability to understand general patterns in how societies adapt, thereby impeding effective policy and practice at a wider scale. To fill this gap, we outline a global comparative approach to the study of hazards that uses ethnographic data. The approach operationalizes five ecological dimensions of environmental hazards, including event type, frequency, onset speed, predictability, and severity, and investigates how they relate across a world-wide sample of 132 nonindustrial societies with significant variation in time and space. We then utilize this approach to explore how specific ecological dimensions might influence the adaptive capacity of societies to respond to events. Findings uncover generalizable patterns that exist across our global sample, suggesting that predictability enhances adaptive capacity, while temporal factors that promote uncertainty (including slow onset speed, longer event duration, and unpredictability) limit the success of adaptation efforts.

Sign up for updates

If you enjoyed this roundup of new research, sign up here to receive an email when our next summary of scholarly work is published.

Send us your news

Would you like to see your eHRAF-based work research featured here? To submit items for consideration for the next edition, please email links to your recently published research (including an abstract) to Dr. Francine Barone.

References

Brill, G. & M. Dyble 2025. The fitness costs and benefits of hunter-gatherer locomotor engagement. Evolutionary Human Sciences 1–37 (available on-line: https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/identifier/S2513843X2510025X/type/journal_article, accessed 3 November 2025).

Chen, Z., J. Sun, C. Li, et al. 2025. MoVa: Towards Generalizable Classification of Human Morals and Values (available on-line: https://arxiv.org/abs/2509.24216, accessed 3 November 2025).

Dudojć, O., A. Bender & C. Anceschi 2025. Handy numerals: compositional elements in body-based numeration systems. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 380, 20240215 (available on-line: https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/full/10.1098/rstb.2024.0215, accessed 3 November 2025).

Garfield, Zachary H, M. Mouginot & L. Glowacki 2025. Measuring Gender Inequality and Market Integration Among Rural Communities: Introducing the GIMI Survey (available on-line: https://osf.io/fsn3c_v1, accessed 26 November 2025).

Garfield, Zachary H., C. R. Von Rueden & E. H. Hagen 2025. The Multi-Capital Leadership Theory: An Integrative Framework for Human Leadership Diversity. Human Nature (available on-line: https://link.springer.com/10.1007/s12110-025-09503-y, accessed 3 November 2025).

Guyon, L., E. Heyer & R. Chaix 2025. Was descent in Neolithic and Bronze Age Europe patrilineal or bilateral? Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 292, 20250815 (available on-line: https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rspb.2025.0815, accessed 3 December 2025).

Jolie, R. B. 2025. Gendered cordage production in cross-cultural perspective. International Journal of Anthropology and Ethnology 9, 15 (available on-line: https://ijae.springeropen.com/articles/10.1186/s41257-025-00139-5, accessed 3 November 2025).

King, S. K., C. Heckelsmiller, C. R. Ember, et al. 2025. From local knowledge to global patterns: a cross-cultural study of the dimensions of hazards and adaptive capacity. International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction 105950 (available on-line: https://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S2212420925007745, accessed 11 December 2025).

Nwatu, J., L. Bai, O. Ignat & R. Mihalcea 2025. Culture Affordance Atlas: Reconciling Object Diversity Through Functional Mapping (available on-line: https://arxiv.org/abs/2512.03173, accessed 11 December 2025).

Palacios, O., L. Mameli & J. A. Barceló 2025. Surviving in the Early Neolithic. Causal Networks and Complex Systems in Archaeology (available on-line: https://www.ssrn.com/abstract=5649945, accessed 3 November 2025).

Pospisil, M. 2025. Values-Based Approaches to Intercultural Conservation Around Lac La Ronge, Saskatchewan (available on-line: https://hdl.handle.net/10388/17501, accessed 3 November 2025).

Victoria‐Lacy, L., T. B. A. Couto, N. C. Piland, et al. 2025. Amazonian fish migration as a social–cultural–ecological process. People and Nature 7, 3297–3312 (available on-line: https://besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/pan3.70190, accessed 11 December 2025).

Image Credits 

via Canva Pro:

Books by Olga Niekrasova from The Olga Niekrasova Collection
Cool Colors of Twisted Yarn by amykerkemeyerphotos
Neolithic Pottery Jars and Urns, Archaeological Museum, Valletta, Malta by cascoly
An indigenous man from the Amazon in Brazil with his spear in the river fishing for piranhas by Carlos Duarte from Getty Images
Ethnography as Language Model: Speaking Beyond the Text, HRAF at Yale University