This article examines resource problems and warfare in a sample of societies from eastern Africa. The frequency and predictability of resource problems are examined, as are two other dimensions of warfare: resource-taking and commission of atrocities. Differences between state and nonstate societies, as well as pacified and non-pacified societies, are also examined and shown to affect associations between resource and warfare variables.

The authors construct a mathematical model from which they generate their main hypothesis that resource unpredictability should be associated with frequency of warfare. A cross-cultural test of this hypothesis was performed by Ember and Ember (1992). The authors critique these findings for state societies and test and alternate hypothesis for application to state societies.

This article examines the relationship between warfare and trade and concludes that the relationship varies within different levels of political organization.

This study retests the data presented by Sillitoe (1977) in his study of the relationship between likelihood of warfare and population density in New Guinea. Contrary to Sillitoe, the author finds a strong and significant association between the two variables. The author also finds a significant relationship between the severity of food shortages and the frequency of warfare cross-culturally.

This article investigates relationships among society size, war and conflict, preferred habitats, and belief in moralizing gods. The authors discuss morality and collective action in the face of natural disasters and competition for resources, theorizing that beliefs in moralizing gods could facilitate such cooperation.

This study examines some of the environmental and psychological predictors of warfare frequency and interpersonal aggression. Results suggest that socialization for aggression in boys is the most significant predictor of warfare. However, authors suggest that socialization for aggression may be a consequence, rather than a cause, of war.

This paper reviews the results of the author's cross-cultural studies of war and aggression and their implications for prehistory.

An extension of the author's 1993 study, An Archaeological Correlate of War, this study examines the relationship between community permeability and war in the ethnographic record using Naroll's study on household and population as a model with the aim of making inferences to the archaeological record.

This article builds on previous cross-country and cross-state research into Tightness-Looseness (TL) theory, which proposes relationships between the incidence of ecological threat and cultural tightness, as well as tightness’ downstream effects on belief in a moralizing high god, inter-group contact and authoritarian leadership. To evaluate the generalizability of TL theory beyond complex cultures, the authors test these relationships among 86 nonindustrial societies from the ethnographic record. A structural equation model is presented of the results for nonindustrial societies; it is generally in accord with previous findings from more complex societies. Because the nonindustrial sample is more variable, they also look at relationships between societal complexity and kinship heterogeneity, aspects that vary in nonindustrial societies.

Using the ethnographic record, this study develops and tests the idea that community permeability may be used as an archaeological predictor of warfare. With the exception of pastoral societies, community permeability predicts warfare.