Lowes and Nunn test the theory that the transatlantic and Indian Ocean slave trades of the thirteenth to nineteenth centuries prompted a shift towards matrilineal kinship systems throughout sub-Saharan Africa. Controlling for ecological variables commonly thought to affect kinship structure (including ruggedness of terrain, suitability for agriculture, etc.), the authors find a significant correlation between the number of people enslaved from a given ethnic group, and the tendency of that group towards a matrilineal kinship system. Polygyny was also identified as a statistically significant characteristic of communities most impacted by the slave trade.

The author analyzes conditions that might favor social resilience during the Late Antique Little Ice Age (ca. 536-556 CE). The assumption is made that climatic conditions in the Northern Hemisphere during this period of time are very similar to those that would occur during a nuclear winter. These conditions include a drop in temperature and decreased solar radiation from volcanic eruptions. Measures for social resilience come from multiple variables for social change, which are tested against measures for type of political engagement. It is argued that broad political participation is correlated with resilience.

The second and third parts of this book classify the economic systems of foraging and agricultural societies in the SCCS based on correlations between their institutions of property an distribution. These economic types are then examined for relationships with other social, political, demographic, and environmental factors in order to draw tentative conclusions regarding the origins of the Agricultural and Industrial Revolutions. The fourth part of the book uses cross-national data to examine similar associations in industrial/service economies, and is not included here.

This article presents a theory of evolutionary development of incest regulation, namely that as societal complexity increases the incest taboo will become less extensive. The author presents empirical support for this theory, though the association is not supported among simply structured societies. The role of descent type is also discussed.

Considerable disagreement exists in regard to the origin and distribution of economic phenomena such as money, slavery, markets, exchange, and imbalanced transfers. Here the author utilizes a worldwide cross-cultural sample of 60 pre-industrial "societies" to empirically test many economic hypotheses, with a focus on distributional mechanisms and institutions.

This study uses Bayesian phylogenetic regression modelling across 131 largely non-industrial societies to test how variation of punishment is impacted by social, economic, and political organization. The authors focus on the presence of norm violations and types of punishments, and explores their relationships. The norm violations include adultery, rape, religious violations, food violations, and war cowardice. While the types of punishment are reputational, material, physical, or education. This study suggests a hypothesis for each type of punishment in relation to socioecological variables.

This study examines pairwise differences between similar cultures in order to minimize cultural variation within the SCCS and reveal possible correlates of cultural complexity. Results suggest that one measure of complexity (government above the community level) is significantly associated with several other variables.

The present study examines the validity of Robert Redfield's one-dimensional "folk-urban continuum" in a sample of 70 pre-industrial societies. As hypothesized, a factor analysis revealed that there is more than a single overriding factor about the "folk-urban continuum." These variables include kinship organization, size-complexity, and relative isolation. The author also contends there is an inverse relationship between relative isolation and size-complexity.

This paper examines the relationship of productive variation in land between ethnic groups to determine if an increased range of producible goods will increase trade, thus decreasing language diversity between neighboring groups. The author initially found that high-variation in land production lessened the diversity of language between ethnic groups in that area. To further test this correlation, the author found that high-productive variation increased trade and exogamous marriage and decreased inter-ethnic conflict. Based on these findings, the author suggests that neighboring ethnic languages co-evolved through the economic benefit of inter-ethnic trade and social interaction.

This article examines the origin of money. Anthropologists’ and economists’ theories are discussed and data supports a broad hypothesis that the existence of money is associated with level of economic development. The author further examines the emergence of internal, external, commercial and noncommercial moneys at high and low levels of economic development.