This book investigates peaceful societies and the social and ecological conditions that discourage war. The author uses ethnographic examples, cross-cultural findings, primatology, and archaeology to examine war, social organization, human evolution, and conflict management.

This chapter includes cross-cultural tests of the relationship between social complexity of hunter-gatherer groups and warfare. Results suggest that more complex and equestrian hunter-gatherer societies tend to be more war-like and less complex hunter gatherer societies tend to be more peaceful.

This article examines the incidence of warfare in mobile forager band societies. Data analysis suggests that the majority of lethal aggression in such societies can be classified as homicide. Feuding is common and warfare a definite minority. The authors offer several reasons why warfare would be uncommon in such societies: residence, descent, subsistence strategy, and social order are all cited.

This study explores predictors of variation in two dimensions of marital residence patterns among hunter-gatherers: 1) the tendency toward patrilocality versus matrilocality and 2) the tendency toward unilocality versus bilocality.

This article challenges common assumptions about hunter-gatherers and demonstrates that previous ideas about residence, division of labor and warfare are not supported by the cross-cultural data.

This book examines the characteristics of warlike and warless foraging societies, as well as the transitional stages that occur when a society becomes warlike. Several predicted correlates of warfare frequency are supported.

This book investigates the origins of supernatural and religious beliefs. The author tests associations between various types of beliefs (e.g. witchcraft, monotheism) and various societal characteristics (e.g. mobility, class stratification). Many hypotheses are supported. Theoretical discussion is included, and the author posits that “the belief in a particular kind of spirit springs from experiences with a type of persisting sovereign group whose area of jurisdiction corresponds to that attributed to the spirit” (175).

This study explores predictors of variation in two dimensions of marital residence patterns among hunter-gatherers: 1) the tendency toward patrilocality versus matrilocality and 2) the tendency toward unilocality versus bilocality.

This book examines the characteristics of warlike and warless foraging societies, as well as the transitional stages that occur when a society becomes warlike. Several predicted correlates of warfare frequency are supported.

Previous research into the origins of human violence and warfare has oftentimes been inconclusive and controversial. This paper examines two alternative theories as to the evolution of human violence using archaeological records on sharp force trauma (SFT) and blunt force trauma (BFT). The study is limited to 13 different California ethnolinguistic groups. Researchers find that violence is not predicted by sociopolitical complexity, but rather by environmental productivity. This supports the idea that in contexts of resource scarcity, the perceived benefits to engage in lethal aggression may outweigh perceived costs.