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Quantitative historical analysis uncovers a single dimension of complexity that structures global variation in human social organization

Turchin, P; Currie, TE; Whitehouse, H; François, P; Feeney, K; Mullins, D; Hoyer, D; ... Spencer, C; + view all (2017) Quantitative historical analysis uncovers a single dimension of complexity that structures global variation in human social organization. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (PNAS) , 115 (2) E144-E151. 10.1073/pnas.1708800115. Green open access

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Abstract

Do human societies from around the world exhibit similarities in the way that they are structured, and show commonalities in the ways that they have evolved? These are long-standing questions that have proven difficult to answer. To test between competing hypotheses, we constructed a massive repository of historical and archaeological information known as "Seshat: Global History Databank." We systematically coded data on 414 societies from 30 regions around the world spanning the last 10,000 years. We were able to capture information on 51 variables reflecting nine characteristics of human societies, such as social scale, economy, features of governance, and information systems. Our analyses revealed that these different characteristics show strong relationships with each other and that a single principal component captures around three-quarters of the observed variation. Furthermore, we found that different characteristics of social complexity are highly predictable across different world regions. These results suggest that key aspects of social organization are functionally related and do indeed coevolve in predictable ways. Our findings highlight the power of the sciences and humanities working together to rigorously test hypotheses about general rules that may have shaped human history.

Type: Article
Title: Quantitative historical analysis uncovers a single dimension of complexity that structures global variation in human social organization
Location: United States
Open access status: An open access version is available from UCL Discovery
DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1708800115
Publisher version: https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1708800115
Language: English
Additional information: This open access article is distributed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial- NoDerivatives License 4.0 (CC BY-NC-ND).
Keywords: Comparative archaeology, comparative history, cultural evolution, quantitative history, sociopolitical complexity
UCL classification: UCL
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH > Faculty of S&HS
URI: https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10041342
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