Will

Consider joining us in Zurich for EHBEA 2027! This is a cool interdisciplinary conference bringing together anthropologists, psychologists, economists, and behavioral biologists. We've got excellent plenary speakers! Follow @ehbea2027.bsky.social for all the updates! See www.ehbea2027.com for detail

A lovely Hadza example, olanakwete (m) or olanakwiko (f), made from a special termite earth, baked with blood and ash, then decorated. The dolls are made for young women who have not yet had a child, given the name of an appropriate relative, and would be treated as if a child itself.

Dolls are incredibly widespread but not universal cross-culturally. In addition to functioning as toys, dolls are commonly used for supernatural purposes to punish enemies, heal or protect, increase fertility, or embody spirits. New paper in EHB www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

I'm happy to share that our digital edition of Carneiro’s cross-cultural dataset has been published in Scientific Data 🎉 www.nature.com/articles/s41...

⚠️ New Paper! 📣 Egalitarianism has been tied to hunter-gatherer subsistence - but is that justified? In synthesising 30 expert commentaries, we argue that the processes underwriting hunter-gatherer egalitarianism appear in most all human societies; though their efficacy is context dependent.

Paper claims “men’s height gains were 2.76 times larger than women’s in the first half of the twentieth century” in UK but for their results to be right UK would have had to have ranked roughly 197th out of 200 countries in female height gained during first half of the 20th c. by NCD-RisC estimates

This nonsense claim from this paper is making rounds on Twitter, claiming fertility & gender (in)equality correlated at .81. But the Gender Inequality Index includes adolescent fertility as part of the measure! When you rebuild the index without circular reproductive outcomes correlation cut in half

Another interesting pattern: leatherworking is commonly done by women in hunting and fishing societies, but in agricultural societies where it is a specialized craft it is nearly always done by men.

While I've seen both men and women building Hadza huts, much more often it is women (pictured). The sexual division of labour lit has zeroed in on hunting-vs-gathering; but much less is said about women's differential contributions to water-fetching, food-preparation, cooking, and house-building.

The sexual division of labour regarding house construction shows a very consistent pattern cross-culturally: women usually construct the shelters in nomadic societies, while in sedentary societies men do it.

Sexual Permissiveness in Polynesia: Was Margaret Mead Right? traditionsofconflict.substack.com/p/sexual-per...

Higher rates of polygyny are associated with stricter arranged marriages and larger age gaps at first marriage across the hunter-gatherer societies in the Binford and Apostolou datasets. From my talk at HBES

Had a good time presenting some of my work on black magic at the cultural evolution society conference

“The idea that humans evolved to be protective & sensitive to harm directed towards women appears increasingly popular in evolutionary psych [but] ethnographic evidence conflict with this perspective, [which seems] rooted in contemporary WEIRD values rather than an evolved psychological mechanism”

Evolutionary psychologists have claimed that "humans evolved heightened sensitivity to harm directed at women." This excellent (albeit at times gruesome) post makes the point that the ethnographic evidence does not really support this narrative.

Uses of musical instruments in hunter-gatherer societies traditionsofconflict.substack.com/p/some-uses-...

Ritualized treatment of the umbilical cord after birth is common across hunter-gatherer societies traditionsofconflict.substack.com/p/cutting-th...

In many societies, after a child is born, the father is under a variety of restrictions, such as food and work taboos, under the belief that if he undertakes certain kinds of labor or consumes certain foods it would harm the child via sympathetic magic traditionsofconflict.substack.com/p/couvade

Independent hunter-gatherer societies from all over the world have used diss songs in the midst of their conflicts. traditionsofconflict.substack.com/p/diss-songs

"Considering its common use across nomadic hunter-gatherer societies, and what it represents—as a tool to enable the carrying of more tools—the belt may be a bit of an unsung hero of human history." traditionsofconflict.substack.com/p/handy-man

While most primates do not build sleeping nests, all the great apes do traditionsofconflict.substack.com/p/millions-o...

“when a man is publicly accused of being a sorcerer he normally denies that he is. Nevertheless, some men have confided to me that they have successfully performed sorcery and they have told me whom they killed, how they did it, and why…They have even offered to teach me how to perform sorcery…”

Abortion procedures in hunter-gatherer societies traditionsofconflict.substack.com/p/abortion-p...

Importantly though, he adds, “we must not forget that Baruya women have their own secrets, protecting them from men and constantly reminding them that women have powers too.” - @Evolving_Moloch traditionsofconflict.substack.com/p/womens-secre…

Toy, ritual tool, religious symbol, sound maker for hunting and herding? Quite an interesting survey by @Evolving_Moloch on the ethnographic and historic function and use of #bullroarers: https://traditionsofconflict.com/blog/2019/12/3/the-bullroarer

"Such elaborate designs often take as long as five hours to execute, but are considered necessary to disguise the close relatives of a deceased Tiwi from his ghost as they approach the grave to carry out the final rituals" traditionsofconflict.substack.com/p/appeasing-...

Traditional Methods of Black Magic traditionsofconflict.substack.com/p/traditiona...