How institutions shaped the last major evolutionary transition to large-scale human societies

Powers, Simon T.; van Schaik, Carel P.; Lehmann, Laurent

doi:10.1098/rstb.2015.0098

All Outputs (3)

The institutional approach for modeling the evolution of human societies (2016)
Conference Proceeding
Powers, S. (2016). The institutional approach for modeling the evolution of human societies. In Proceedings of the Artificial Life Conference 2016. https://doi.org/10.7551/978-0-262-33936-0-ch011

Artificial Life is concerned with understanding the dynamics of human societies. A defining feature of any human society is its institutions. However, defining exactly what an institution is has proven difficult, with authors often talking past each... Read More about The institutional approach for modeling the evolution of human societies.

When is bigger better? The effects of group size on the evolution of helping behaviours: Effects of group size on evolution of helping (2016)
Journal Article
Powers, S. T., & Lehmann, L. (2017). When is bigger better? The effects of group size on the evolution of helping behaviours: Effects of group size on evolution of helping. Biological Reviews, 92(2), 902-920. https://doi.org/10.1111/brv.12260

Understanding the evolution of sociality in humans and other species requires understanding how selection on social behaviour varies with group size. However, the effects of group size are frequently obscured in the theoretical literature, which ofte... Read More about When is bigger better? The effects of group size on the evolution of helping behaviours: Effects of group size on evolution of helping.

How institutions shaped the last major evolutionary transition to large-scale human societies (2016)
Journal Article
Powers, S. T., van Schaik, C. P., & Lehmann, L. (2016). How institutions shaped the last major evolutionary transition to large-scale human societies. Philosophical Transactions B: Biological Sciences, 371(1687), 20150098. https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2015.0098

What drove the transition from small-scale human societies centred on kinship and personal exchange, to large-scale societies comprising cooperation and division of labour among untold numbers of unrelated individuals? We propose that the unique huma... Read More about How institutions shaped the last major evolutionary transition to large-scale human societies.