A Historical Database of Sociocultural Evolution
Cliodynamics: The Journal of Theoretical and Mathematical History UC Riverside Peer Reviewed Title: A Historical Database of Sociocultural Evolution Journal Issue: Cliodynamics, 3(2) Author: Turchin, Peter, University of Connecticut Whitehouse, Harvey Francois, Pieter Slingerland, Edward Collard, Mark Publication Date: 2012 Publication Info: Cliodynamics, The Institute for Research on World-Systems, UC Riverside Permalink: http://escholarship.org/uc/item/2v8119hf Acknowledgements: This research was supported by grants from the Evolution Institute (PT), from UK’s Economic and Social Research Council (HW, PT, and PF), and from Canada’s Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (ES and MC). We thank David Sloan Wilson, Douglas White, J.G. Manning, Joseph Henrich, Ara Norenzayan, Metin Cosgel, and Garrett Fagan for extensive discussions and comments on database design. Local Identifier: irows_cliodynamics_15770 Abstract: The origin of human ultrasociality—the ability to cooperate in huge groups of genetically unrelated individuals—has long interested evolutionary and social theorists, but there has been little systematic empirical research on the topic. The Historical Database of Sociocultural Evolution, which we introduce in this article, brings the available historical and archaeological data together in a way that will allow hypotheses concerning the origin of ultrasociality to be tested rigorously. In addition to describing the methodology informing the set-up of the database, our article introduces four hypotheses that we intend to test using the database. These hypotheses focus on the resource base, warfare, ritual, and religion, respectively. Ultimately the aim of our database is to eScholarship provides open access, scholarly publishing services to the University of California and delivers a dynamic research platform to scholars worldwide.
[Show full text]