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

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.

Cite this

Peter Turchin, Thomas E. Currie, Harvey Whitehouse, Pieter François, Kevin Chekov Feeney, Daniel Mullins, … Charles Spencer (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. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1708800115

@article{peter2017quantitative,
  title  = {Quantitative historical analysis uncovers a single dimension of complexity that structures global variation in human social organization},
  author = {Turchin, Peter and Currie, Thomas E. and Whitehouse, Harvey and François, Pieter and Feeney, Kevin Chekov and Mullins, Daniel and Hoyer, Daniël and Collins, Christina and Grohmann, Steph and Savage, Patrick E. and Mendel-Gleason, Gavin and Turner, Edward A. L. and Dupeyron, Agathe and Cioni, Enrico and Reddish, Jenny and Levine, Jill D. and Jordan, Greine and Brandl, Eva and Cesaretti, Rudolf and Krueger, Marta and Ceccarelli, Alessandro and Tuan, Po-Ju and Peregrine, Peter N. and Marciniak, Arkadiusz and Preiser-Kapeller, Johannes and Kradin, Nikolay Nikolaevich and Korotayev, Andrey and Palmisano, Alessio and Baker, David and Bidmead, Julye and Bol, Peter Kees and Christian, David and Cook, Connie and Covey, R. Alan and Feinman, Gary M. and Júlíusson, Árni Daníel and Kristinsson, Axel and Miksic, John N. and Mostern, Ruth and Petrie, Cameron A. and Rudiak‐Gould, Peter and Haar, Barend ter and Wallace, Vesna A. and Mair, Victor H. and Xie, Liye and Baines, John and Manning, Joseph G. and Lockhart, Bruce M. and Bogaard, Amy and Spencer, Charles},
  year   = {2017},
  journal = {Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences},
  doi    = {10.1073/pnas.1708800115}
}

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