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Rise and fall of political complexity in island South-East Asia and the Pacific

Author

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  • Thomas E. Currie

    (Evolutionary Cognitive Science Research Center, Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, University of Tokyo 153-8902
    Human Evolutionary Ecology Group, University College, London WC1H 0BW, United Kingdom)

  • Simon J. Greenhill

    (University of Auckland, Auckland 1142, New Zealand
    Computational Evolution Group, University of Auckland, Auckland 1142, New Zealand)

  • Russell D. Gray

    (University of Auckland, Auckland 1142, New Zealand)

  • Toshikazu Hasegawa

    (Evolutionary Cognitive Science Research Center, Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, University of Tokyo 153-8902)

  • Ruth Mace

    (Human Evolutionary Ecology Group, University College, London WC1H 0BW, United Kingdom)

Abstract

There is disagreement about whether human political evolution has proceeded through a sequence of incremental increases in complexity, or whether larger, non-sequential increases have occurred. The extent to which societies have decreased in complexity is also unclear. These debates have continued largely in the absence of rigorous, quantitative tests. We evaluated six competing models of political evolution in Austronesian-speaking societies using phylogenetic methods. Here we show that in the best-fitting model political complexity rises and falls in a sequence of small steps. This is closely followed by another model in which increases are sequential but decreases can be either sequential or in bigger drops. The results indicate that large, non-sequential jumps in political complexity have not occurred during the evolutionary history of these societies. This suggests that, despite the numerous contingent pathways of human history, there are regularities in cultural evolution that can be detected using computational phylogenetic methods.

Suggested Citation

  • Thomas E. Currie & Simon J. Greenhill & Russell D. Gray & Toshikazu Hasegawa & Ruth Mace, 2010. "Rise and fall of political complexity in island South-East Asia and the Pacific," Nature, Nature, vol. 467(7317), pages 801-804, October.
  • Handle: RePEc:nat:nature:v:467:y:2010:i:7317:d:10.1038_nature09461
    DOI: 10.1038/nature09461
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    Cited by:

    1. Nico Neureiter & Peter Ranacher & Nour Efrat-Kowalsky & Gereon A. Kaiping & Robert Weibel & Paul Widmer & Remco R. Bouckaert, 2022. "Detecting contact in language trees: a Bayesian phylogenetic model with horizontal transfer," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 9(1), pages 1-14, December.
    2. Gillian Brown & Peter Richerson, 2014. "Applying evolutionary theory to human behaviour: past differences and current debates," Journal of Bioeconomics, Springer, vol. 16(2), pages 105-128, July.
    3. Takahashi, Takuya & Ihara, Yasuo, 2022. "Application of a Markovian ancestral model to the temporal and spatial dynamics of cultural evolution on a population network," Theoretical Population Biology, Elsevier, vol. 143(C), pages 14-29.
    4. Thomas E. Currie & Peter Turchin & Edward Turner & Sergey Gavrilets, 2020. "Duration of agriculture and distance from the steppe predict the evolution of large-scale human societies in Afro-Eurasia," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 7(1), pages 1-8, December.
    5. Marcus J Hamilton & Robert S Walker & Briggs Buchanan & David S Sandeford, 2020. "Scaling human sociopolitical complexity," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 15(7), pages 1-17, July.
    6. Luke J Matthews & Sam Passmore & Paul M Richard & Russell D Gray & Quentin D Atkinson, 2016. "Shared Cultural History as a Predictor of Political and Economic Changes among Nation States," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 11(4), pages 1-18, April.
    7. Oliver Sheehan & Joseph Watts & Russell D. Gray & Joseph Bulbulia & Scott Claessens & Erik J. Ringen & Quentin D. Atkinson, 2023. "Coevolution of religious and political authority in Austronesian societies," Nature Human Behaviour, Nature, vol. 7(1), pages 38-45, January.

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