Does warfare make societies more complex?

Filed under: History | 1 Comment

Archaeological analysis suggests an arms race in ironworking and cavalry spurred bureaucracy and bigger populations From Science June 28, 2022 by Michael Price War is hell. It breaks apart families, destroys natural resources, and drives humans to commit unspeakable acts of violence. Yet according to a new analysis of human history, war may also prod …

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Mental Illness: All In Your Genes?

Filed under: History, Mental illness

The genetics of mental illness, and particularly schizophrenia, is fraught with the history of the eugenics movement in the 1920’s and 30’s. In 1928 twenty states had compulsory sterilization laws, most including “lunatics” among the target population. This popular movement was based on the assumption that mental illnesses are caused by a small number of …

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Beautiful Hand axes at the Nasher Sculpture Center

Beautiful Hand Axes at the Nasher Sculpture Center

Filed under: cognitive capacities, Evolution of Emotion, History, Sexual Selection

Knowing my interest in human evolution, my son’s Texan mother-in-law gave me the brochure of an exhibit at the Nasher Sculpture Center in Dallas that she visited, entitled “First Sculpture: Handaxe to Figurestone.” The brochure contained many pictures of beautifully rendered paleolithic hand axes as well as naturally formed sculptures that had been “framed” by …

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ancient dogs with leashes

Oldest depiction of dogs with humans plus inequality

Filed under: History

Two other posts on dogs, domestication and human evolution: here and here Also in the November 17th issue of science, an article about the history of inequality by Lizzie Wade. Summary Economic inequality has deep roots. A new study concludes that its ancient hotbed was the Old World: Societies there tended to be less equal …

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Democracy in Pre-Columbian Mexico

Filed under: History, Human Nature

It is generally assumed that the natural social organization of humans is the hierarchy that is the hallmark of the primate order of which, of course we are a member. I have posted evidence that the principle feature that has distinguished our hominin tribe from the beginning is the evolution of a democratic, egalitarian social …

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