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http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2013/09/20/1308825110
War, space, and the evolution of Old World complex societies
Peter Turchina, Thomas E. Currieb, Edward A. L. Turnerc, and Sergey Gavrilets
Intense warfare as an explanatory model for driving the development of stable complex societies.
War, space, and the evolution of Old World complex societies
Peter Turchina, Thomas E. Currieb, Edward A. L. Turnerc, and Sergey Gavrilets
Intense warfare as an explanatory model for driving the development of stable complex societies.
Significance
How did human societies evolve from small groups, integrated by face-to-face cooperation, to huge anonymous societies of today? Why is there so much variation in the ability of different human populations to construct viable states? We developed a model that uses cultural evolution mechanisms to predict where and when the largest-scale complex societies should have arisen in human history. The model was simulated within a realistic landscape of the Afroeurasian landmass, and its predictions were tested against real data. Overall, the model did an excellent job predicting empirical patterns. Our results suggest a possible explanation as to why a long history of statehood is positively correlated with political stability, institutional quality, and income per capita.