Towards an Evolutionary Account of Human Kinship Systems

Planer, Ronald J.

doi:10.1007/s13752-019-00339-1

Cited by 8 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 38 publications

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“…The difference in feelings of closeness between a caregiver and a stranger is likely to be much greater than that between a novel ingroup and outgroup member, and other meaningful differences between kin members (i.e., caregivers) and non-kin members are consistently observed in other research. Children from an early age show unique expectations and behaviours with respect to kin vs. non-kin (Spokes & Spelke, 2016;Thomas et al, 2022a;Thomas et al, 2022b), and there is evidence from non-human primates showing that kin is a privileged category (Murray et al, 2016;Planer, 2021;Emery Thompson, 2019). Kinship and personal feelings of closeness could lead to reduced perspective-taking in accordance with anchoring-and-adjustment models of communication.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Shared social groups or shared experiences? The effect of shared knowledge on children’s perspective-taking

Anderson

Liberman

Martin

2023

Journal of Experimental Child Psychology

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Shared social groups or shared experiences? The effect of shared knowledge on children’s perspective-taking

Anderson

Liberman

Martin

2023

Journal of Experimental Child Psychology

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“…The evolution of several endogamous groups is shown as a result of evolved mating preferences [ 45 ] or resource competition [ 46 ]. Conversely, humans develop the ability to recognize kin, leading to organizing the affinal network of groups by exogamy [ 47 , 48 ]. Our model includes cooperation among mates and thus, exhibits the emergence of diverse kinship structures more than the mere divergence of groups.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Emergence of kinship structures and descent systems: multi-level evolutionary simulation and empirical data analysis

Itao

Kaneko

2022

Proc. R. Soc. B.

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In many indigenous societies, people are categorized into several cultural groups, or clans, within which they believe they share ancestors. Clan attributions provide certain rules for marriage and descent. Such rules between clans constitute kinship structures. Anthropologists have revealed several kinship structures. Here, we propose an agent-based model of indigenous societies to reveal the evolution of kinship structures. In the model, several societies compete. Societies themselves comprise multiple families with parameters for cultural traits and mate preferences. These values determine with whom each family cooperates and competes, and they are transmitted to a new generation with mutation. The growth rate of each family is determined by the number of cooperators and competitors. Through this multi-level evolution, family traits and preferences diverge to form clusters that can be regarded as clans. Subsequently, kinship structures emerge, including dual organization and generalized or restricted exchange, as well as patrilineal, matrilineal and double descent systems. These structures emerge depending on the necessity of cooperation and the strength of mating competition. Their dependence is also estimated analytically. Finally, statistical analysis using the Standard Cross-Cultural Sample, a global ethnographic database, empirically verified the theoretical results. Such collaboration between theoretical and empirical approaches will unveil universal features in anthropology.

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“…Among them: (i) that gesture played a key role in launching human language evolution (Donald 2001;Tomasello 2008;Corballis 2011;Sterelny 2012b); (ii) that stone toolmaking drove the evolution of human syntactic abilities, and plausibly other cognitive abilities linked to language (Stout 2011;Stout and Chaminade 2012;Planer 2017b); (iii) that large-game hunting and the control of fire drove increases in communicative complexity by intensifying demands on human cooperation and coordination (Pickering 2013); (iv) that the evolution of singing in our line played an important role in preadapting humans for vocal language (Gamble, Gowlett, and Dunbar 2014;Killin 2017a;Killin 2017b), with the increased control of fire providing an ecological context selecting for the transition to the vocal channel; (v) that the human "release from proximity" was facilitated by the evolution of complex kin terminologies and other linguistically enabled ways of keeping track of relationships between people (Gamble 2013;Planer 2020a). In developing our conception of the evolution of language, we bring these ideas together into a novel, coherent package, while also updating and extending them in ways supported by more recent paleontological, archaeological, phylogenetic, and genetic evidence.…”

Section: Preface XVmentioning

confidence: 99%

From Signal to Symbol

Planer¹,

Sterelny²

2021

Self Cite

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A novel account of the evolution of language and the cognitive capacities on which language depends. In From Signal to Symbol, Ronald Planer and Kim Sterelny propose a novel theory of language: that modern language is the product of a long series of increasingly rich protolanguages evolving over the last two million years. Arguing that language and cognition coevolved, they give a central role to archaeological evidence and attempt to infer cognitive capacities on the basis of that evidence, which they link in turn to communicative capacities. Countering other accounts, which move directly from archaeological traces to language, Planer and Sterelny show that rudimentary forms of many of the elements on which language depends can be found in the great apes and were part of the equipment of the earliest species in our lineage. After outlining the constraints a theory of the evolution of language should satisfy and filling in the details of their model, they take up the evolution of words, composite utterances, and hierarchical structure. They consider the transition from a predominantly gestural to a predominantly vocal form of language and discuss the economic and social factors that led to language. Finally, they evaluate their theory in terms of the constraints previously laid out.

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Towards an Evolutionary Account of Human Kinship Systems

Cited by 8 publications

References 38 publications

Shared social groups or shared experiences? The effect of shared knowledge on children’s perspective-taking

Shared social groups or shared experiences? The effect of shared knowledge on children’s perspective-taking

Emergence of kinship structures and descent systems: multi-level evolutionary simulation and empirical data analysis

From Signal to Symbol

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