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

Area of Science:

• Anthropology
• Computational Social Science
• Evolutionary Biology

Background:

• Indigenous societies often feature clans, groups with shared ancestry, dictating marriage and descent rules.
• These rules form complex kinship structures, which anthropologists have documented extensively.
• Understanding the evolutionary origins of these diverse kinship systems is a key anthropological challenge.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop and utilize an agent-based model to simulate the evolution of kinship structures in indigenous societies.
• To investigate the emergence of clans and various descent systems (patrilineal, matrilineal, double) from fundamental social dynamics.
• To analytically and empirically test the factors driving the formation of specific kinship structures.

Main Methods:

• An agent-based model simulating competing societies, each with families possessing cultural traits and mate preferences.
• Modeling cooperation, competition, and trait transmission with mutation across generations.
• Analytical estimation of the dependence of kinship structures on cooperation and mating competition.
• Empirical verification using the Standard Cross-Cultural Sample (SCCS) ethnographic database.

Main Results:

• The model demonstrates the emergence of clans through the divergence of family traits and preferences.
• Simulations show the formation of diverse kinship structures, including dual organization, generalized/restricted exchange, and various descent systems.
• The emergence of these structures is contingent upon the necessity of cooperation and the intensity of mating competition.
• Analytical and empirical analyses confirm these dependencies.

Conclusions:

• Agent-based modeling provides a powerful framework for understanding the evolution of social structures in anthropology.
• Kinship structures are shown to emerge dynamically from individual-level interactions, cooperation, and competition.
• The study highlights universal principles governing the formation of kinship systems across diverse indigenous societies.