Egalitarian societies explain diveristy in hunter-gatherer groups
Modern hunter-gatherer societies such as the Agta and Mbendjele show distributions of relatedness that can't be easily explained. Assuming people want to stay close to their kin, it is hard to build a model that explains the distribution of the relatedness in social groups
One possible model to explain these distributions assumes that both genders have equal power in deciding their co-residencies[@dyble2015Sex equality can explain the unique social structure of hunter-gatherer bands]. The model seems to reproduce the distributions of Agta and Mbendjele. Moreover, the same model explains why non-egalitarian groups reside with fewer unrelated individuals.
The distribution of relatedness in groups is important to understand how cumulative culture emerged. Comparing it with farmer societies, it could be possible to argue that literature/202103271415 agriculture created new social hierarchies.
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