Rethinking Social Evolution

The Perspective from Middle-Range Societies

By Jérôme Rousseau
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304 pages, 6 x 9 inches
Hardcover : 9780773531109, October 2006
Ebook (PDF) : 9780773560185, October 2006
Ebook (EPUB) : 9780773578166, July 2009
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Table of Contents

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments ix
Introduction 3
1 Concepts and Issues in Social Evolution 12
2 Equality and Autonomy among Hunter-gatherers 42
3 From Immediate- to Delayed Return Systems: The Emergence of Middle-Range Societies 60
4 Structures of Order at the Domestic Level 88
5 Societies with Increased Socio-economic Differentiation 149
6 Emergent Properties of Complex Middle-Range Societies 188
7 The Process of Social Evolution 224
Conclusion 238
Glossary 247
Notes 253
References 267
Index 287

Human societies are characterized by complex and varied social systems that change through time due to communication and negotiation. Jérôme Rousseau makes cognitive complexity his starting point in an innovative study of how and why human societies evolve.
The focus of Rousseau's enquiry is "middle-range" societies - a vast category between hunter-gatherers and states. Breaking away from traditional analyses of social evolution as a response to ecological constraints, he shows that social systems are maintained and transformed through self-interest and suggests that conflicts about sharing generate social transformations that result in inequality and increasingly encompassing socio-political structures.
Rethinking Social Evolution is a wide-ranging exploration of how language and increased cognitive abilities constitute the motor of social evolution. Drawing on a wide range of ethnographic case studies, Rousseau offers a better understanding of how modern societies are the result of choices by people who both collaborate and compete.