Contemporary inequality exists at an unprecedented scale. Social scientists have
emphasized the role played by material wealth in driving its escalation. Evolutionary …

Matriliny is a system of kinship in which descent and inheritance are conferred along the
female line. The theoretically influential concept of the matrilineal puzzle posits that matriliny …

Although matriliny and matrilocality are relatively rare in contemporary human populations,
these female-based descent and residence systems are present in different cultural contexts …

Increased access to defensible material wealth is hypothesised to escalate inequality.
Market integration, which creates novel opportunities in cash economies, provides a means …

Where a newly-married couple lives, termed post-marital residence, varies cross-culturally
and changes over time. While many factors have been proposed as drivers of this change …

Female-biased kinship (FBK) arises in numerous species and in diverse human cultures,
suggesting deep evolutionary roots to female-oriented social structures. The significance of …

Son preference predominates in China, yet there are patterned exceptions to this rule. In this
paper, we test whether lineality (patrilineal versus matrilineal inheritance and descent) is …

The notion of multi-functional kind is introduced to explain how social scientists may be able
to draw inferences across historically unrelated societies or cultures. Multi-functional kinds …

Transitions to matriliny are said to be relatively rare. This evidence is sometimes used to
support arguments that perceive matriliny as a problematic and unstable system of kinship …

Cultural evolutionary theory and human behavioural ecology offer different, but compatible
approaches to understanding human demographic behaviour. For much of their 30 history …