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Optimising human community sizes
We examine community longevity as a function of group size in three historical, small scale agricultural samples. Community sizes of 50, 150 and 500 are disproportionately more common than other sizes; they also have greater longevity. These values mirror the natural layerings in hunter-gatherer soc...
Autores principales: | , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
Elsevier Science
2018
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5756541/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29333060 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2017.11.001 |
_version_ | 1783290738452201472 |
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author | Dunbar, Robin I.M. Sosis, Richard |
author_facet | Dunbar, Robin I.M. Sosis, Richard |
author_sort | Dunbar, Robin I.M. |
collection | PubMed |
description | We examine community longevity as a function of group size in three historical, small scale agricultural samples. Community sizes of 50, 150 and 500 are disproportionately more common than other sizes; they also have greater longevity. These values mirror the natural layerings in hunter-gatherer societies and contemporary personal networks. In addition, a religious ideology seems to play an important role in allowing larger communities to maintain greater cohesion for longer than a strictly secular ideology does. The differences in optimal community size may reflect the demands of different ecologies, economies and social contexts, but, as yet, we have no explanation as to why these numbers seem to function socially so much more effectively than other values. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-5756541 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2018 |
publisher | Elsevier Science |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-57565412018-01-10 Optimising human community sizes Dunbar, Robin I.M. Sosis, Richard Evol Hum Behav Article We examine community longevity as a function of group size in three historical, small scale agricultural samples. Community sizes of 50, 150 and 500 are disproportionately more common than other sizes; they also have greater longevity. These values mirror the natural layerings in hunter-gatherer societies and contemporary personal networks. In addition, a religious ideology seems to play an important role in allowing larger communities to maintain greater cohesion for longer than a strictly secular ideology does. The differences in optimal community size may reflect the demands of different ecologies, economies and social contexts, but, as yet, we have no explanation as to why these numbers seem to function socially so much more effectively than other values. Elsevier Science 2018-01 /pmc/articles/PMC5756541/ /pubmed/29333060 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2017.11.001 Text en © 2017 The Authors http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/). |
spellingShingle | Article Dunbar, Robin I.M. Sosis, Richard Optimising human community sizes |
title | Optimising human community sizes |
title_full | Optimising human community sizes |
title_fullStr | Optimising human community sizes |
title_full_unstemmed | Optimising human community sizes |
title_short | Optimising human community sizes |
title_sort | optimising human community sizes |
topic | Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5756541/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29333060 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2017.11.001 |
work_keys_str_mv | AT dunbarrobinim optimisinghumancommunitysizes AT sosisrichard optimisinghumancommunitysizes |