Did Warfare Among Ancestral Hunter-Gatherers Affect the Evolution of Human Social Behaviors?
Abstract
War and Peace?: Modern behavior, including the development of advanced tools, musical instruments, and art, seems to have arisen in humans in stages. The earliest hints are seen in Africa about 70 to 90,000 years ago, but later in Europe about 45,000 years ago. An ongoing discussion centers on the origins and significance of human prosociality. During early human development, could the benefits of altruistic behavior have outweighed its costs (see the Perspective by Mace )? Bowles (p. 1293 ) constructed a model of conflict between groups of humans and extracted estimates of the critical parameters from archaeological and ethnographic data sets. Provocatively, it appears that warfare might have enhanced the emergence and persistence of altruistic behavior. Powell et al. (p. 1298 ) present a population model that shows that the development of modern behaviors may rely on the attainment of critical population densities and migratory patterns required for stable cultural transmission. The model is consistent with genetic inferences of population dynamics in Africa and Europe and suggests that these cultural changes may not solely reflect increased cognitive evolution.
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In Bowles' study, the transmission process is basically genetic.
“Again, the transmission process in Bowles' study is basically genetic.”
From Durkheim, Indoctrinability and the Moral Ambivalence of Human Sociality (2026) · cites this paper as Bowles, 2009
The efficiency of cultural transmission has not yet been the focus of these studies.
“However, the efficiency of cultural transmission has not yet been the focus of these studies.”
From Durkheim, Indoctrinability and the Moral Ambivalence of Human Sociality (2026) · cites this paper as Bowles, 2009
Intergroup conflict is ubiquitous across human societies and considered crucial for the evolution of humans' large-scale cooperative nature.
“Intergroup conflict is evident throughout the history of our species, ubiquitous across human societies, and considered crucial for the evolution of humans’ large-scale cooperative nature.”
From Oxytocin reactivity during intergroup conflict in wild chimpanzees (2017) · cites this paper as [2]
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Beyond collective intelligence: Collective adaptation
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Cheating monkeys undermine group strength in enemy territory
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Ancestral Hierarchy and Conflict
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A Dual Model of Leadership and Hierarchy: Evolutionary Synthesis.
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Warriors, Levelers, and the Role of Conflict in Human Social Evolution
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Self-citationHormonal Mechanisms for Regulation of Aggression in Human Coalitions
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- Authors
- Bowles, S.
- Affiliations
- University of Siena (IT)
- Corresponding author
- Bowles, Samuel
- ORCID
- Bowles, Samuel
- Venue
- Science
- Published
- 2009-06-05
- Volume
- 324
- Issue
- 5932
- Pages
- 1293-1298
- ISSN
- 0036-8075 (ISSN-L)
- 1095-9203
- OpenAlex
- W1984807806
- Cited by
- 773
- References
- 43
- Citations by year
- 2026: 27 · 2025: 30 · 2024: 45 · 2023: 33 · 2022: 76 · 2021: 65 · 2020: 52 · 2019: 41 · 2018: 56 · 2017: 47 · 2016: 50 · 2015: 47 · 2014: 53 · 2013: 52 · 2012: 37
- FWCI
- 896.98
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Science (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Cultural Studies › Language and cultural evolution
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Evolutionary Game Theory and Cooperation
- Social Sciences › Anthropology › Pleistocene-Era Hominins and Archaeology
- Keywords
- war, hunter-gatherers, prosocial behavior, altruism, cultural evolution, cultural transmission, population density, migration, group conflict, Africa, Europe
- MeSH terms
- Altruism, Anthropology, Cultural, Archaeology, Cooperative Behavior, Cultural Evolution, Biological Evolution, Female, Humans, Male, Models, Theoretical, Social Behavior, Genetic Variation, Warfare, Microsatellite Repeats
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Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
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