Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-lj6df Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-14T08:55:32.433Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Considering selection pressures for identity fusion and self-sacrifice in small-scale societies

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 December 2018

Polly Wiessner
Polly Wiessner*
Affiliation:
School of Human Evolution and Social Change, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ 85281. wiessner@soft-link.comhttps://shesc.asu.edu/people/pauline-wiessner
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Whitehouse's view that our ultrasocial species evolved in small, warring bands is questioned, and alternative social selection pressures for the evolution of identity fusion and self-sacrifice in small-scale societies are proposed. Short durations of states of fusion allow for re-evaluation of risks; the consolidation of episodic memories into collective oral traditions elicits cooperation. Dysmorphic memories may be more powerful in generating identity fusion when followed by euphoric ones, as in “rites of torture” in male initiations.

Type
Open Peer Commentary
Information
Behavioral and Brain Sciences , Volume 41 , 2018 , e220
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2018 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Allen, M. & Jones, T. (2014a) Violence and warfare among hunter–gatherers. Routledge.Google Scholar
Apostolou, M. (2007) Sexual selection under parental choice: The role of parents in the evolution of human mating. Evolution of Human Behavior 28(6):403–409.Google Scholar
Cashdan, E. (1983) Territoriality among human foragers: Ecological models and an application to four bushman groups. Current Anthropology 24(1):47–66.Google Scholar
Chagnon, N. (1992) Yanomamo, 4th edition. Harcourt Brace.Google Scholar
Durkheim, E. (1897/1951) Suicide: A study in sociology. Free Press. (Original work published in 1897.)Google Scholar
Durkheim, E. (1912) Les formes élémentaires de la vie religieuse [The elementary forms of religious life]. Félix Alcan.Google Scholar
Fry, D. (2005) The human potential for peace: An anthropological challenge to assumptions about war and violence. Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Gamble, C. (1986) The paleolithic settlement of Europe. Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Hayden, B. (1987) Alliances and ritual ecstasy: Human responses to resource stress. Journal of the Scientific Study of Religion 26:81–91.Google Scholar
Hrdy, S. (2009) Mothers and others: The evolutionary origins of mutual understanding. Belknap Press.Google Scholar
Keeley, L. H. (1996) War before civilization: The myth of the peaceful savage. Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Kramer, K. & Greaves, R. (2016) Diversity or replace. What happens to wild foods when cultigens are introduced into hunter–gatherer diets. In: Why forage? Hunters and gatherers living in the 21st century, ed. Codding, B. & Kramer, K. L., pp. 15–42. School of Advanced Research, Santa Fe.Google Scholar
Kramer, K., Schacht, R. & Bell, A. (2017) Adult sex ratios & partner scarcity among hunter–gatherers: Implications for dispersal patterns and the evolution of human sociality. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B 372:20160316.Google Scholar
Marean, C. W. (2015) An evolutionary anthropological perspective on modern human origins. Annual Review of Anthropology 44:533–56.Google Scholar
Mulvaney, D. (1976) The chain of connection: The material evidence. Tribes and boundaries in Australia. ed. Peterson, N., pp. 72–94. Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island.Google Scholar
Peterson, N., ed. (1976) Tribes and boundaries in Australia (No. 10). Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island.Google Scholar
Vansina, J. M. (1985) Oral tradition as history. University of Wisconsin Press.Google Scholar
Walker, R., Hill, K., Flinn, M. & Ellsworth, R (2011) Evolutionary history of hunter–gatherer marriage practices. PLOS ONE 6(4):e19066.Google Scholar
Wiessner, P. (1986) !Kung San networks in a generational perspective. In: The past and future of !Kung ethnography, ed. Biesele, M., Gordon, R. & Lee, R., pp. 103–36. Helmut Buske Verlag.Google Scholar
Wiessner, P. (2014) The embers of society: Firelight talk among the Ju/'hoansi bushmen. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 111(39):14013–14.Google Scholar
Wiessner, P. (in press) Collective action for war and for peace: A case study among the Enga of Papua New Guinea. Current Anthropology.Google Scholar
Wiessner, P. & Tumu, A. (1998) Historical vines: Enga networks of exchange, ritual and warfare in Papua New Guinea. Smithsonian Institution Press.Google Scholar