Paleolithic Social Structure

Dr. Green

Interactions and Social Size

Solutions

• Hierarchy– Other apes

• Networks– Paleolithic humans

Clique

Biology and Social Group Size

• High brain-to-body mass ratio is related by the size and complexity of their social groups

• Human brain-to-body mass ratio is large

Capuchin MonkeysThey have the highest brain-to-body-size ratio of any primate other than people

Capuchin Monkeys

• Highly social• Surrogate parenting• Social traditions– Innovative– Learned– Parochial– Transient– Flexible

• Testing social relation—fingers in the nose

Humans

• Shift from Australopithecines to Homo– Increased sociality– Probably stone tools– Probably the first hunting

• Sharing is a risk management strategy– Diversification– Increases the odds of a successful hunt

• Coevolution of biology and egalitarianism

Egalitarianism

• Sharing, cooperation, consensus• Low sexual dimorphism- shared parenting• Fluidity of the microband• Fission-fusion structure• Networks• Lack of fixed power structure• Mutual suppport for others

Tribalism

• Core social group=150– 11175 interactions

• Intimate group=12– 66 interactions

Egalitarianism

• Belonging to a group• Freedom• Treated as a person

Hierarchy

• Developed highly in civilization• Hierarchy breaks down in hunting• Humans returns to egalitarianism when

hierarchy breaks down– New Orleans– Hippies– Gangs

The Social Contract• This is what the State founds itself on. Precisely

this kind of scenario. “Obey us, serve us, and we will protect you in times of catastrophe”; that is the social contract, that is the Faustian deal we strike with Leviathan. It is for that, that we sell ourselves to oppressors and tyrants, and shackle our lives, our futures, our souls to the will of the State. All we have asked in return is its protection from catastrophe. Now catastrophe has come, and the protection of the State is nowhere to be found--Jason Godesky

Relationships

• Either both parties to the interaction are living or one is not– One is not in saprotropism in which an organism

lives off of the dead– Both are living in• Antagonism in which one or both is/are harmed• Symbiosis in which one or both is/are helped• Neutralism in which neither is benefited nor harmed

Antagonisms• Parasitism

– one type of organism is benefited and other is harmed– Suitors

• Exploitation– one organism enslaves the other organism– Circe and Calypso

• Predation– one organism catches and kills the other type of organism and take it as food– Cyclopes and Laestrygonians

• Ammensalism or antibiosis– A by-product of one organism's activities harms the another, but no nutrition takes

place– Sirens

• Competition– two organisms when living in a specific ecosystem compete with each other for food

and shelter– War

Symbiosis• Commensalism (hospitality)– One organism may be benefited – The other may remain neutral– No one is harmed

• Mutualism (communities, such as families)– Both individuals are benefited by each other – Both are interdependent

• Protocooperation (contracts)– Both the individuals are benefited by each other– They can also live independently

Neutralism

• Two or more organisms live together• Neither is benefited nor harmed• Strangers

Relationships• With gods• With humans• With sub-humans– Savages

• With non-humans• Outside all relationships