ReviewPhilosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences2023
Human societal development: is it an evolutionary transition in individuality?
Review in Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 12 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
12 citing papers in PubMed.
- Information Revolutions and Information Transitions: Counting, Sealing, Writing in Iran 10,000-300 BC.Journal of ancient Near Eastern history · 2025Article
- Major transitions in sociocultural evolution.Evolutionary human sciences · 2025Article
- Fundamental constraints to the logic of living systems.Interface focus · 2024Review
- Evolution and sustainability: gathering the strands for an Anthropocene synthesis.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2024Review
- Characteristic processes of human evolution caused the Anthropocene and may obstruct its global solutions.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2024Review
- Scaffolding individuality: coordination, cooperation, collaboration and community.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2023Review
- Evolution of the Okvik/Old Bering Sea culture of the Bering Strait as a major transition.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2023Article
- Human societal development: is it an evolutionary transition in individuality?Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2023Review
- The transition from animal to human culture-simulating the social protocell hypothesis.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2023Article
- Human major transitions from the perspective of distributed adaptations.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2023Article
- Conditions that favour cumulative cultural evolution.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2023Article
- Human socio-cultural evolution in light of evolutionary transitions: introduction to the theme issue.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2023Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
1 author.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
An evolutionary transition in individuality (ETI) occurs when a previously independent organism becomes a lower level unit within a higher hierarchical level (for example, cells in an organism, ants in a colony). Using archaeological and historical accounts from the last 12 000 years, I empirically examine the proposition that human society increasingly functions as a higher hierarchical level within which individuals integrate as lower level units. I evaluate human societal development with respect to three criteria that together indicate complexity in biological systems and serve as an operationalization scheme for ETIs: size, inseparability and specialization. The
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What Socratic holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the Socratic graph.