This article discusses the reasons behind advances in craft specialization particularly why there is a relationship between advances in craft specialization and the emergence of powerful elites. Hypothesis tests focused on political centralization.

This article tests for universal patterns in cultural evolution by Guttman scaling on two different worldwide samples of archaeological traditions and on well-known archaeological sequences. The evidence is generally consistent with universal evolutionary sequences.

This article tests Rushton's hypothesis that there is a relationship between "race" (Negroid, Caucasoid, and Mongoloid) and various aspects of behavior. Results do not support this hypothesis.

This article stresses the use of multivariate analysis to study the emergence of states. The authors first discuss how social inequality, population density, and trade affect state development. Next, they turn to a time series regression to formally examine social stratification, urbanization, technological specialization as predictors of political integration. Finally, economic vulnerability and scalar stress are considered as possible underlying factors in the emergence of states.

This article retests several hypotheses from Swanson’s (1960) study on the origins of religious belief. The author finds support for an association between high gods and large communities, multiple levels of political hierarchy, and social differentiation. No support is found for Swanson’s other hypotheses concerning polytheism, ancestral spirits, reincarnation, the soul, witchcraft, and morality and their relations to social, political, and economic variables.

This article retests several hypotheses from Swanson’s (1960) study on the origins of religious belief. The author finds support for an association between high gods and large communities, multiple levels of political hierarchy, and social differentiation. No support is found for Swanson’s other hypotheses concerning polytheism, ancestral spirits, reincarnation, the soul, witchcraft, and morality and their relations to social, political, and economic variables.

This study tests the hypotheses that games of strategy will be more prevalent in societies where political power is based on a "network strategy" and that network societies place more value on the enculturation of obedience in children. Both hypotheses are supported.

This study tests the hypotheses that games of strategy will be more prevalent in societies where political power is based on a "network strategy" and that network societies place more value on the enculturation of obedience in children. Both hypotheses are supported.

This study tests the hypotheses that games of strategy will be more prevalent in societies where political power is based on a "network strategy" and that network societies place more value on the enculturation of obedience in children. Both hypotheses are supported.

This article employs archaeoethnology to investigate possible patterns of synchronous population growth among cities of the prehistoric New World. The author finds a pattern of settlement synchrony distinct from a pattern found in the prehistoric Old World, suggesting that global climate change may not be a key factor in understanding settlement synchrony. Macroregional political and economic processes such as long-distance trade are offered as partial explanations of settlement synchrony in the New World.