naa a22 4500 510773958 CHVBK 20180411083224.0 cr unu---uuuuu 180411e20130901xx s 000 0 eng 10.1007/s12110-013-9170-3 doi (NATIONALLICENCE)springer-10.1007/s12110-013-9170-3 Moffett Mark National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution, 10th Street at Constitution Avenue, 20013, Washington, DC, USA aut Human Identity and the Evolution of Societies [Elektronische Daten] [Mark Moffett] Human societies are examined as distinct and coherent groups. This trait is most parsimoniously considered a deeply rooted part of our ancestry rather than a recent cultural invention. Our species is the only vertebrate with society memberships of significantly more than 200. We accomplish this by using society-specific labels to identify members, in what I call an anonymous society. I propose that the human brain has evolved to permit not only the close relationships described by the social brain hypothesis, but also, at little mental cost, the anonymous societies within which such alliances are built. The human compulsion to discover or invent labels to "mark” group memberships may originally have been expressed in hominins as vocally learned greetings only slightly different in function from chimpanzee pant hoots (now known to be society-specific). The weight of evidence suggests that at some point, conceivably early in the hominin line, the distinct groups composed of several bands that were typical of our ancestors came to be distinguished by their members on the basis of multiple labels that were socially acquired in this way, the earliest of which would leave no trace in the archaeological record. Often overlooked as research subjects, these sizable fission-fusion communities, in recent egalitarian hunter-gatherers sometimes 2,000 strong, should consistently be accorded the status of societies, in the same sense that this word is used to describe tribes, chiefdoms, and other cultures arising later in our history. The capacity of hunter-gatherer societies to grow sufficiently populous that not all members necessarily recognize one another would make the transition to larger agricultural societies straightforward. Humans differ from chimpanzees in that societal labels are essential to the maintenance of societies and the processes giving birth to new ones. I propose that anonymous societies of all kinds can expand only so far as their labels can remain sufficiently stable. Springer Science+Business Media New York, 2013 Coalitions nationallicence Fission-fusion nationallicence Hunter-gatherers nationallicence Language nationallicence Outgroups nationallicence Nationalism nationallicence Social learning nationallicence Symbols nationallicence Tribes nationallicence Xenophobia nationallicence Human Nature Springer US; http://www.springer-ny.com 24/3(2013-09-01), 219-267 1045-6767 24:3<219 2013 24 12110 https://doi.org/10.1007/s12110-013-9170-3 text/html Onlinezugriff via DOI 1 research-article jats NATIONALLICENCE 856 40 https://doi.org/10.1007/s12110-013-9170-3 text/html Onlinezugriff via DOI NATIONALLICENCE 100 1- Moffett Mark National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution, 10th Street at Constitution Avenue, 20013, Washington, DC, USA aut NATIONALLICENCE 773 0- Human Nature Springer US; http://www.springer-ny.com 24/3(2013-09-01), 219-267 1045-6767 24:3<219 2013 24 12110 Metadata rights reserved Springer special CC-BY-NC licence nationallicence BK010053 XK010053 XK010000 NATIONALLICENCE NATIONALLICENCE NL-springer