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Eusociality in History

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Abstract

For more than 100,000 years, H. sapiens lived as foragers, in small family groups with low reproductive variance. A minority of men were able to father children by two or three women; and a majority of men and women were able to breed. But after the origin of farming around 10,000 years ago, reproductive variance increased. In civilizations which began in Mesopotamia, Egypt, India, and China, and then moved on to Greece and Rome, kings collected thousands of women, whose children were supported and guarded by thousands of eunuchs. Just a few hundred years ago, that trend reversed. Obligate sterility ended, and reproductive variance declined. For H. sapiens, as for other organisms, eusociality seems to be an effect of ecological constraints. Civilizations rose up in lake and river valleys, hemmed in by mountains and deserts. Egalitarianism became an option after empty habitats opened up.

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Acknowledgments

I’m grateful to Baruch Halpern and Piotr Michalowski for help on the Near East, Marjorie Fisher on Egypt, Wendy Doniger and Shane Gannon on India, Patricia Ebrey on China, and Ian Morris, Walter Scheidel, and Shaun Tougher on Greece and Rome. I thank Kent Flannery and Ulrich Mueller for comments on agriculture. Paul Sherman helped with theory; Michael McOsker helped with my Hebrew, Greek, and Latin.

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    Laura Betzig

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Betzig, L. Eusociality in History. Hum Nat 25, 80–99 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12110-013-9186-8

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