Differences Among Types of Societies

One of the most important proporsitions in ecological-evolutionary theory is the one which asserts that advances in subsistence technology are a necessary condition for any significant increase in the size, complexity, wealth, or power of a society.

 

Size of Societies

One of the most important consequences of technological advance, according to ecological-evolutionary theory, is an increase in the size of societies. Table 4.2 confirms this. Technologically more advanced types of societies have, on average, larger populations. Thus, the median size of agrarian societies is larger than the median size of simple horticultural societies, which is larger than the median size of hunting and gathering societies. The median sizes of fishing and herding societies are also about what one would expect in view of their places in the taxonomy of societies and in view of the average sizes of hunting and gathering and horticultural societies. Fishing societies are larger, on average, than hunting and gathering societies, but smaller, on average, than horticultural societies. Herding societies are intermediate in size between simple and advanced horticultural societies.

Permanence of Settlements

Ecological-evolutionary theory also predicts that technological advance leads societies to establish more permanent settlements. Because the hunting of wild animals and the gathering of wild vegetable products soon deplete the supply of foodstuffs in the immediate area surrounding human settlements, hunter-gatherers are forced to move about with considerable frequency. In contrast, societies that practice horticulture or agriculture should, according to our theory, be able to establish more permanent settlements.

Murdock’s data confirm this. Of the 147 hunting and gathering societies for which data were available, only 10 percent were reported to have permanent settlements, and all of these enjoyed unusually favorable environmental conditions or partial reliance on horticulture, fishing, or other more advanced technologies. In contrast, 96 percent of the 377 horticultural and agrarian societies had permanent settlements.

TABLE 4.2  Median Size of Societies, by Type of Society

Type of Society	Median Size of Societies	No. of Societies
Hunting and gathering	40	62
Simple Horticultural	95	45
Advanced Horticultural	5,850	84
Agrarian	Over 100,000	48
Industrial	14,000,000	27
Fishing	60	22
Herding	2,000	22

Source: Derived from George Peter Murdock, “World Ethnographic Sample,” American Anthropologist, 59 (1957), pp. 664-687, and World Almanac, 1985, pp. 518-594.

Societal Complexity

A third important prediction of ecological-evolutionary theory is that technological advance will be linked to greater complexity of the social system. Murdock’s data permit us to test this hypothesis in two ways. First, we can compare societies on the basis of the degree of occupational specialization present in them, and second, we can compare them on the basis of the complexity of their status systems. Thus, we can test the complexity of both the vertical and the horizontal dimensions of social organization.

Table 4.3 shows the frequency with which several kinds of occupational specialists are found in seven different types of societies. In hunting and gathering societies, technologically the least advanced, there are no specialists in the six areas indicated. Specialization in those areas occurs in a tiny minority of simple horticultural societies, but becomes considerably more common in advanced horticultural and agrarian societies. In industrial societies, there are specialists in all of these fields. In fishing societies, the level of occupational specialization is comparable to that in hunting and gathering and simple horticultural societies, while in herding societies it more closely resembles that in advanced horticultural societies.

TABLE 4.3 Frequency of Craft Specialization, by Type of Society (in Percentages)
Type of Society	Metal working	Weaving	Leather Working	Pottery	Boat Building	House Building	Average
Hunting and gathering	*	0	0	0	0	0	0
Simple horticultural	*	0	3	2	4	2	2
Advanced horticultural	100	6	24	24	9	4	28
Agrarian	100	32	42	29	5	18	38
Industrial	100	100	100	100	100	100	100
Fishing	*	0	0	0	9	4	2
Herding	95	11	22	*	*	0	21

Figure 4.6 shows the relationship between subsistence technology and the complexity of status systems. Once again, as ecological-evolutionary theory would lead us to expect, there is a steady progression from hunting and gathering to industrial societies, with complex status systems totally absent in the former and universally present in the latter. The three intermediate types of societies occupy intermediate positions on the scale, with the technologically more advanced also the more likely to have complex status systems.

FIGURE 4.6          Percentage of societies having complex status systems, by type of society.

 TABLE 4.4             Beliefs Concerning God, by Type of Society (in Percentages)

Type of Society	Beliefs*				Total	No. of Societies
	A	B	C	D
Hunting and gathering	60	29	8	2	99	85
Simple horticultural	60	35	2	2	99	43
Advanced horticultural	21	51	12	16	100	131
Agrarian	23	6	5	67	101	66
Fishing	69	14	7	10	100	29
Herding	4	10	6	80	100	50

*A—no conception of Supreme Creator; B—belief in a Supreme Creator who is inactive or not concerned with human affairs; C—belief in a Supreme Creator who is active in human affairs but does not offer positive support to human morality; D—belief in a Supreme Creator who is active and supports human morality.

Source: See note 15, page 440.

Ideology

Finally, ecological-evolutionary theory leads us to expect that technologically advanced societies will differ from less advanced societies in matters of ideology. Here again, Murdock’s data provide the information we need to test this hypothesis with respect to one important aspect of ideology: the religious beliefs of preindustrial societies.

                As Table 4.4 indicates, the basic religious beliefs of the technologically less advanced societies—hunting and gathering, simple horticultural, and fishing—tend to be quite different from those of the more advanced, especially agrarian and herding societies. Few societies in the first group have even developed the concept of a Supreme Creator, and those that have, usually assume him to be remote and indifferent to human concerns. In contrast, the majority of advanced horticultural societies believe in a Supreme Creator, but they, too, see him as inactive or indifferent to the affairs of humans. Finally, the majority of agrarian and herding societies believe not only in a Supreme Creator, but in one who is actively concerned with this world and provides support for those patterns of conduct he finds pleasing.

(Source: Lenski, Gerhard, & Lenski, Jean. 1987. HUMAN SOCIETIES: AN INTRODUCTION TO MACROSOCIOLOGY. 5th Ed. United States of America: McGraw-Hill, Inc. pg 86-90)

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