Reconsidering Violence in Simple Human Societies: Homicide among the Gebusi of New Guinea [and Comments and Reply]

Homicide rates among the Gebusi of lowland New Guinea are among the highest yet reported. This paper characterizes and empirically tests Gebusi homicide data against the predictions of three theories commonly used to explain aspects of human violence: sociobiological theory, fraternal interest-group theory, and learning/socialization theory. The data strongly contravene the predictions of each of these theories. The seemingly exceptional nature of Gebusi homicide is in certain respects urprisingly similar to the dynamics of violence in highly decentralized and egalitarian societies such as the !Kung, the Central Eskimo, the Hadza, the Semai, and the Waorani. On the basis of a review of the evidence from these societies, violence in highly egalitarian human groups is characterized and a set of linked hypotheses forwarded to explain it.

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