Collaborative Research: Reproduction, Kinship and Coalitional Violence

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Boster, Erickson, Yost - BCS 9910465 (collaborative with Beckerman - BCS 9910445)This project will investigate the perceived motivations for and the biological fitness consequences of male coalitional violence ("warfare") in an indigenous group in eastern Ecuador. The Waorani (a linguistic isolate) are a famously warlike group of egalitarian tropical forest horticulturalists. They have experienced extraordinarily high levels of mortality due to internal violence, the effects of which remain prominent in the life histories of people still living. The level of participation in male coalitional violence varies substantially form man to man, thus affording the possibility of studying both the perceived motives for participation in violence and the reproductive consequences of varying levels of bellicosity, an important issues in contemporary cultural anthropology. The research will test a number of hypotheses concerning the relationship between individual motivations for warfare and reproductive advantage. Methods include the collection of life histories, social network data, reproductive and household histories, and individual motivations from 400 Waorani male and female adults. The project will contribute to our understanding of the motivations and consequences of warfare.