Olympia L K Campbell

No system is the default but each is a solution to the same problem - how to manage resources, how to build alliances, and ultimately how to leave behind the most descendants. 3/

Marriage systems evolve in response to the ecology and type of wealth. Lots of cows? lots of wives. Large agricultural estates that can't be divided? A fight to be the single inheriting child. 2/

The market for marriage - Works in Progress Magazine It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good agricultural surplus, must be in want of a wife.

Humans exhibit an astonishing variety of marriage systems. Sometimes monogamous, other times polygamous, occasionally we even marry ghosts. The diversity can seem to defy any general explanation. In my new piece for Works in Progress, I write about the Darwinian logic behind it. 1/

that is incredible.

Humanity’s oldest known cave art has been discovered in Sulawesi People were creating cave art in Indonesia 67,800 years ago – before modern humans reached Australia.

Humanity’s oldest known cave art has been discovered in Sulawesi 🎨🇮🇩 theconversation.com/humanitys-ol...

Toulouse Summer School in Quantitative Social Sciences Application Application to the Toulouse Summer School in Quantitative Social Sciences taking place from May 25th to June 19th, 2026 in Toulouse, France Application deadline: January 15th, 2026 Applicants will be ...

Applications for our upcoming Summer School have been extended until January 15! 🤝

Apply now: www.tse-fr.eu/toulouse-sum...

@olkcampbell.bsky.social @maximederex.bsky.social @lfitouchi.bsky.social @cmolho.bsky.social @ccavaille.bsky.social

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📢 Apply to our (2-year) research fellowships at @iast.fr

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Check out the new 'most read' tab at EHS (Evolutionary Human Sciences), currently topped by this paper by @olkcampbell.bsky.social et al on sex ratio and violence against women

Rethinking polygamy – new research upends conventional thinking about the advantages of monogamous marriage Simplistic stories about the dangers of polygamy can be compelling and intuitive. But new research suggests some arguments about its harms don’t hold up.

Simplistic stories about the dangers of polygamy can be compelling & intuitive, but what is the evidence that monogamous marriage is advantageous for society?

theconversation.com/rethinking-p...

So pleased to have won this award. Thank you @ceciliapad.bsky.social @gregoryfiorio.bsky.social @ruthmace.bsky.social @humbehevosoc.bsky.social

How Societies Morph With the Seasons An anthropologist chronicles radical changes foragers undertake seasonally—and how the rigidity of industrialized societies is an anomaly.

So brilliant this piece by @ceciliapad.bsky.social about how human societies have often been so flexible that political hierarchies can change with the seasons, literally. www.sapiens.org/biology/fora...

Stop worrying about cousin marriage

Made an attempt to add some nuance to the recent debates on cousin marriage unherd.com/2025/04/stop...

We have made it to Lake Turkana @ceciliapad.bsky.social @asociacionbiomas.bsky.social

I’m just a girl, standing in front of Turkana Boy, asking him to love her @ceciliapad.bsky.social

Congratulations 🥳

Animal dance video of the month however vm.tiktok.com/ZNd16d671/

Continental influx and pervasive matrilocality in Iron Age Britain Nature - An analysis of ancient mitochondrial and nuclear DNA shows evidence of matrilocal communities in Iron Age Britain.

So much in here incl: "five marriages in which both partners descend from the founding female. However, these partners have no recent relatedness...suggesting the people had a deep knowledge of their own genealogies...used to guide marital arrangements among a pool of related groups"
rdcu.be/d6m8T

Why do 70% of Pashtuns say that honour killings are justified?

The UNFPA estimates that 5000 women are killed every year over ‘honour’.

Is this related to cousin marriage?

Tremendous new paper, combining surveys & DNA!

www.ggd.world/p/does-cousi...

He throws randomised controlled trials under the bus too

The funniest part in this has to be Angus Deaton answering the question on whether there is a theory that is widely supported by his peers but which he considers total bunkum with: "that causality can be inferred from data"

Flattered to have produced a real LOL. Have a read of my piece in @thefence.bsky.social and all the other lolworthy bits.

Thank you!

Could you add me

Issue 22 is here 🧊

With writing from @msmirandasawyer.bsky.social, Clive Martin, Gary Grimes, @franciscogarciadf.bsky.social, @natalie-berry.com, Stephen Smith, Falty DL, @williamasclarke.bsky.social, Olympia Campbell & more

www.the-fence.com/shop/

Of course and thank you for sharing! I am probably overly cautious as an evolutionary person of coming across as deterministic or reactionary etc etc

May I clarify that this is a piece about evolutionary explanations for falling fertility. It is certainly not a piece about this being an evolutionary crisis! (Also ‘crisis’ in title is not my choice and I am not in the game of knowing the extent to which we face a ‘threat’/‘crisis’/‘challenge’)

interesting to see some of the easy, soundbite length explanations for falling birthrates challenged with counter-examples.

no definitive answers found here, but I always enjoy a good read in the category of “this seems obvious, but is it?”

Thank you! :)

The truth about the fertility crisis

Adding to the noise on why birth rates are falling - a question that continues to stump the human evolutionary sciences unherd.com/2024/12/the-...

The salmon hat article has that something something