Coevolution of religious and political authority in Austronesian societies

Oliver Sheehan (), Joseph Watts, Russell D. Gray, Joseph Bulbulia, Scott Claessens, Erik J. Ringen and Quentin D. Atkinson
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Oliver Sheehan: Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology
Joseph Watts: Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology
Russell D. Gray: Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology
Joseph Bulbulia: University of Auckland
Scott Claessens: University of Auckland
Erik J. Ringen: Emory University
Quentin D. Atkinson: Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology

Nature Human Behaviour, 2023, vol. 7, issue 1, 38-45

Abstract: Abstract Authority, an institutionalized form of social power, is one of the defining features of the large-scale societies that evolved during the Holocene. Religious and political authority have deep histories in human societies and are clearly interdependent, but the nature of their relationship and its evolution over time is contested. We purpose-built an ethnographic dataset of 97 Austronesian societies and used phylogenetic methods to address two long-standing questions about the evolution of religious and political authority: first, how these two institutions have coevolved, and second, whether religious and political authority have tended to become more or less differentiated. We found evidence for mutual interdependence between religious and political authority but no evidence for or against a long-term pattern of differentiation or unification in systems of religious and political authority. Our results provide insight into how political and religious authority have worked synergistically over millennia during the evolution of large-scale societies.

Date: 2023
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DOI: 10.1038/s41562-022-01471-y

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