Human Residence Patterns
Title
Human Residence Patterns
Author
Walker, Robert S.
Research Area
Social Processes
Topic
Planned Environment
Abstract
This essay addresses the significance and evidence surrounding the debate about how hunter‐gatherers and other humans organize their residential groups. In most species of mammals, either males or female remain in their natal group (the philopatric sex) while the other sex disperses at maturity (the dispersing sex). Sex‐biased philopatry and dispersal has many downstream effects on all aspects of social bonds and organization. Recent genetic data and detailed cross‐cultural ethnographic information suggest that human societies are quite variable and flexible in nature with males and females likely to either stay or disperse from natal families. Brothers and sisters commonly coreside in the same community and form life‐long bonds in a system quite unlike that of our primate relatives. This multilocal human residence pattern of flexible residence combined with marriage exchange systems create complex meta‐group social structures with kin‐based coalitions that extend across multiple residential groups. Human kinship and social networks that encompass multiple communities led to the emergence of large alliances at scales unparalleled by other species.