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Will

@evolvingmoloch.bsky.social
513 followers 138 following 22 posts

traditionsofconflict.com

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Will @evolvingmoloch.bsky.social · 27/06/2026
Its’s odd they argue that men gain more than double the height women do with improving living conditions, but the dubious UK data is their only longitudinal data, and when I checked NCD-RisC data over 20th century men and women gained same amount of height in relation to GDP
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Will @evolvingmoloch.bsky.social · 26/06/2026
Paper claims “men’s height gains were 2.76 times larger than women’s in the first half of the twentieth century” in UK but for their results to be right UK would have had to have ranked roughly 197th out of 200 countries in female height gained during first half of the 20th c. by NCD-RisC estimates
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Will @evolvingmoloch.bsky.social · 22/06/2026
This nonsense claim from this paper is making rounds on Twitter, claiming fertility & gender (in)equality correlated at .81. But the Gender Inequality Index includes adolescent fertility as part of the measure! When you rebuild the index without circular reproductive outcomes correlation cut in half
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Will @evolvingmoloch.bsky.social · 22/06/2026
Another interesting pattern: leatherworking is commonly done by women in hunting and fishing societies, but in agricultural societies where it is a specialized craft it is nearly always done by men.
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Duncan Stibbard Hawkes @dstibbardhawkes.bsky.social · 09/06/2026
While I've seen both men and women building Hadza huts, much more often it is women (pictured). The sexual division of labour lit has zeroed in on hunting-vs-gathering; but much less is said about women's differential contributions to water-fetching, food-preparation, cooking, and house-building.
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Will @evolvingmoloch.bsky.social · 05/06/2026
The sexual division of labour regarding house construction shows a very consistent pattern cross-culturally: women usually construct the shelters in nomadic societies, while in sedentary societies men do it.
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Will @evolvingmoloch.bsky.social · 03/06/2026
Sexual Permissiveness in Polynesia: Was Margaret Mead Right? traditionsofconflict.substack.com/p/sexual-per...
traditionsofconflict.substack.com
Sexual Permissiveness in Polynesia: Was Margaret Mead Right?
Cross-cultural data and phylogenetic methods can shed light on old debates
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Will @evolvingmoloch.bsky.social · 16/05/2026
Higher rates of polygyny are associated with stricter arranged marriages and larger age gaps at first marriage across the hunter-gatherer societies in the Binford and Apostolou datasets. From my talk at HBES
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Will @evolvingmoloch.bsky.social · 14/05/2026
Had a good time presenting some of my work on black magic at the cultural evolution society conference
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Rebecca Sear @rebeccasear.bsky.social · 08/10/2025
“The idea that humans evolved to be protective & sensitive to harm directed towards women appears increasingly popular in evolutionary psych [but] ethnographic evidence conflict with this perspective, [which seems] rooted in contemporary WEIRD values rather than an evolved psychological mechanism”
open.substack.com
Did humans evolve to 'protect' women?
Ethnography complicates a convenient narrative
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Will @evolvingmoloch.bsky.social · 08/10/2025
More men than women die in war, that is true pretty much everywhere, no doubt. More women than men are beaten by in-group members on a regular basis in many small-scale societies (via domestic violence), and numerous other members react with little sensitivity towards that harm. That is also true.
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Will @evolvingmoloch.bsky.social · 08/10/2025
This is such an absurd characterization of what I wrote, obviously I never argued that. This is genuinely a more bad faith reply than anything I said in my post (which IMO is a totally fair article, even if you disagree with it, and I think it certainly brings up numerous totally valid points).
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Will @evolvingmoloch.bsky.social · 07/10/2025
Normalized domestic violence, rape & wife capture asymmetrically impact women more than men. Sex-biased infanticide is more often directed towards female infants than male. There's little evidence of any general 'sensitivity to harm towards women' in many societies, beyond perhaps kin, & even then..
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Julia M. Rohrer @dingdingpeng.the100.ci · 07/10/2025
Evolutionary psychologists have claimed that "humans evolved heightened sensitivity to harm directed at women." This excellent (albeit at times gruesome) post makes the point that the ethnographic evidence does not really support this narrative.
traditionsofconflict.substack.com
Did humans evolve to 'protect' women?
Ethnography complicates a convenient narrative
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Will @evolvingmoloch.bsky.social · 04/05/2025
Uses of musical instruments in hunter-gatherer societies traditionsofconflict.substack.com/p/some-uses-...
traditionsofconflict.substack.com
Some Uses of Musical Instruments in Hunter-Gatherer Societies
Research over the last few years has demonstrated some important patterns of music use across societies.
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Will @evolvingmoloch.bsky.social · 23/04/2025
Ritualized treatment of the umbilical cord after birth is common across hunter-gatherer societies traditionsofconflict.substack.com/p/cutting-th...
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Will @evolvingmoloch.bsky.social · 22/04/2025
In many societies, after a child is born, the father is under a variety of restrictions, such as food and work taboos, under the belief that if he undertakes certain kinds of labor or consumes certain foods it would harm the child via sympathetic magic traditionsofconflict.substack.com/p/couvade
traditionsofconflict.substack.com
Couvade
After a child is born among the Kalinago of the West Indies, the mother is quick to get back to regular household work.
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Will @evolvingmoloch.bsky.social · 22/04/2025
Independent hunter-gatherer societies from all over the world have used diss songs in the midst of their conflicts. traditionsofconflict.substack.com/p/diss-songs
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Will @evolvingmoloch.bsky.social · 21/04/2025
"Considering its common use across nomadic hunter-gatherer societies, and what it represents—as a tool to enable the carrying of more tools—the belt may be a bit of an unsung hero of human history." traditionsofconflict.substack.com/p/handy-man
traditionsofconflict.substack.com
Handy man
In praise of the humble tool belt!
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Will @evolvingmoloch.bsky.social · 20/04/2025
While most primates do not build sleeping nests, all the great apes do traditionsofconflict.substack.com/p/millions-o...
traditionsofconflict.substack.com
Millions of years of a good night's sleep
An ancient tradition that unites all hominids
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Will @evolvingmoloch.bsky.social · 20/04/2025
“when a man is publicly accused of being a sorcerer he normally denies that he is. Nevertheless, some men have confided to me that they have successfully performed sorcery and they have told me whom they killed, how they did it, and why…They have even offered to teach me how to perform sorcery…”
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Will @evolvingmoloch.bsky.social · 19/04/2025
Hi Emily, I would like to be added to the feed if possible. Here is my ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0001-97...
orcid.org
ORCID
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Will @evolvingmoloch.bsky.social · 19/04/2025
Abortion procedures in hunter-gatherer societies traditionsofconflict.substack.com/p/abortion-p...
traditionsofconflict.substack.com
Abortion procedures in hunter-gatherer societies
In an article I wrote for Quillette a few years back, I discussed the high rates of infant and child mortality across societies throughout human history, before industrialization and the rise of more ...
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Human Relations Area Files at Yale University @hraf755.bsky.social · 22/06/2022
Importantly though, he adds, “we must not forget that Baruya women have their own secrets, protecting them from men and constantly reminding them that women have powers too.” - @Evolving_Moloch traditionsofconflict.substack.com/p/womens-secre…
traditionsofconflict.substack.com
Women's secrets
Male cult secrecy offers something of a paradox, as it lays the foundation for performances that are often consciously ostentatious and attention-grabbing.
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Jens Notroff @jensnotroff.com · 03/12/2019
Toy, ritual tool, religious symbol, sound maker for hunting and herding? Quite an interesting survey by @Evolving_Moloch on the ethnographic and historic function and use of #bullroarers: traditionsofconflict.com/blog/2019/…
traditionsofconflict.com
The Bullroarer — Traditions of Conflict
This insignificant toy is perhaps the most ancient, widel...
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Will @evolvingmoloch.bsky.social · 19/04/2025
"Such elaborate designs often take as long as five hours to execute, but are considered necessary to disguise the close relatives of a deceased Tiwi from his ghost as they approach the grave to carry out the final rituals" traditionsofconflict.substack.com/p/appeasing-...
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Will @evolvingmoloch.bsky.social · 24/01/2025
Traditional Methods of Black Magic traditionsofconflict.substack.com/p/traditiona...
open.substack.com
Traditional Methods of Black Magic
Spooky action at a distance
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