Societies evolve slowly, just like biological species

(PhysOrg.com) -- It has been a contentious issue for some time among historians, anthropologists, and archaeologists whether societies and cultures arise slowly or in sudden bursts and if they collapse in the same way. Now researchers using the tools of evolutionary biology instead of anthropology have created an evolutionary tree of political forms in the Pacific Islands and concluded that cultures evolve towards higher complexity by a slow process of incremental steps, but may take larger steps towards lower complexity.

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