Dunbar's Number shows how social (friendship and kinship) relations can support people

Dunbar's Number - limit on the number of permanent social relationships that people can support. The value is named after the British anthropologist Robin Dunbar, who suggested that number.

Maintaining such relationships requires knowledge of the distinguishing features of the individual, his character and social status, which requires considerable intellectual abilities. It lies in the range from 100 to 230, most often assumed to be 150.

Dunbar noticed the relationship between the level of development of the new cerebral cortex of the brain and the size of the pack in primates. Based on data for 38 genera of primates, he brought a mathematical relationship between the development of the neocortex of the brain and the size of the pack, and based on an assessment of the human brain, has offered the best estimate of the size of the human herd.

To test his theory Dunbar turned to anthropological data. The average size of villages, traditional settlements vary in the assumptions within them. In addition, the size of Neolithic settlements up to 200 people.

Source: www.muz4in.net

via factroom.ru