Access
This article is part of Nature's premium content.
Published online 11 May 2009 | Nature | doi:10.1038/news.2009.463
News
Making war not love
Fiercest warriors in Amazon tribe left fewer descendants.
The most warlike men in an Amazonian tribe fathered fewer children than their milder fellows, say researchers. The finding shows that bellicosity need not always have evolutionary advantages, and that the social consequences of violence depend on cultural context.
To read this story in full you will need to login or make a payment (see right).
Comments
Reader comments are usually moderated after posting. If you find something offensive or inappropriate, you can speed this process by clicking 'Report this comment' (or, if that doesn't work for you, email webadmin@nature.com). For more controversial topics, we reserve the right to moderate before comments are published.
On an anecdotal note, I have found marriage to be a significant civilizing influence. Say I am in a confrontation with a person who richly deserves to get the stuffing kicked out of him. Suddenly I find my responses strangely muffled, and I wake to find I'm tangled in the bedclothes and my wife is clutching and yelling at me. I would suspect our more violent sample, for one reason or another, largely maintains separate sleeping arrangements.
Could elevated testosterone effects have something to do with the high levels of violence? Or maybe inbreeding led to accumulation of genes that eventually led to lowered birth rates.Many population groups in India show falling birth rates because of intra community marriages.