The Cultural Evolution Lab studies the evolution of social complexity and social cohesion. The massive and ground breaking Seshat: Global History Databank flagship project, founded by CEL members Peter Turchin, Harvey Whitehouse and Pieter François, covers very long timescales that run from the Neolithic age until the present day. Other, smaller projects focus on shorter timescales and specific geographic areas, including the Neolithic transition in the Levant, traditional pre-colonial societies and post-1945 civil war armed groups. The Cultural Evolution Lab also constitutes a centre of expertise on workflow and data quality issues for humanities and social science projects.
Our goal is to test rival social scientific hypotheses with historical and archaeological data
