Family counts: deciding when to murder among the Icelandic Vikings |
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Authors: | Markel Palmstierna Anna Frangou Anna Wallette Robin Dunbar |
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Affiliation: | 1. Institute of Evolutionary Anthropology, University of Oxford, 64 Banbury Rd, Oxford, OX3 6PN, UK;2. Department of Statistics, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK;3. Department of History, Lund University, Lund, Sweden;4. Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Oxford, South Parks Rd, Oxford, OX1 3UD, UK |
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Abstract: | In small scale societies, lethal attacks on another individual usually invite revenge by the victim's family. We might expect those who perpetrate such attacks to do so only when their own support network (mainly family) is larger than that of the potential victim so as to minimise the risk of retaliation. Using data from Icelandic family sagas, we show that this prediction holds whether we consider biological kin or affinal kin (in-laws): on average, killers had twice as many relatives as their victims. These findings reinforce the importance of kin as a source of implicit protection even when they are not physically present. The results also support Hughes' (1988) claim that affines are biological kin because of the shared genetic interests they have in the offspring generation. |
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Keywords: | Kinship Affines Murder Icelandic Vikings Alliances |
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