Standard Cross-Cultural Sample
The Standard Cross-Cultural Sample (SCCS) is a foundational dataset in anthropology comprising 186 preindustrial societies selected to enable rigorous cross-cultural comparisons by maximizing cultural diversity and independence while minimizing diffusionary influences.[1] Developed by anthropologists George P. Murdock and Douglas R. White and first published in 1969, the SCCS draws one well-documented society from each of 186 distinct cultural provinces worldwide, with each case "pinpointed" to a specific time period and geographic location to facilitate precise ethnographic analysis. This selection process addressed longstanding issues in cross-cultural research, such as sampling bias and the "Galton's problem" of cultural non-independence, by prioritizing societies with rich, reliable ethnographic sources over less described ones.[2] The SCCS originated from Murdock's earlier work, including his Ethnographic Atlas (1962–1980), which cataloged data on over 1,200 societies, but refined it into a more controlled sample for hypothesis testing in social sciences.[1] Since its inception, the dataset has evolved into a collaborative resource, with over 2,000 coded variables contributed by researchers on topics ranging from kinship and economy to property rights and gender roles, often integrated with tools like SPSS for statistical analysis.[2] It has been instrumental in thousands of studies, supporting multivariate analyses that reveal universal patterns and variations in human behavior, such as correlations between social organization and environmental factors.[3] In recent years, the SCCS has been enhanced through digitization and integration with databases like eHRAF World Cultures at Yale University, which now includes focal documents for all 186 cases, flagged for temporal and spatial accuracy (S1 for direct matches, S2 for partial, and S3 for cautious use).[4] As of 2021, eight additional cases were added to eHRAF World Cultures to provide complete coverage of all 186 SCCS societies, ensuring the sample's continued utility for examining cultural stability and change over time.[4] Despite minor biases toward better-described societies, simulations confirm its robustness for global comparative research, making it a cornerstone for interdisciplinary work in anthropology, sociology, and evolutionary biology.[5]Development
Origin
The development of the Standard Cross-Cultural Sample (SCCS) was initiated by anthropologist George Peter Murdock in the late 1960s, aiming to enhance the reliability and comparability of cross-cultural research by selecting a representative set of societies that minimized biases from geographic and historical diffusion.[6] This effort built on Murdock's longstanding commitment to systematic ethnographic data collection, including his foundational role in establishing the Human Relations Area Files (HRAF) in 1949, a collaborative archive designed to organize ethnographic materials for comparative analysis across cultures.[7] Additionally, the SCCS drew directly from Murdock's Ethnographic Atlas, published in 1967, which provided coded data on 862 societies and served as a precursor by classifying them into broader cultural groupings to facilitate global sampling. In 1968, Murdock established the Cross-Cultural Cumulative Coding Center (CCCCC), also known as "The 5 Cs," at the University of Pittsburgh to oversee the coding and compilation of variables for the sample, marking a pivotal step in operationalizing his vision for standardized cross-cultural datasets. The SCCS was formally introduced in a seminal 1969 publication co-authored by Murdock and Douglas R. White in the journal Ethnology, where they outlined the sample's structure and rationale, presenting it as a tool for rigorous, replicable anthropological inquiry. Originally, the project targeted approximately 200 cultural provinces worldwide to ensure broad representation, but this was pragmatically adjusted to 186 well-documented societies, one from each province, to balance comprehensiveness with data quality and manageability in coding efforts.[8] This reduction allowed for focused ethnographic sourcing while preserving the sample's utility in addressing issues like cultural interdependence.[2]Selection Process
The selection process for the Standard Cross-Cultural Sample (SCCS) began with the division of the world into approximately 200 cultural provinces, delineated primarily on the basis of geographic contiguity and linguistic boundaries as outlined in George P. Murdock's Ethnographic Atlas.[2] These provinces were designed to represent distinct cultural areas, ensuring broad global coverage while minimizing internal diffusion of traits within each unit. This foundational step drew from Murdock's extensive ethnographic database to create a framework that balanced regional diversity with analytical independence.[2] From each province, one society was selected as the representative based on rigorous ethnographic quality criteria, prioritizing the "best-described" case to maximize data reliability. Key considerations included the depth and comprehensiveness of documentation, with preference given to societies for which high-quality ethnographic accounts existed, often from the earliest available sources. To mitigate biases from external influences, selections avoided societies heavily impacted by recent colonial or imperial contacts, focusing instead on pre-contact or minimally acculturated periods; for instance, major European colonizing powers were explicitly excluded to prevent skewing toward industrialized traits.[2] The sample was further stratified across six major world regions to ensure proportional representation: Sub-Saharan Africa (28 societies), the Circum-Mediterranean region (28 societies), East Eurasia (34 societies), the Insular Pacific (31 societies), North America (33 societies), and South and Central America (32 societies). This geographic stratification aimed to distribute cases evenly and reflect global cultural variation.[2] Societies were excluded if they lacked sufficient data for reliable coding, such as precise locational or temporal pinpointing, or if they exhibited phylogenetic overlap with adjacent provinces that could compromise statistical independence—resulting in a final tally of 186 societies after omitting 14 such cases. This exclusionary step, including the removal of entities like ancient Egypt due to identification challenges, reinforced the sample's suitability for cross-cultural comparisons by prioritizing distinctiveness and data integrity.[2]Composition
Cultural Provinces
The cultural provinces of the Standard Cross-Cultural Sample (SCCS) are defined as distinct ethnographic areas comprising clusters of contiguous societies that share historical, linguistic, and ecological traits, functioning as minimal units of cultural diffusion to reduce autocorrelation in comparative analyses. This framework addresses Galton's problem by limiting the influence of historical relatedness and cultural borrowing between sampled units, ensuring greater independence among the cultures studied.[2] Originally derived from George P. Murdock's classification of approximately 200 world cultural provinces in his Ethnographic Atlas, the SCCS refines this to 186 provinces to optimize representation of global cultural diversity while avoiding redundancy. Each province encapsulates a homogeneous cultural region based on ethnographic evidence, with boundaries delineated primarily through linguistic distributions and archaeological data to capture variations in social organization, subsistence practices, and other traits without excessive overlap. The rationale emphasizes comprehensive coverage of human sociocultural variation, prioritizing provinces that reflect adaptive responses to diverse environments and histories.[8][2] These provinces are regionally distributed to balance global representation, as shown in the following table:| Region | Number of Provinces | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Africa (exclusive of Madagascar and the Sahara) | 28 | Sub-Saharan ethnographic zones |
| Circum-Mediterranean (North Africa, Europe, Turkey, Caucasus, Semitic Near East) | 28 | Mediterranean-influenced areas |
| East Eurasia (including Madagascar and Indian Ocean islands) | 34 | Asian continental and island cultures |
| Insular Pacific (Australia, Indonesia, Formosa, Philippines) | 31 | Oceanic and Southeast Asian islands |
| North America (indigenous societies north of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec) | 33 | Northern indigenous groups |
| South America (including Antilles, Yucatan, Central America) | 32 | Southern continental and island societies |
Included Societies
The Standard Cross-Cultural Sample (SCCS) consists of 186 pre-industrial and historical societies, chosen as the best-documented representatives from distinct cultural provinces to ensure broad global coverage and minimize geographic or cultural bias in cross-cultural research.[2] These societies encompass a wide spectrum of social organization and subsistence economies, including hunter-gatherers like the !Kung Bushmen of southern Africa, pastoral nomads such as the Maasai of East Africa, and centralized states like the Aztec of Mesoamerica, thereby capturing variability in human cultural adaptation from foraging bands to hierarchical polities. While the core sample excludes modern industrial societies to focus on traditional forms, a few cases like the Russians (pinpointed to 1955) are included for comparative purposes, reflecting semi-industrial influences.[2] The societies are organized into six major geographic and cultural regions, with most descriptions drawn from 19th- and 20th-century ethnographies, though some rely on ancient historical records for temporally distant cases. This regional stratification highlights the sample's emphasis on worldwide representation, distributing societies proportionally across continents to facilitate comparative analyses of cultural traits.[2] Brief notes on subsistence and temporal focus accompany examples below; full coding details are available in the original compilation.[10]Sub-Saharan Africa (28 societies)
This region features diverse African foragers, farmers, and herders, primarily from the late 19th to mid-20th centuries. Examples include:- !Kung Bushmen (1950, hunter-gatherers in the Kalahari).[2]
- Mbuti Pygmies (1950, forest hunter-gatherers in the Ituri).[2]
- Maasai (1900, pastoralists in East Africa).[2]
- Azande (1905, agriculturalists with segmentary lineages in Central Africa).[2]
Circum-Mediterranean (28 societies)
Encompassing North Africa, the Middle East, Europe, and adjacent areas, this region includes ancient states and nomadic groups, with pinpoint dates ranging from antiquity to the 20th century. Examples include:- Rwala Bedouin (1913, pastoral nomads in the Syrian desert).[2]
- Ancient Hebrews (ca. 621 BCE, early state in the Levant).[2]
- Russians (1955, agrarian society with emerging industrialization).[2]
- Basques (1934, pastoral-agriculturalists in the Pyrenees).[2]
- Qashqai (1958, nomadic pastoralists in southern Iran).[2]
East Eurasia (34 societies)
Covering Central, East, and Southeast Asia, these societies reflect nomadic pastoralism, intensive agriculture, and early empires, mostly documented in the 19th-20th centuries. Examples include:- Kazak (1885, pastoral nomads in Central Asia).[2]
- Khmer (ca. 1292 CE, historical state in Southeast Asia).[2]
- Japanese (1950, agricultural society with feudal remnants).[2]
- Santal (1940, tribal agriculturalists in India).[2]
Insular Pacific (31 societies)
Focused on island and coastal cultures of the Pacific and Southeast Asia, this region emphasizes horticultural and maritime societies from the 19th-20th centuries. Examples include:- Tikopia (1930, Polynesian horticulturalists in the Solomon Islands).[2]
- Balinese (1958, wet-rice agriculturalists with complex hierarchies).[2]
- Tiwi (1929, Australian Aboriginal hunter-gatherers with matrilineal clans).[2]
- Maori (1820, Polynesian warriors and farmers in New Zealand).[2]
North America (33 societies)
Representing indigenous groups north of Mesoamerica, these include foragers, fishers, and farmers, primarily from 19th-century observations. Examples include:- Hopi (ca. 1875, Pueblo agriculturalists in the Southwest).[2]
- Haida (1875, Northwest Coast potlatch-holding fishers and carvers).[2]
- Ingalik (1885, subarctic hunter-gatherers in Alaska).[2]
- Saulteaux (1930, Great Lakes woodland hunters and gatherers).[2]