Pierre van den Berghe

Pierre van den Berghe is the pioneer of the research that led to the modern rise of Evolutionary Psychology. He is Professor Emeritus of Sociology and Anthropology at the University of Washington, Seattle, USA. His fieldwork was carried out mostly in Sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America. Prof. van den Berghe is world-known expert in kinship, ethnicity, tourism, genocide, and biocultural evolution, the author of Race and racism (1967), Human family systems (1979), The ethnic phenomenon (1981), Stranger in their midst (1989) and 18 other books. Last summer he participated in 2nd Summer school on Human Ethology (Puschino) with lectures The Basis for Human Sociality: Nepotism, Reciprocity, Coercion and Ethnic Solidarity: Innate and Socially Constructed.

Preliminary titles of his lectures on Evolutionary Psychology Session:
Lecture one: The Unilineal Descent Puzzle
Lecture two: The Matrilineal Descent Puzzle
Lecture three: The Incest-Endogamy-Exogamy Muddle

Puzzle of the lecture #1. Why does unilineal descent exist when kin selection would seem to dictate bilateral descent?
Puzzle of the lecture #2. What is the cause of asymmetry between the structures of patrilineal and matrilineal descent systems?
Muddle of the lecture #3 refers to the confusion in the anthropological literature between rules of incest avoidance, endogamy and exogamy, and the common custom of preferential marriage with some cousins (generally cross-cousins) combined with strict prohibition of other, generally parallel, cousins who are equally related.