Near the knuckle: How evolutionary logic helps explain Irish Traveller bare-knuckle contests
| dc.contributor.author | King, Robert | |
| dc.contributor.author | O'Riordan, Caoilfhionn | |
| dc.date.accessioned | 2019-08-29T08:36:46Z | |
| dc.date.available | 2019-08-29T08:36:46Z | |
| dc.date.issued | 2019-07-25 | |
| dc.date.updated | 2019-08-29T08:17:38Z | |
| dc.description.abstract | Irish Travellers constitute a pre-demographic-shift population living among a post-demographic-shift one. Their socio-medico profile identifies them as largely on fast life-history trajectories. In addition, they are strongly religious (typically using no contraception), highly sexually behaviorally dimorphic, with strong traditions of male-male competition (bare-knuckle fighting) and quasi-symbolic bride capture (“grabbing”). Their male-male competitions thus allow for the comparative testing of a number of interesting theories pertaining to the nature and function of types of violence in society. As a pilot study, we used expert raters (some naive to the hypotheses) to analyze a number of real-life bare-knuckle competitions in terms of the support said spectacles offered to theories of this sort of violence as reinforcing ideas of antisociality, hierarchical promotion, intersexual signaling, or maintenance of within-group equality. We found good evidence to support theories of within-group, prosocial hierarchical functions for these contests. Limitations and implications for future research, such as direct measurement of fitness, are discussed. | en |
| dc.description.status | Peer reviewed | en |
| dc.description.version | Accepted Version | en |
| dc.format.mimetype | application/pdf | en |
| dc.identifier.citation | King, R. and O'Riordan, C. (2019) 'Near the knuckle: How evolutionary logic helps explain Irish Traveller bare-knuckle contests', Human Nature, 30(3), pp. 272-298. doi: 10.1007/s12110-019-09351-7 | en |
| dc.identifier.doi | 10.1007/s12110-019-09351-7 | en |
| dc.identifier.eissn | 1936-4776 | |
| dc.identifier.endpage | 298 | en |
| dc.identifier.issn | 1045-6767 | |
| dc.identifier.issued | 3 | en |
| dc.identifier.journaltitle | Human Nature | en |
| dc.identifier.startpage | 272 | en |
| dc.identifier.uri | https://hdl.handle.net/10468/8407 | |
| dc.identifier.volume | 30 | en |
| dc.language.iso | en | en |
| dc.publisher | Springer Nature Switzerland AG | en |
| dc.rights | © 2019, Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature. This is a post-peer-review, pre-copyedit version of an article published in Human Nature. The final authenticated version is available online at: https://doi.org//10.1007/s12110-019-09351-7 | en |
| dc.subject | Bare-knuckle fights | en |
| dc.subject | Male-male competition | en |
| dc.subject | Evolution | en |
| dc.subject | Aggression | en |
| dc.subject | Combat | en |
| dc.subject | Life-history theory | en |
| dc.title | Near the knuckle: How evolutionary logic helps explain Irish Traveller bare-knuckle contests | en |
| dc.type | Article (peer-reviewed) | en |
