Rosanna and I are conducting an overview of matrifocal societies around the world, seeking correlations with the primary elements of the thesis.  I’m estimating that a matrifocal society will have females with higher testosterone and higher estrogen than a modern conventional society, males with lower testosterone and lower estrogen, more frequent anomalous cerebral dominance with both cerebral hemispheres more often the same size, a leftward shift of Annett’s handedness distributions (more left-handers), delayed puberty and tendencies to exhibit specific diseases and conditions characterized by the hormonal tendencies just mentioned.

There is the possibility that matrifocal societies will have language structures characterized by an emphasis on the present tense as in the Hopi and Trobriand Islanders.  This would suggest an affinity to primary process in waking consciousness:  one time, one place, no negatives.  An implication might be a different kind of sense of humor and a possible different kind of creative imagination.

Elia and I were talking last night about the relevance of myth.  Elia suggested that the structure of the mythology of matrifocal societies may reflect the unique neurological constellation we are proposing.  We considered that the myths might show a single story line, main character almost always present (no cut away to other times or places), little exhibition of a theory of mind in gods or goddesses and few references to other myths or stories.

A position taken in the more detailed piece, “Introduction to the Theory of Waves,” is that aboriginal matrifocal societies will exhibit populations with larger percentages of people exhibiting conditions characterized by maturational delay, such as autism and Asperger’s.  I’m estimating that a caveat to that position might be necessary.  There might be such increases and increases in diseases featuring high estrogen and testosterone women, low estrogen and testosterone men, only if there have been radical changes in child rearing practices accompanied by sudden diet and environmental rhythm modifications.

I’m starting to consider that the highly ritualized environment of aboriginal matrifocal societies, along with the ways children are raised and what they are fed, are preventing the further leftward shift of infants and toddlers.  These conventions might be engaging young neurologies in ways that there is far less autism, fewer people lost in an isolated, waking, primary process.

This thesis would suggest that aboriginal children taken from their mothers at birth or shortly thereafter, adopted by a conventional, modern, patrifocal family, might show high percentages of conditions exhibiting maturational delay and diseases associated with the hormonal extremes this thesis has been tracking.

Whereas matrifocal societies embracing modern culture will more likely exhibit the kinds of disease and condition anomalies this thesis proposes, aboriginal matrifocal societies will manifest these derivations far less often.

Perhaps the most profound connotation is that moderns raising their children using aboriginal techniques (constant rhythm, ritualized behaviors, specialized diet, unique touch or kinesthetic conventions), particularly those women with high testosterone levels mating with males with low testosterone levels, could reduce the number of children unable to exit from primary process, the maturational delayed, the autistic.

This is another suggestion of the ouroboros, the snake with her tail within her mouth, a thesis that suggests that aboriginal child rearing practices may usefully inform a society with an increasing number of neotenous characteristics with matrifocal tendencies.  This feels right to me.  Just as the features of our infant forebears manifest in the contemporary features of our species, what we would call classic neoteny, there are possible signs that characteristics of our societal forebears, aboriginal matrifocal societies, are characteristics that may usefully inform the features of contemporary times.

According to this thesis, tattoos and piercings among our youth will likely lead to other aboriginal borrowings.  I would watch for an increase in ritualized behaviors.  Music has reflected aboriginal themes for decades.  If our young mothers and fathers were to start changing the way they raise their children, how might conventional ancient practices be reflected in modern practice?

Connections between the past and present seem to be growing stronger.  There may be a reason for this.  Our future may be integrally tied to our ancient past.

Bouncing around Pub Med looking for patterns connecting handedness, ethnicity, disease, conditions characterized by maturational delay and social structure, it seems pretty clear that many cultures offer poor information on the details of their structure and conditions.  Benjamin Whorf explored Hopi language, forming conclusions that have since become controversial.  There have been brain studies.  Little seems available regarding the prevalence of diseases and conditions.  So far, I find nothing on handedness distributions.  There is high quality information on social structure.

“The Hopi thought-world had no imaginary space.  The corollary to this is that it may not locate thought dealing with real space anywhere but in real space, nor insulate real space from the effects of thought.  A Hopi would naturally suppose that his thought (or he himself) traffics with the actual rosebush—or more likely, corn plant—that he is thinking about.  The thought then should leave some trace of itself with the plant in the field.  If it is a good thought, one about health and growth, it is good for the plant; if a bad thought, the reverse.” (Whorf, B. L. (1956) Language, Thought & Reality.  MIT Press: Cambridge p. 150)

I wonder first if these conclusions are still true…

Ten years ago as this theory came together, then called “Shift Theory,” I imagined setting up a research foundation to explore the medical implications of the hypothesis. With the original impetus behind the research being an exploration of the origin of dragon and then serpent myths across six continents (see humanevolution.net), I titled the first site the Serpent Foundation. The serpent suggested, for me, the matrifocal origins of culture and the serpent as a symbol of the medical profession, a connection derived from those early societies.

With time I let the title drop. It seemed cultish and, in our culture, suggestive of something sinister. Visitors were sometimes confused. Confusion was not the effect I was looking for. Nevertheless, serpentfd.org is still a functional domain name of the original site, now going by the URL sexualselection.org.

Ten years later, I’ve brought in a research assistant, Rosanna Schatzki, to help me gather information and help write papers that will appear in this blog from time to time. Roger Olson continues his excellent editing as he has over the last year, having edited almost 400 pages of these essays.

Of the…

Ten years ago, I was exploring the possible origin of human culture in tribal societies driven by rhythmic dance and music. Tribal societies are on rare occasions characterized by paternal anonymity, or children who are unaware of the identity of their biological father. Observing that human brain size began to diminish about 25,000 years ago, I hypothesized that this reflected an emerging patrifocal emphasis on speech instead of gesture and a movement away from a selection for big-brained males. If this was the case, I suspected that there might be remnants of the old matrifocal paradigm that still exist within contemporary society. In the neurological literature, I sought humans with unusually large brains, difficulty with language, but who were also ambidextrous or left-handed. I came to find that autistic individuals commonly display these features; in addition, I discovered that individuals with autism are often obsessed with pattern replication and have perfect pitch (Brenton, Devries, Barton, Minnich & Sokol, 2008).

It appeared that hidden beneath the just-so story was a theory, which, if brought to light, could help make useful predictions and illuminate unrecognized relationships. From the beginning, the theory drew information from three different disciplines: anthropology, evolutionary biology…

Writing these daily entries, I discover something new almost as often as I record something I’ve earlier discovered. It’s time to collect some of the hypotheses or predictions of this work.

1) Relative testosterone levels in males and females inform matrifocal vs. patrifocal societal structure. High T females choose low T males for their cooperative abilities, creating more egalitarian, matrifocal cultures. High T males choose low T females for their ability to be the complement to male authority, forming patrifocal cultures.

2) Autistic males, from families of left-handers, will have lower testosterone than the norm, and autistic females will have higher testosterone. In any study of autism, those with familial male maturation delay tendencies, families of left-handers, need to be evaluated separately from those possibly traumatized by an environmental effect.

3) Larger penis and testicle size will be associated with autistic, ambidextrous males and the familial left-handed.

4) Autistic males will exhibit more neotenous characteristics while autistic females should show less neoteny than contemporary populations.

5) If larger testicles and increased sperm production are associated with low-testosterone, promiscuous social-structure males, the two variables will be related in that higher-testosterone males will have smaller testicles or lower sperm production.

6) Left-handed…

A child’s lifelong maturation rates are set several weeks before birth by the mother’s testosterone levels. A mother with high testosterone gives birth to low testosterone males and high testosterone females. A low testosterone female raises high testosterone males and low testosterone females. Numerous factors influence a mother’s testosterone levels, including age, stress, exercise, smoking, alcohol, drugs, touch, diet and light. Radical elevations in a mother’s testosterone level can lead to extreme maturational delay and autism.

This scheme is part of a larger picture of how humans evolve. Changing maturation rates over generations send societies in one of two directions: matrifocal or patrifocal social structures. Low testosterone males mating with high testosterone females form the foundation of matrifocal social structure. High testosterone males pairing with low testosterone females make up patrifocal social structure. When mothers today exhibit matrifocal features, high testosterone, while exposed to environmental influences that elevate their testosterone further, male children with delay tendencies may shift into extreme delay.

This theory predicts that females with autism will not exhibit maturational delay, but maturational acceleration accompanied by elevated testosterone. When a mother’s testosterone level elevates, she not only influences the maturation rates of her children, she sends them on…

It could be said that it all begins in the womb. It is even deeper and more subtle than that. Autism researchers such as Simon Baron-Cohen are coming to the conclusion that a mother’s testosterone levels are influencing the likelihood of autism. I came to this same conclusion ten years ago exploring the work of Norman Geschwin and Charles Darwin. Noting this effect while exploring the impact of sexual selection on social structure provides additional perspective. Observing the relationship between social structure and evolution, one begins to understand that what goes on in the womb can decide the direction we evolve.

Mother’s testosterone levels > progeny maturation rate > social structure proclivity > evolutionary trajectory.

The higher the mother’s testosterone levels, the more likely the male children will have maturational delay and the females maturational acceleration. The males’ testosterone levels will be relatively lower compared to boys born from mothers with low testosterone levels. The females’ testosterone levels will be relatively higher compared to girls born from mothers with low testosterone levels.

When the mother’s testosterone levels are high, she is propelling her children backwards in evolutionary time. Backwards in evolutionary time for humans is away from patrifocal social structure…