A new study has uncovered hidden social patterns in ancient Hebrew kingdoms by analyzing personal names from archaeological findings. Applying diversity statistics typically used in ecological studies, the researchers found that the Kingdom of Israel had a far more diverse onomastic (naming) landscape than Judah—indicating a more open, cosmopolitan society. Over time, name diversity in Judah declined, likely reflecting increasing religious centralization and sociopolitical control. This interdisciplinary approach opens new possibilities for studying ancient cultures using statistical methods usually reserved for the natural sciences.

A team of researchers from the CNRS Institute of Cognitive Sciences at University Claude Bernard in Lyon, France, and the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, has for the first time identified distinct mother-offspring attachment types in wild chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes verus) in Taï National Park, Côte d'Ivoire. Drawing parallels with human psychology, the study provides compelling evidence that wild chimpanzee infants, like human children, develop critical secure and insecure-avoidant attachment patterns to their mothers. However, unlike humans and some captive chimpanzees, wild chimpanzees did not exhibit disorganised attachment characterised by high rates of aggression. This raises new questions about how this type of attachment may be shaped by survival and modern environmental pressures.

Study followed tracked over 1,500 older adults for a decade using three rounds of data from the National Social Life, Health and Aging Project. Led by Lissette Piedra, a professor of social work at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign; and James Iveniuk, a senior research scientist at the University of Chicago’s National Opinion Research Center; the team identified three types of social networks — enriched, focused and restricted — that reflected how socially connected people were as they aged and how their self-rated health was affected.