Academic Publications

This is not a complete collection of my publications (for the complete list, see my CV). The focus is on my social science publications, with some of my favorite ecology papers thrown in.

Articles in Nature, Science, and PNAS

Turchin, P., H. Whitehouse, S. Gavrilets, D. Hoyer, P. François, J. S. Bennett, K. C. Feeney, P. Peregrine, G. Feinman, A. Korotayev, N. Kradin, J. Levine, J. Reddish, E. Cioni, R. Wacziarg, G. Mendel-Gleason and M. Benam (2022). “Disentangling the evolutionary drivers of social complexity: A comprehensive test of hypotheses.” Science Advances 8(25): eabn3517. doi:10.1126/sciadv.abn3517 (if behind paywall, see SocArxiv Preprint: doi: 10.31235/osf.io/tekb6)

Currie, Thomas, Peter Turchin, Edward Turner, and Sergey Gavrilets. 2020. Duration of agriculture and distance from the steppe predict the evolution of large-scale human societies in Afro-Eurasia. Humanities & Social Sciences Communications 7 (34).

Whitehouse, Harvey, Pieter François, Patrick E. Savage, Thomas E. Currie, Kevin C. Feeney, Enrico Cioni, Rosalind Purcell, Robert M. Ross, Jennifer Larson, John Baines, Barend ter Haar, Alan Covey, and Peter Turchin. 2019. “Complex societies precede moralizing gods throughout world history.” Nature. http://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-019-1043-4.

Turchin, Peter, Thomas E. Currie, Harvey Whitehouse, Pieter François, Kevin Feeney, Daniel Mullins, Daniel Hoyer, et al. 2018. “Quantitative Historical Analysis Uncovers a Single Dimension of Complexity That Structures Global Variation in Human Social Organization.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 115 (2): E144–51. 

Turchin, Peter, Thomas E. Currie, Harvey Whitehouse, Pieter François, Kevin Feeney, Daniel Mullins, Daniel Hoyer, et al. 2018. “Reply to Tosh et al.: Quantitative analyses of cultural evolution require engagement with historical and archaeological research.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 115 (26): E5841-5842. 

Brewer, J., M. Gelfand, J. C. Jackson, I. F. MacDonald, P. N. Peregrine, P. J. Richerson, P. Turchin, H. Whitehouse & D. S. Wilson. 2017. “Grand challenges for the study of cultural evolution.” Nature Ecology and Evolution 1. doi: 10.1038/s41559-017-0070. 

Turchin, Peter. 2016. “Mine the Past for Patterns.” Nature 535: 488-489.

Turchin, P. 2015. “Cultivating human culture: Did food and fuel help shape our value systems?” Science 348: 508.

Turchin, P., T.E. Currie, E.A.L. Turner, and S. Gavrilets. 2014. “Reply to Thomas: Diffusion of military technologies is a plausible explanation for the evolution of social complexity, 1500 BCE–AD 1500.” PNAS 111(4): E415.

Turchin, P., T.E. Currie, E.A.L. Turner, and S. Gavrilets. 2013. “War, Space, and the Evolution of Old World Complex Societies.” PNAS 110: 16384–16389.

Turchin, P. 2010. “Political instability may be a contributor in the coming decade.” Nature 463: 608.   (If it’s behind the paywall, download PDF here)

Turchin, P. and W. Scheidel. 2009. “Coin Hoards Speak of Population Declines in Ancient Rome.” PNAS 106: 17276-17279.

Turchin, P. 2008. “Arise ‘cliodynamics’.” Nature 454: 34-35.

Turchin, P. 2008. “Building nations after conflict (a book review).” Nature 453: 986-987.

Burtsev, M. and P. Turchin. 2006. “Evolution of cooperative strategies from first principles.” Nature 440: 1041-4.

Turchin, P. 2003. “Evolution in population dynamics.” Nature 424: 257-258.

Ellner, S.P., E. McCauley, B.E. Kendall, C.J. Briggs, P.R. Hosseini, S.N. Wood, A. Janssen, M.W. Sabelis, P. Turchin, R.M. Nisbet, and W.W. Murdoch. 2001. “Habitat structure and population persistence in an experimental community.” Nature 412: 538-543.

Turchin P., L. Oksanen, P. Ekerholm, T. Oksanen, H. Henttonen. 2000. “Are lemmings prey or predators?” Nature 405: 562-565.

Turchin P, Taylor AD, Reeve JD. 1999. Dynamical role of predators in population cycles of a forest insect: an experimental test. Science 285: 1068-1071. 

Turchin, P. 1990. “Rarity of density dependence or population regulation with lags?” Nature 344: 660-663. doi: 10.1038/344660a0. (If it’s behind the paywall, download PDF here)

Preprints

Kondor, D., and P. Turchin. 2022. Soil fertility depletion is not a credible mechanism for population boom/bust cycles in agricultural societies. SocArXiv Preprint. DOI 10.31235/osf.io/rjns2

Orlandi, G., D. Hoyer, H. Zhao, J. S. Bennett, M. Benam, K. Kohn, and P. Turchin. 2022. Structural-Demographic Analysis of the Qing Dynasty (1644–1912) Collapse in China. SocArXiv Preprint.

Larson, Jennifer, Harvey Whitehouse, Pieter François, Daniel Hoyer, Peter Turchin. 2022. Moralizing Supernatural Punishment and Reward: A Response to Critics. SocArxiv Preprint.

Kondor, Daniel, James S. Bennett, Detlef Gronenborn, Nicolas Antunes, Daniel Hoyer, Peter Turchin. 2022. Explaining population booms and busts in Mid-Holocene Europe. SocArxiv Preprint.

Turchin, Peter. 2021. Multipath Forecasting: the Aftermath of the 2020 American Crisis. SocArxiv Preprint. To be published in How Worlds Collapse: What History, Systems, and Complexity Can Teach Us about Our Modern World and Fragile Future. M. A. Centeno, P. W. Callahan, P. Larcey, and T. Patterson, editors. Routledge, New York (2023).

Whitehouse, Harvey, Pieter François, Patrick E. Savage, Daniel Hoyer, Kevin C. Feeney, Enrico Cioni, Rosalind Purcell, Robert M. Ross, Jennifer Larson, John Baines, Barend ter Haar, Alan Covey, Peter Turchin. “Big Gods Did Not Drive the Rise of Big Societies Throughout World History.” SocArxiv Preprint. April 3, 2021. doi:10.31219/osf.io/mbnvg.

Turchin, Peter, Harvey Whitehouse, Jennifer Larson, Daniel Hoyer, Selin E. Nugent, R. Alan Covey, John Baines, Mark Altaweel, Eugene Anderson, Peter K. Bol, Eva Brandl, David Carballo, Gary Feinman, Andrey Korotayev, Nikolay Kradin, Jill Levine, Selin Nugent, Peter Peregrine, Andrea Squitieri, Vesna Wallace, Pieter François. “Explaining the Rise of Moralizing Religions: A Test of Competing Hypotheses Using the Seshat Databank.” SocArXiv Preprint. November 18, 2019 (updated April 15, 2021). doi:10.31235/osf.io/2v59j.

Collins, Christina, Oluwole Oyebamiji, Neil R. Edwards, Philip P. Holden, Alice Williams, Greine Jordan, Daniel Hoyer, Stephanie Grohman, Patrick Savage, Pieter Francois, Harvey Whitehouse, Peter Turchin, Thomas Currie. “Combining historical and archaeological data with crop models to estimate agricultural productivity in past societies.” SocArXiv Preprint. November 22, 2020. doi: 10.31235/osf.io/ky9wt.

Articles in Other Peer-Reviewed Journals

Turchin, P., H. Whitehouse, J. Larson, E. Cioni, J. Reddish, D. Hoyer, P. E. Savage, R. A. Covey, J. Baines, M. Altaweel, E. Anderson, P. Bol, E. Brandl, D. M. Carballo, G. Feinman, A. Korotayev, N. Kradin, J. D. Levine, S. E. Nugent, A. Squitieri, V. Wallace and P. François (2022). “Explaining the rise of moralizing religions: a test of competing hypotheses using the Seshat Databank.” Religion, Brain & Behavior: 1-28. doi:10.1080/2153599X.2022.2065345 (if behind paywall, see the preprint above)

Turchin, P., H. Whitehouse, J. Larson, E. Cioni, J. Reddish, D. Hoyer, P. E. Savage, R. A. Covey, J. Baines, M. Altaweel, E. Anderson, P. Bol, E. Brandl, D. M. Carballo, G. Feinman, A. Korotayev, N. Kradin, J. D. Levine, S. E. Nugent, A. Squitieri, V. Wallace and P. François (2022). “Big Gods and big science: further reflections on theory, data, and analysis.” Religion, Brain & Behavior: 1-14. doi: 10.1080/2153599X.2022.2065354

Whitehouse, H., P. François, P. E. Savage, D. Hoyer, K. C. Feeney, E. Cioni, R. Purcell, J. Larson, J. Baines, B. t. Haar, A. Covey and P. Turchin (2022). “Testing the Big Gods hypothesis with global historical data: a review and “retake”.” Religion, Brain & Behavior: 1-43. doi: 10.1080/2153599X.2022.2074085

Turchin P, Gavrilets S. 2021. Tempo and Mode in Cultural Macroevolution. Evolutionary Psychology. October 2021. doi:10.1177/14747049211066600

Turchin P, Hoyer D, Korotayev A, Kradin N, Nefedov S, Feinman G, et al. 2021. Rise of the war machines: Charting the evolution of military technologies from the Neolithic to the Industrial Revolution. PLoS ONE 16(10): e0258161. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0258161.

Turchin, Peter, Thomas E. Currie, Christina Collins, Jill Levine, Oluwole Oyebamiji, Neil R. Edwards, Philip.B. Holden, Daniel Hoyer, Kevin Feeney, Pieter François, and Harvey Whitehouse. 2021. An integrative approach to estimating productivity in past societies using Seshat: Global History Databank.” The Holocene, 1-11. doi: 10.1177/0959683621994644.

Whitehouse, Harvey, Pieter François, Patrick E. Savage, Thomas E. Currie, Kevin C. Feeney, Enrico Cioni, Rosalind Purcell, Robert M. Ross, Jennifer Larson, John Baines, Barend ter Haar, Alan Covey, and Peter Turchin. 2020. “A New Era in the Study of Global History is Born but it Needs to be Nurtured.” Journal of Cognitive Historiography 5 (1-2 (2018)). doi: 10.1558/jch.39422.

Turchin, Peter, Harvey Whitehouse, Pieter François, Daniel Hoyer, Abel Alves, John Baines….Liye Xie. 2020. “An Introduction to Seshat: Global History Databank.” Journal of Cognitive Historiography 5 (1-2 (2018)). https://doi.org/10.1558/jch.39395.

Turchin, Peter and Andrey Korotayev. 2020. “The 2010 Structural-Demographic Forecast for the 2010–2020 Decade: A Retrospective Assessment.” PLOS ONE. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0237458.

Turchin, P., D. Hoyer, J. Bennett, K. Basava, E. Cioni, P. Francois, S. Holder, J. Levine, S. Nugent, J. Reddish, C. Thorpe, S. Wiltshire and H. Whitehouse (2020). The Equinox2020 Seshat Data Release. Cliodynamics 11: 41-50.

Turchin, Peter, Nina Witoszek, Stefan Thurner, David Garcia, Roger Griffin, Daniel Hoyer, Atle Midttun, James Bennett, Knut Myrum Næss, and Sergey Gavrilets. 2018. History of Possible Futures: Multipath Forecasting of Social Breakdown, Recovery, and Resilience. Cliodynamics 9: 124–139.

Turchin, Peter. 2018. “Fitting Dynamic Regression Models to Seshat Data.” Cliodynamics 9 (1): 25-58. 

Turchin, Peter. 2018. “Translating Knowledge about Past Societies into Seshat Data.” Cliodynamics 9 (1): 143-147.

Mullins, Daniel Austin, Daniel Hoyer, Christina Collins, Thomas Currie, Kevin Feeney, Pieter François, Patrick E. Savage, Harvey Whitehouse, and Peter Turchin. 2018. “A Systematic Assessment of ‘Axial Age’ Proposals Using Global Comparative Historical Evidence.” American Sociological Review 83 (3): 596–626. doi: 10.1177/0003122418772567. 

Peregrine, Peter N., Rob Brennan, Thomas Currie, Kevin Feeney, Pieter François, Peter Turchin, and Harvey Whitehouse. 2018. “Dacura: A new solution to data harvesting and knowledge extraction for the historical sciences.” Historical Methods 51(3): 165-174. 

Turchin, Peter, Sergey Gavrilets, and Jack A. Goldstone. 2017. “Linking ‘Micro’ to ‘Macro’ Models of State Breakdown to Improve Methods for Political Forecasting.” Cliodynamics 8: 77–99.

Turchin, Peter, Thomas E. Currie, and Edward A.L. Turner. 2016. “Mapping the Spread of Mounted Warfare.” Cliodynamics 7 (2): 217–227.

François, Pieter, Joseph Manning, Harvey Whitehouse, Rob Brennan, Thomas Currie, Kevin Feeney, and Peter Turchin. 2016. “A Macroscope for Global History: Seshat Global History Databank, a Methodological Overview.” Digital Humanities Quarterly 10 (4).

Turchin, P. and T.C. Currie. 2016. “Cultural Group Selection Is Plausible, but the Predictions of the CGS Hypotheses Should be Tested with Real-World Data.” Behavioral and Brain Sciences 39: 43-44.

Whitehouse, Harvey, Pieter François, and Peter Turchin. 2015. “The Role of Ritual in the Evolution of Social Complexity: Five Predictions and a Drum Roll.” Cliodynamics 6: 199-216.

Currie, Thomas, Amy Bogaard, Rudolf Cesaretti, Neil R. Edwards, Pieter François, Philip Holden, Daniel Hoyer, Peter Turchin, et. al. 2015. “Agricultural Productivity in Past Societies: Toward an Empirically Informed Model for Testing Cultural Evolutionary Hypotheses.” Cliodynamics 6: 24–56.

Turchin, Peter, Rob Brennan, Thomas E. Currie, Kevin C. Feeney, Pieter François, Daniel Hoyer, J. G. Manning, Arkadiusz Marciniak, Daniel Mullins, Alessio Palmisano, Peter Peregrine, Edward A. L. Turner, and Harvey Whitehouse. 2015. “Seshat: The Global History Databank.” Cliodynamics 6: 77–107.

Turchin, Peter. 2014. “Cultural Evolution and Cliodynamics.” Cliodynamics 5: 1-3

Turchin, Peter. 2014. “The SESHAT Databank Project: the 2014 Report.” Cliodynamics 5: 58-64

Turchin, Peter. 2013. “Modeling Social Pressures Toward Political Instability.” Cliodynamics 4: 241–280.

Turchin, Peter. 2013. “The West and the Rest: the Science of the Great Divergence.” Cliodynamics 4: 67–85.

Turchin, Peter, Harvey Whitehouse, Pieter François, Edward Slingerland, and Mark Collard. 2012. “A Historical Database of Sociocultural Evolution.” Cliodynamics 3: 271–293.

Turchin, P. 2012. “Dynamics of Political Instability in the United States, 1780–2009.” Journal of Peace Research 4: 577-591.

Turchin, P. 2012. “Religion and Empire in the Axial Age.” Religion, Brain & Behavior 2: 256-260.

Turchin, P. 2011. “Warfare and the Evolution of Social Complexity: A Multilevel-Selection Approach.” Structure and Dynamics 4 (3): 1-37. 

Turchin, P. 2011. “Social Tipping Points and Trend Reversals: A Historical Approach.” Vestnik Moskovkogo Universiteta, Series XXVII Globalistika i Geopolitika 1-2: 92-104.

Gavrilets, Sergey, David Anderson, and Peter Turchin. 2010. “Cycling in the Complexity of Early Societies.” Cliodynamics 1:58-80.

Turchin, P., I. Peiros, and M. Gell-Mann. 2010. “Analyzing genetic connections between languages by matching consonant classes.” Journal of Language Relationship 3: 117-126.

Turchin, P. and S. Gavrilets. 2009. “Evolution of Complex Hierarchical Societies.” Social Evolution and History 8 (2): 167-198.

Turchin, P. 2009. “A theory for formation of large states.” Journal of Global History 4: 191-217.

Turchin, P. 2009. “Long-term population cycles in human societies.” InThe Year in Ecology and Conservation Biology, edited by R. S. Ostfeld and W. H. Schlesinger, 1-17. Ann. N. Y. Acad. Sci. 1162.

Turchin, P., J.M. Adams, and T.D. Hall. 2006. “East-West Orientation of Historical Empires and Modern States.” Journal of World-Systems Research 12: 219-229.

Turchin, P. and A. Korotayev. 2006. “Population Dynamics and Internal Warfare: a Reconsideration.” Social Evolution and History 5 (2): 121-158.

Turchin, P. 2005. “Dynamical Feedbacks between Population Growth and Sociopolitical Instability in Agrarian States.” Structure and Dynamics 1 (1): Article 3.

Turchin, P. 2005. “A Primer on Statistical Analysis of Dynamical Systems in Historical Social Sciences (with a Particular Emphasis on Secular Cycles).” Structure and Dynamics 1 (1): Article 4.

Turchin, P. 2005. “Response to Oscillations in Population Sizes – From Ecology to History.” Structure and Dynamics 1 (1): Article 11.

Turchin, P. and T.D. Hall. 2003. “Spatial synchrony among and within world-systems: insights from theoretical ecology.” Journal of World Systems Research 9: 37-64.

Turchin, P. 2001. “Does population ecology have general laws?” Oikos 94: 17-26.

Turchin, P. and S.P. Ellner. 2000. “Living on the edge of chaos: population dynamics of Fennoscandian voles.” Ecology 81: 3099-3116.

Turchin, P. and I. Hanski. 1997. An empirically-based model for the latitudinal gradient in vole population dynamics. American Naturalist 149: 842–874.

Turchin, P. 1996. “Fractal analyses of animal movement: a critique.” Ecology 77: 2086-2090.

Ellner, S. and P. Turchin. 1995. “Chaos in a noisy world: new methods and evidence from time series analysis.” American Naturalist 145: 343-375.

Turchin, P. and A.D. Taylor. 1992. “Complex dynamics in ecological time-series.” Ecology 73: 289-305.

Book Chapters and Reviews

Turchin, P. 2023. Multipath Forecasting: the Aftermath of the 2020 American Crisis. Pages ??? in M. A. Centeno, P. W. Callahan, P. Larcey, and T. Patterson, editors. How Worlds Collapse: What History, Systems, and Complexity Can Teach Us about Our Modern World and Fragile Future. Routledge, New York.

Francois, Pieter, Stephanie Grohmann, Katja Eck, Odhran Gavin, Andreas Koller, Helmut Nagy, Christian Dirschl, Peter Turchin and Harvey Whitehouse. 2018. “Evaluation.” In Engineering Agile Big-Data Systems, edited by Kevin Feeney et al. San Francisco, CA: River Publishers. 

Gronenborn, D., H.C. Strien, P. Turchin, and R. v. Dick. 2018. “Social Diversity, Social Identity and the Emergence of Surplus in the Western-Central European Neolithic.” In Surplus without the State: Political Forms in Prehistory, edited by H. Meller, D. Gronenborn, and R. Risch, 201-222. Halle: Tagungen des Landesmuseums Vorgeschichte.

Turchin, Peter. 2017. “What Economics Models Really Say. A Review of Economics Rules: The Rights and Wrongs of the Dismal Science by Dani Rodrik (Norton, 2015).” Cliodynamics 8: 80-84. doi: 10.21237/C7clio8135587.

Turchin, Peter. 2017. “Henrich, Joseph. 2015. The Secret of Our Success: How Culture Is Driving Human Evolution, Domesticating Our Species, and Making Us Smarter.” Evolutionary Studies in Imaginary Cultures 1(1).

Turchin, P. 2016. “Deep Historical Roots of European Values, Institutions, and Identities.” Do Europeans Exist? Euromind.

Currie, Thomas E., Peter Turchin, Jenna Bednar, Peter J. Richerson,  Gerog Schwesinger, Sven Steinmo, Romain Wacziarg, and John Wallis. 2016. “Evolution of Institutions and Organizations. Complexity and Evolution: Toward a New Synthesis for Economics,” edited by D. S. Wilson and A. Kirman, Strüngmann Forum Reports, vol. 19, J. Lupp, series editor. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Brennan, Rob; Feeney, Kevin; Mendel-Gleason, Gavin; Bozic, Bojan; Turchin, Peter; Whitehouse, Harvey; François, Pieter; Currie, Thomas; Grohmann, Stephanie. 2016. “Building the Seshat Ontology for a Global History Databank.” The Semantic Web. Latest Advances and New Domains, 13th International Conference, ESWC 2016, Proceedings, LNCS, edited by H. Sack, Blomqvist, E., d’Aquin, M., Ghidini, C., Paolo Ponzetto, S., Lange, C., vol. 9678, 693-708. doi: 10.1007/978-3-319-34129–3_42.

Turchin, P. 2013. “The Puzzle of Human Ultrasociality: How Did Large-Scale Complex Societies Evolve?” In Cultural Evolution, edited by P. J. Richerson and Morten H. Christiansen, 67-73. Cambridge: MIT Press.

Jordan, Fiona M., Carel van Schaik, Pieter François, Herbert Gintis, Daniel B. M. Haun, Daniel J. Hruschka, Marco A. Janssen, James A. Kitts, Laurent Lehmann, Sarah Mathew, Peter J. Richerson, Peter Turchin, and Polly Wiessner. 2013. “Cultural Evolution of the Structure of Human Groups.” In Cultural Evolution, edited by P. J. Richerson and Morten H. Christiansen, 87-116. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Turchin, P. 2008. “Modeling periodic waves of integration in the Afro-Eurasian world-system.” In Globalization as Evolutionary Process: Modeling Global Change, edited by George Modelski, Tessaleno Devezas, and William R. Thompson, 163-191. New York: Routledge. (PDF of the proofs).

Turchin, P.V. 2007. “General empirical patterns in dynamics, cliodynamics, and demographic-structural theory.” In History and Mathematics: Conceptual Landscape and Research Directions (in Russian), edited by P.V. Turchin, L.E. Grinin, SYu Malkov, and A.V. Korotayev, 248-251. Moscow: URSS. (Preprint PDF).

Turchin, P.V. 2007. “Perspective of mathematical history.” In History and Mathematics: Conceptual Landscape and Research Directions (in Russian), edited by P.V. Turchin, L.E. Grinin, SYu Malkov, and A.V. Korotayev, 8-18. Moscow: URSS. (Preprint PDF).

Hall, T.D. and P. Turchin. 2007. “Lessons from population ecology for world-systems analyses of long-distance synchrony.” In The World System and the Earth System: Global socioenvironmental change and sustainability since the Neolithic, edited A. Hornborg and C. Crumley, 74-90. Walnut Creek, CA: Left Coast Press.

Chase-Dunn, C., T.D. Hall, and P. Turchin. 2007. “World-systems in the biogeosphere: urbanization, state formation and climate change since the Iron Age.” In The World System and the Earth System: Global socioenvironmental change and sustainability since the Neolithic, edited by A. Hornborg and C. Crumley, 132-148. Walnut Creek, CA: Left Coast Press.

Turchin, P., A. Korotayev, L. Grinin. 2006. “Why do we need models of historical dynamics.” In History and Mathematics: Historical Dynamics and Development of Complex Societies, edited by P. Turchin, L. Grinin, A. Korotayev, and V.C. Munck, 4-8. URSS, Moscow.

Turchin, P. 2006. “Scientific prediction in historical sociology: Ibn Khaldun meets Al Saud.” In History and Mathematics: Historical Dynamics and Development of Complex Societies, edited by P. Turchin, L. Grinin, A. Korotayev, and V.C. de Munck, 9-38. Moscow: URSS. (Preprint PDF).