Research
I am interested in understanding how human societies evolve, and why we see such a staggering degree of inequality in economic performance and effectiveness of governance among nations.

For most of our evolutionary history humans lived in small-scale egalitarian societies of foragers integrated by face-to-face interactions.
The first large-scale complex societies with extensive division of labor, great differentials in wealth and power, elaborate governance structures, and cities appeared roughly 5,000 years ago. How this “major evolution transition” occurred is one of the biggest questions of social evolution, for which we still do not have a widely accepted answer.
This is not only a theoretical question. The ability of today’s societies to construct viable states and nurture productive economies varies enormously from nation to nation. Why do states sometimes fail to meet the basic needs of their populations? Why do economies decline, or fail to grow? In many ways differences between the present-day societies can be as large as differences between us today and our foraging ancestors 10,000 years ago.
My approach to answering these questions blends theory building with the analysis of data. I was trained as a mathematical biologist and now I use the same quantitative tools—mathematical and computer models, sophisticated statistical approaches to testing models and analyzing data—to answer questions about the evolution of societies, states, and civilizations.
Academic Publications:
Preprints
Daniel Kondor. James S Bennett, Detlef Gronenborn, et al.
Landscape of Fear: Indirect effects of conflict can account for large-scale population declines in non-state societies
SocArXiv Preprint (2023).
Peer-Reviewed Journals
Daniel Hoyer, James S. Bennett, et al.
Navigating polycrisis: long-run socio-cultural factors shape response to changing climate
Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B (2023).
Preprints
Daniel Hoyer, James S Bennett, et al.
Flattening the Curve: Learning the lessons of world history to mitigate societal crises
SocArXiv Preprint (2022).
Peer-Reviewed Journals
Georg Orlandi , Daniel Hoyer, et al.
Structural-demographic analysis of the Qing Dynasty (1644–1912) collapse in China
PLOS ONE (2023).
Preprints
Peter Turchin, Daniel Hoyer
Empirically Testing and Refining Structural Demographic Theory: A Methodological Guide
SocArXiv Preprint (2023).
Nature/Science/PNAS
Daniel Kondor, James S Bennett, et al.
Explaining population booms and busts in Mid-Holocene Europe
Nature Scientific Reports (2023).
Popular Articles:
Popular Article
America Is Headed Toward Collapse
The Atlantic (2023)
Popular Article
The horse bit and bridle kicked off ancient empires – a new giant dataset tracks the societal factors that drove military technology
The Conversation (2021)
Popular Article
Long-Term Oscillations in Population Numbers of Human Societies (in Russian)
The Elements (2009)
Popular Article
The Historical Duty to Persevere (in Russian: Выстоять — исторический долг)
Эксперт Online (2010)
Popular Article
Cliodynamics: Can Science Decode the Laws of History?
The Conversation (2012)
Popular Article
Return of the Oppressed
Aeon Magazine (2013)
Scholarly Reviews:
Scholarly Review
C. Dale Walton
End times: Elites, counter-elites, and the path of political disintegration
Comparative Strategy (2023)
Scholarly Review
Thaddeus C. Meadows, Michael D. Ryall
Peter Turchin’s ‘End Times,’ A Review
American Institute for Economic Research (2023)
Scholarly Review
Jonathan Marks
This isn’t rocket science. Review of five books, including Ultrasociety by Jonathan Marks
Evolutionary Anthropology (2018)
Scholarly Review
Anders Klostergaard Petersen
Review of Ultrasociety in Journal of Cognitive History
Journal of Cognitive History (2018)
Scholarly Review
Ian Morris
Review of Ultrasociety in Evolutionary Studies in Imaginative Culture
Evolutionary Studies in Imaginative Culture (2017)
Scholarly Review
Richard H. Burkhart
Review of Ages of Discord in Siam News
Siam News (2016)
Academic Talks:
Academic Talks
Peter Turchin, Cliodynamics: History as Science
IBHA International Big History Association (2023)
Academic Talks
Peter Turchin The cliodynamics of End Times
INET Oxford (2023)
Academic Talks
Peter Turchin on Cultural Macroevolution
Institute for Analytical Sociology (2023)
Academic Talks
Quantifying the Evolution of Social Complexity with Seshat: Global History Databank
IROWS-ISA Workshop (2016)
Academic Talks
Expanding Scale of Human Society
Human Energy (2022)
Academic Talks
A History of Possible Futures: What history tells us about our Age of Discord CCS 2020
Conference on Complex Systems (2020)