When and Why Did Humans Start Living Together in Larger Societies?

By Dig Labs Contributors

Source: Dig Labs Project

The transition from small, egalitarian bands to larger, cooperative societies required a fundamental shift in human social norms and psychology.

Note to reader:
We hope you find this article useful—it’s an ongoing Observatory research project that will be updated.
If you have expertise or insight on the topic that you think could be useful, please send us a note.

Join Our Collaborative Research

Note to reader:
We hope you find this article useful—it’s an ongoing Observatory research project that will be updated.
If you have expertise or insight on the topic that you think could be useful, please send us a note.

Join Our Collaborative Research

“When and Why Did Humans Start Living Together in Larger Societies?” by Dig Labs Contributors is licensed by the Observatory under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0). For permissions requests beyond the scope of this license, please see Observatory.wiki’s Reuse and Reprint Rights guidance.Last edited: June 29, 2026

Send us a note about this articleDonate to the Observatory

Introduction

The transition from small, egalitarian bands to larger, cooperative societies required a fundamental shift in human social norms and psychology. Evidence suggests this move was driven by the need for communal resource management and the development of leveling mechanisms that discouraged "bullying" behavior. These social contracts laid the groundwork for the first villages and eventually the first cities.