Moffett undertakes a bold and rewarding exploration of “what is a society” through a definition that will allow for comparative work across species. His definition centers on identity, continuity, and spatial boundaries, departing from approaches that define societies by interaction, cooperation, and culture. Why this effort? Moffett proposes that his definition of society serves as a reference standard for studying “social change and transformation in that many social troubles, and triumphs, may be an outcome of mental facilities adapted to tribal and hunter-gatherer groups.” Definitions based on traits can indeed facilitate cross-species analogies, but also have their limits requiring many qualifications: Exceptions brought about by networks, multiple levels of sociality, the impermanence of societies, and populations without societies. This is because a reference standard does little to clarify the mechanisms behind the extraordinary variation, permutations, and malleability of identity in human societies that occupy much of Moffett's venture. Missing is an understanding of what makes human societies more dynamic and varied than those of other species: Cultural institutions that, together with material and social technology, allowed for the transformation of societies. These are the drivers for the development and expansion of social identities beyond mere individual recognition and the mechanisms that are employed to transform existing societies and build ones that are larger in scale.

What are the fundamental cultural institutions that originated deep in our evolutionary history that allowed human societies depart from the societal configurations of other species, making it difficult to build a standard definition of society that might extend back to a common ancestor or the original foundational human group? One if the first is “the release from proximity” (Gamble, Reference Gamble1998; Rodseth et al., Reference Rodseth, Wrangham, Harrigan, Smuts, Dare, Fox and Wolpoff1991), the ability to sustain social relations in absentia, and extend a sense of community beyond groups that are contiguous in space. This development is produced or evidenced by a number of institutions. First, institutions of kinship and marriage which recognize paternal and affinal kin allow spheres of kinship, identity, and corresponding rights and obligations to be extended to a much wider number of individuals. Indications of their deep roots lie in limited number of forms that kinship and marriage systems take in human societies (Chapais, Reference Chapais, Kappeler and Silk2010, Reference Chapais2011; Jones, Reference Jones2003; Walker, Hill, Flinn, & Ellsworth, Reference Walker, Hill, Flinn and Ellsworth2011). Like in all other overarching institutions, norms and obligations within kinship institutions are constantly pushed by agents resulting in modifications. For example, the kinship system of the !Kung foragers of the Kalahari is modified by a name relationship that allows for considerable play with kin terms (Lee, Reference Lee1986).

Second, institutionalized rituals coalesce and bond individuals and groups in performances that build a sense of a broader cooperative society with shared identity and values (Durkheim, Reference Durkheim1912). Powerful new identities are formed by rituals that may fuse identities to form a unique collective group identity (Atran, Reference Atran2016; Whitehouse, Reference Whitehouse2021), for instance rituals to unite warriors or age groupings of pastoralists of east African bond men from different communities. There is ample evidence for the deep roots of ritual in the spectacular cave paintings from southern Europe to east Asia some 40,000–60,000 years ago and most likely much earlier.

Third, networks linking groups over great distances, as discussed by Moffett, form dense configurations of ties that are often the basis for collaboration in the face of the need for greater cooperation or defense. Information flow on networks broadens perspective, reduces in-group orientations and xenophobia, and opens access to the territories, resources, ideas, and practices of others, facilitating the formation of larger communities. For example, !Kung Bushmen (Ju/’hoansi) spend an average of 3.3 months a year living in the bands of others, most within 75 km but some up to 200 km away (Wiessner, Reference Wiessner, Biesele, Gordon and Lee1986). Evidence for networks from the flow of raw materials and items of personal decoration extends back to the Middle Stone age (Brooks et al., Reference Brooks, Yellen, Potts, Behrensmeyer, Deino, Leslie and Whittaker2018; Pearce & Moutsiou, Reference Pearce and Moutsiou2014) and intensifies in the Upper Paleolithic (Bar-Yosef, Reference Bar-Yosef2007; Gamble, Reference Gamble1999).

Fourth, the origin of symbolic behavior possibly some 100,000 years ago (d'Errico, Henshilwood, Vanhaeren, & Van Niekerk, Reference d'Errico, Henshilwood, Vanhaeren and Van Niekerk2005; Tylén et al., Reference Tylén, Fusaroli, Rojo, Heimann, Fay, Johannsen and Lombard2020), together with technology allowed for material expressions of identityso critical for forging larger “societies” as groups from small communities based on individual recognition built “imaginary” societies that share identity but are not contiguous in space (Hegmon, Reference Hegmon1992; Wiessner, Reference Wiessner1983; Wobst, Reference Wobst1977). With the evolution of language, identity was further strengthened by oral traditions at all levels of human societies (Sijilmassi, Safra, & Baumard, Reference Sijilmassi, Safra and Baumard2024; Vansina, Reference Vansina1985; Wiessner, Reference Wiessner2014).

In summary, Moffett's definition of societies and fascinating comparisons will serve to help us understand some aspects of societies that apply across species such as preferences for group living, xenophobia, and territoriality. However, his definition of society falls short as a reference standard for understanding “deep questions about the human condition including how people have organized their lives through the millennia and our place among the other animals dependent on such groups.” Both definitions and the deeply rooted dynamics cultural institutions that so transformed human communities will be critical to understanding “societies.”