Investigating evolutionary models of leadership among recently settled Ethiopian hunter-gatherers

Humans are thought to have evolved in small, egalitarian hunter-gatherer societies. Evolutionary theories of leadership, which draw heavily on studies of contemporary hunter-gatherer and other small-scale societies, have proposed numerous traits that putatively characterize leaders in domains of sociality, productivity, reproduction, dominance, and cognition. We investigated many such traits among the Chabu, an Ethiopian population of former hunter-gatherers who now subsist on hunting, gathering, horticulture, and cash crops. There were strong positive correlations among most traits across domains, which, in turn, were positively associated with elected leader status among both women and men. Measures of prestige and dominance were largely independent, and although both predicted leader status, prestige was more important. Biased social learning was a modest predictor of leader status but a stronger predictor of respect. Revised evolutionary theories of leadership must account for the importance of women leaders and the strong covariation of traits.