The complex social network structure of large-scale human societies

Do the social networks of complex large-scale societies share fundamental structural and mathematical properties with the networks of small-scale societies? Can they also best be characterized as discrete, hierarchical, self-similar social networks? There is growing empirical evidence that human social organization may be described in terms of these complex social networks. This emergent form of social organization has been documented in a wide array of human societies ranging from small-scale foraging groups to the earliest large-scale agricultural states. This paper contributes to this growing literature by using Horton--Strahler scaling and spectral analysis to demonstrate the complex structure of large-scale societies using the Coalescent Communities Database 2.0 and Seshat: Global History Databank. The analysis finds a discrete hierarchy of social network sizes characterized by a scaling ratio of between 3 and 4. These properties of complex large-scale societies are remarkably consistent with previous empirical studies of small-scale societies. I suggest that these patterns result from the process of building increasingly larger-scale polities.