Study Ranks Humans Seventh Most Monogamous Mammal

A new study from the University of Cambridge ranks humans among the most monogamous mammals, placing the species seventh out of 35 analyzed, with a monogamy score based on sibling relationships that exceeds rates seen in chimpanzees and gorillas but falls short of beavers and deermice. The research, published this week in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, suggests that social monogamy has played a key role in human evolution by fostering cooperative societies.

Led by evolutionary anthropologist Dr. Mark Dyble, the study examined genetic data to calculate the proportion of full siblings, those sharing both parents, versus half-siblings in 103 human populations and 34 nonhuman mammal species. This approach provides an indirect measure of reproductive monogamy, as species with pair-bonding tendencies produce more offspring from the same two parents. Human data drew from archaeological sites, including Bronze Age Europe and Neolithic Anatolia, as well as ethnographic records from modern groups like Tanzanian hunter-gatherers and Indonesian rice farmers. For mammals, the analysis reviewed existing genetic studies encompassing over 60,000 relationships.