The Standard Sample: Introduction

     The Standard Cross-Cultural Sample (Murdock and White 1969, ETHNOLOGY 8: 
329-369) consists of 186 societies, each pinpointed to a particular time and 
place for purposes of coding.  By society we mean a specific local population 
which reproduces a way of life, the description of which may vary depending on 
which of many possible foci is chosen for study, within some larger unit.  No 
attempt is made to generalize the descriptions of these individualized ways of 
life to an entire "society" in terms of the largest groups that might be 
included under the ethnic or national designations of the particular units.

     This sample is designed for testing propositions about human societies, 
cultures, and behaviors.  The order in which the societies are listed below 
corresponds to the order of the records in the datafiles with descriptive 
variables on these societies.  The numbers running from 1 to 186 traverse the 
societies from the southern tip of Africa up through Europe, on through Asia 
and the Pacific, into North America and down to the tip of South America.  The 
dates are the focal date, which is often the earliest reliable ethnographic 
description.  The sample will be listed under the following headings:

 No. Societal Name   Date