Human groups keep settling at about 150 people
From Stone Age villages to medieval England to Army companies, the same size repeats.
Half as Interesting · Why You Can Only Have 150 Friends (According to Science)About 8,000 years ago, a typical Neolithic farming village held about 150 people. In 1086, when William the Conqueror, whose surveyors compiled the Domesday Book, counted England, its villages averaged around 150, too.
Anthropologists found the same size in between. Across about 20 tribal societies with census records, the average clan, the group that gathered for rituals like coming-of-age ceremonies, was 153 people. Smaller night camps of 30 to 50 came and went, and large tribes of 500 to 2,500 were linked mainly by shared language and culture, but the working social group sat in the middle.
The number still shows up. Faith-based communal groups such as the Hutterites and Amish sit near 110 and tend to divide after growing beyond 150. The company, the Army's self-contained unit of three 30 to 40 person platoons plus command and support staff, totals about 150. Mr. Gore, who ran the Gore-tex company, capped his factories at 150 because larger plants required inefficient hierarchies.
Questions people ask
Where did the number 150 come from in the first place?
The idea comes from evolutionary psychologist Robin Dunbar, who argued that the size of the neocortex, the part of the brain involved in social reasoning, predicts typical group size in primates. Extrapolated to humans, the formula predicts about 148, which he rounded to 150.
Do Hutterite communes really split when they get too big?
Yes, in broad terms. Hutterite colonies, which share property and eat and worship together, commonly divide when they approach 150 to 200 people. The split keeps groups small enough that everyone knows everyone else and can enforce shared norms without much formal hierarchy.
Can I really only know 150 people, including on social media?
Not strictly. Researchers treat 150 as an average with a wide range, not a hard ceiling, and modern studies of phone records, Christmas cards, and online networks often find personal networks of 100 to 200. The claim is that maintaining stable, reciprocal relationships gets much harder much beyond that range.