In another book I'm reading by Stephen Pinker, he makes reference to work done by an anthropologist named Donald E. Brown who, inspired by Chomsky's Universal Grammar, decided to study archives of ethnography to try and lay out qualities of a Universal People.

He's apparently written an entire book on the subject, which I'm extremely interested in reading, but Pinker has listed some of the universals Brown has found.

The complete work apparently lists at least 400 different traits (and I assume it elaborates), but just this list is pretty dazzling....

....and, needless to say, corrosive to any dogma that claims it invented or has a monopoly on any of this.

Regardless of geographic location, religion, or culture, all of the following have been documented in all peoples around the globe:

Value placed on articulateness.

Gossip.

Lying.

Misleading.

Verbal humor.

Humorous insults.

Poetic and rhetorical speech forms.

Narrative and story-telling.

Metaphor.

Poetry and repetition of linquistic elements and three-second lines separated by pauses.

Words for days, months, years, past, present, future, body parts, inner states (emotions, sensations, thoughts), behavioral propensities, flora, fauna, weather, tools, space, motion, speed, location, spatial dimensions, physical properties, giving, lending, affecting things and people, numbers (at the very least "one", "two", and "more than two&quot, proper names, possession...

Distinctions between mother and father.

Kinship categories, defined in terms of mother, father, son, daughter, and age sequence.

Binary distinctions, including male and female, black and white, natural and cultural, good and bad.

Measures.

Logical relations including "not", "and", "same", "equivalent", "opposite", general versus particular, part versus whole....

Conjectural reasoning (inferring the presence of absent and invisible entities from their perceptible traces).

Nonlinguistic vocal communication, such as cries and squeals.

Interpreting intention from behavior.

Recognized facial expressions of happiness, sadness, anger, fear, surprise, disgust, and contempt.

Use of smiles as a friendly greeting.

Crying.

Coy flirtation with the eyes.

Masking, modifying, and mimicking facial expressions.

Displays of affection.

Sense of self versus other.

Sense of responsibility.

Sense of voluntary versus involuntary behavior.

Sense of private inner life.

Sense of normal versus abnormal mental states.

Empathy.

Sexual attraction.

Powerful sexual jealousy.

Childhood fears, especially of loud noises, and, at the end of the first year, of strangers.

Fear of snakes.

"Oedipal" behavior (possessiveness of mother, coolness toward her consort).

Face recognition.

Adornment of bodies and arrangement of the hair.

Sense of sexual attractiveness based in part on signs of health and, in women, on youth.

Hygiene.

Dance.

Music.

Play, especially play fighting.

Manufacture of, and dependence upon, many kinds of tools, many of them permanent, made according to culturally transmitted motifs, including cutters, pounders, containers, strings, levers, spears....

Use of fire to cook food and for other purposes.

Drugs, both medicinal and recreational.

Shelter.

Decoration of artifacts.

A standard pattern and time for weaning.

Living in groups, which claim a certain territory and have a sense of being a distinct people.

Families built around a mother and children, usually the biological mother, and one or more men.

Institutionalized marriage (in the sense of publicly recognized right of sexual access to a woman eligible for childbearing).

Socialization of children (including things like toilet training) by senior kin.

Children copying their elders.

Distinguishing of close kin from distant kin, and favoring close kin.

Avoidance of incest between mothers and sons.

Great interest in the topic of sex.

Status and prestige, both assigned (by kinship, age, sex) and achieved.

Some degree of economic inequality.

Division of labor by sex and age.

More child care by women.

More aggression and violence by men.

Acknowledgment of differences between male and female natures.

Domination by men in the public political sphere.

Exchange of labor, goods, and services.

Reciprocity, including retaliation.

Gifts.

Social reasoning.

Coalitions.

Government, in the sense of binding collective decisions about public affairs.

Leaders, almost always nondictatorial, perhaps ephemeral.

Laws, rights, and obligations, including laws against violence, rape, and murder.

Punishment.

Conflict, which is deplored.

Rape.

Seeking of redress for wrongs.

Mediation.

In-group/out-group conflicts.

Property.

Inheritance of property.

Sense of right and wrong.

Envy.

Etiquette.

Hospitality.

Feasting.

Diurnality.

Standards of sexual modesty.

Sex generally done in private.

Fondness for sweets.

Food taboos.

Discreetness in elimination of body wastes.

Supernatural beliefs.

Magic to sustain and increase life, and to attract the opposite sex.

Theories of fortune and misfortune.

Explanations of disease and death.

Medicine.

Rituals, including rites of passage.

Mourning the dead.

Dreaming, interpreting dreams.