Land ownership shapes natural resource management and social–ecological resilience, but the factors determining ownership norms in human societies remain unclear. Here we conduct a global empirical test of long‐standing theories from ecology, economics and anthropology regarding potential drivers of land ownership and territoriality. Prior theory suggests that resource defensibility, subsistence strategies, population pressure, political complexity and cultural transmission mechanisms may all influence land ownership. We applied multi‐model inference procedures based on logistic regression to cultural and environmental data from 102 societies, 71 with some form of land ownership and 31 with no land ownership. We found an increased probability of land ownership in mountainous environments, where patchy resources may be more cost effective to defend via ownership. We also uncovered support for the role of population pressure, with a greater probability of land ownership in societies living at higher population densities. Our results also show more land ownership when neighboring societies also practiced ownership. We found less support for variables associated with subsistence strategies and political complexity.

中文翻译：

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全球土地所有权变化的驱动力

土地所有权塑造了自然资源管理和社会生态适应力，但是决定人类社会所有权规范的因素仍然不清楚。在这里，我们对生态学，经济学和人类学的长期理论进行了全球实证检验，这些理论涉及土地所有权和地域性的潜在驱动因素。先验理论表明，资源的防御性，生存策略，人口压力，政治复杂性和文化传播机制都可能影响土地所有权。我们将基于逻辑回归的多模型推断程序应用于来自102个社会，71个具有某种形式的土地所有权和31个没有土地所有权的社会的文化和环境数据。我们发现山区环境中土地所有权的可能性增加，零散资源通过所有权进行防御可能更具成本效益。我们还发现了对人口压力作用的支持，在人口密度较高的社会中，土地所有权的可能性更大。我们的结果还表明，当邻近社会也实行所有权时，土地所有权就会更多。我们发现对与生存策略和政治复杂性相关的变量的支持较少。