The community are endogamous, and marry within a close kin group.

Instead, extended families are generally the boundaries of which these kin groups separate.

It may be that these were burials of a particular kin group, which was sometimes the case among the Maya.

The historical evidence does not really support the view that kin groups were much more stable in the past than in the present.

Man may well have spent large portions of the last several million years living in small kin groups.

But also men were not permitted to kill anyone within the same defined kin groups.

The wife is accepted in the husband's kin group when she becomes a mother.

Usually, however, the day-to-day care of the elderly in particular, was a matter for the kin group.

"I would like to know how the kin groups sustain themselves," she said slowly.

The commoners, for the most part, lacked these corporate kin groups.