In 1954, Murdock published a list of every known culture, the Outline of World Cultures. In 1957, he published his first cross-cultural data set, the World Ethnographic Sample, consisting of 565 cultures coded for 30 variables. In 1959, despite having no professional experience in Africa, Murdock published Africa: Its peoples and their culture history, a very useful reference book on African ethnic groups which also broke new ground in the analysis of prehistory, especially the domestication of plants. There is also a list of his other major works