For most of human history, people lived together in small bands, subsisting as hunter-gatherers, sharing nearly everything as part of their survival strategy. “Mark Dyble, an anthropologist who led the study at University College London, said: “There is still this wider perception that hunter-gatherers are more macho or male-dominated. We’d argue it was only with the emergence of agriculture when people could start to accumulate resources, that inequality emerged.” The History of Patriarchy
Agriculture is about 10,000 years old and social stratification came into being for the first time at about that same time. Hunter-gathers don’t have land or possessions to fight over and the wellbeing of the clan depends on cooperation.
Is it true that hunter-gatherers were peaceful egalitarians? The answer is yes.
If just one anthropologist had reported this, we might assume that he or she was a starry-eyed romantic who was seeing things that weren’t really there, or was a liar. But many anthropologists, of all political stripes, regarding many different hunter-gatherer cultures, have told the same general story. … One anthropologist after another has been amazed by the degree of equality, individual autonomy, indulgent treatment of children, cooperation, and sharing in the hunter-gatherer culture that he or she studied.
During the twentieth century, anthropologists discovered and studied dozens of different hunter-gatherer societies, in various remote parts of the world, who had been nearly untouched by modern influences. Wherever they were found — in Africa, Asia, South America, or elsewhere; in deserts or in jungles — these societies had many characteristics in common. The people lived in small bands, of about 20 to 50 persons (including children) per band, who moved from camp to camp within a relatively circumscribed area to follow the available game and edible vegetation. The people had friends and relatives in neighboring bands and maintained peaceful relationships with neighboring bands. Warfare was unknown to most of these societies, and where it was known it was the result of interactions with warlike groups of people who were not hunter-gatherers.
10K years is about 3% of human history. Until the advent of agriculture, nearly all humans lived in cooperative bands of about 20–50 that peacefully co-existed with other nearby bands, often trading clan members to help keep inbreeding down.
I realize you don’t have an anthropology degree, so trying to pretend like you know what you are talking about in such a condescending manner is just laughable! 😉
