“Christopher Boehm is an anthropologist and primatologist who is currently the Director of the Jane Goodall Research Center at University of Southern California. He believes that suppressing our primate ancestors’ dominance hierarchies by enforcing these egalitarian norms was a central adaptation of human evolution. Enhanced cooperation lowered the risks of Paleolithic life for small, isolated bands of humans and was likely crucial to our survival and evolutionary success.
Organisms that work well in groups tend to have an evolutionary advantage. We have evolved as a highly social species, in part, because it kept us alive. Paleolithic hunter-gather tribes shared their resources amongst the members of their clan and most likely engaged in cooperative breeding as well. In addition, they also traded members with clans nearby in order to prevent inbreeding.”
This is the way that we lived for 97% of human history until patriarchal dominance hierarchies arose and spread, overtaking the peaceful, egalitarian enclaves that they encountered - something that is entirely supported by science and scientists.
