Yes, I did. I just spent nine minutes of writing explaining why in detail. Besides the ample evidence that we have of humans evolving as alloparenting groups rather than two parent dyads, and other innumerable differences from social dynamics common in the ancient past that we do not widely see now, there are all the other examples I gave — including from current (or relatively recent) social groups who do not live in patriarchal dominance-based hierarchies. Go back and read the OP more carefully.
Yes, we do know that we didn't have cultures steeped in male led dominance hierarchies for most of human history. I write about that just about every single day - based in research from a wide variety of scientific disciplines. And no, there are no ancient "warrior traditions" from 100,000 years ago - because there is no evidence of warfare before 13,000 years ago - and most of it is from 5 or 6 thousand years ago - something that I already discussed in the OP which you purport to have read.
Gender roles are not what makes a culture egalitarian or not. Lack of hierarchy, lack of chiefs or leaders, a strong value of personal autonomy, no significant wealth disparity - these are the things that are the markers of an egalitarian culture. And we have tons and tons of evidence of that being how ancient humans lived - well into the rise of agriculture even, although that is the place where more dominance based hierarchies begin to show up.
The excavation of Çatalhöyük is only one body of evidence amongst millions of data points of how our ancient ancestors lived.
I thought you had already read a bunch of this stuff, but here are some further pieces to address some of your skepticism. Good heavens, where to start? A note to someone who is actually interested in learning (rather than being right), if you haven’t heard of something before, it doesn’t mean it isn’t true. Assuming someone else has absolutely no idea of what they are talking about just because it’s unfamiliar to you is pretty condescending. If you're going to only pick one to read, start with the first one on personal autonomy.
“As stated above, the periods in which free or relatively free societies existed are hardly insignificant. In fact, they make up most of human existence. When the indigenous population of North America met the French, they saw the Europeans as little better than slaves, living in constant terror of their so-called superiors. Jesuit missionaries were simultaneously outraged that native women were considered to be in control of their own bodies and could have sex before marriage and divorce at will with no stigma. Not all pre-patriarchal cultures had the exact same mores or structures, but they do seem to have all valued autonomy in a way that was foreign to dominance-based cultures.”
“Intimately tied to hunter-gatherers’ sense of autonomy is what Richard Lee (1988) has called their “fierce egalitarianism.” Egalitarianism, among hunter-gatherers, goes far beyond the western notion of equal opportunity. It means that nobody has more material goods than anyone else, that everyone’s needs are equally important, and that nobody considers himself or herself superior to others. Such equality is part and parcel of hunter-gatherers’ autonomy, as inequalities could lead those who have more to dominate those who have less. Hunter-gatherers, of course, recognize that some people are better hunters or gatherers than others, some are wiser than others, and so on, and they value such abilities. However, they react strongly against any flaunting of abilities or overt expressions of pride.”
“Despite the classic sociobiological view of an ancient nuclear family, with a father off hunting big game and a mother tending the cave and the kids, current science simply doesn’t support this. Fossil evidence, endocrinology, psychology, history, child development, genetics, comparative primatology, and field research among contemporary hunter-gatherer societies have painted a very different picture — one that only began to change around 6–9 thousand years ago.”
“Patriarchy is the social system that followed the millennia of peaceful egalitarianism that had come before it. “According to cultural anthropologist and ethnographer Raymond C. Kelly, the earliest hunter-gatherer societies of Homo erectus population density was probably low enough to avoid armed conflict. The development of the throwing-spear, together with ambush hunting techniques, made potential violence between hunting parties very costly, dictating cooperation and maintenance of low population densities to prevent competition for resources. This behavior may have accelerated the migration out of Africa of H. Erectus some 1.8 million years ago as a natural consequence of conflict avoidance.”
FOR 5000 years, humans have grown accustomed to living in societies dominated by the privileged few. But it wasn’t always this way. For tens of thousands of years, egalitarian hunter-gatherer societies were widespread. And as a large body of anthropological research shows, long before we organized ourselves into hierarchies of wealth, social status and power, these groups rigorously enforced norms that prevented any individual or group from acquiring more status, authority or resources than others.*
Decision-making was decentralized and leadership ad hoc; there weren’t any chiefs. There were sporadic hot-blooded fights between individuals, of course, but there was no organized conflict between groups. Nor were there strong notions of private property and therefore any need for territorial defense.
