From Aboriginal Equality to Limited and Unstable Inequality

Abstract

During the first 97 percent of the approximately 200,000-year history of Homo sapiens, when humans existed as hunter-gatherers and early agriculturalists, they lived with little political and economic inequality, due to the ready availability of stone weapons and ability of the weaker ones to form defensive coalitions blocking bullies’ attempts to amass political power. Their egalitarian incentive structure rewarded them for sharing food, child care, and practically everything else. The slow adoption of agriculture beginning about 10,000 years ago created the material condition on which a limited degree of social hierarchy could develop. About 9,000 years ago, chiefs arose by ideologically claiming special access to celestial powers to better assure the welfare of the community. They thereby gained greater access to material goods and mates. However, their legitimacy was fragile, readily upset by poor harvests or other catastrophes that delegitimated their ideology and returned their societies to economic and political equality.