Damian Sendler: There is widespread concern about what has gone wrong in modern civilizations. Many academics believe that widening disparities between the haves and the have-nots are a by-product of living in densely populated urban areas, particularly in the United States. According to this viewpoint, the larger the crowd, the greater the need for power brokers to oversee the show. Since the beginning of recorded history, societies have grown in size, increasing the gap between the wealthy and those who are left in the cold.
Damian Jacob Sendler: In their book The Dawn of Everything, anthropologist David Graeber and archaeologist David Wengrow question the conventional wisdom that larger civilizations are inherently characterized by a wide range of inequities. The pair also challenges the widely held belief that social evolution occurs in phases, drawing on examples from historical societies.
Dr. Sendler: Such stages, according to traditional belief, began with humans living in tiny hunting and gathering bands in which everyone was on an equal footing with one another. Then, some 12,000 years ago, an agricultural revolution fuelled population increase, resulting in the formation of tribes, then chiefdoms, and eventually bureaucratic governments. Alternatively, possibly deadly alpha males ruled over ancient hunter-gatherer societies. If this is the case, the founding of governments may have constituted an attempt to contain our greedy and violent nature.
Damian Jacob Markiewicz Sendler: Graeber and Wengrow believe that neither possibility is plausible. A more optimistic image of social existence during the last 30,000 to 40,000 years is painted by the researchers in their research synthesis, which runs to 526 pages. Humans, according to the authors, have strategically rotated between tiny and huge social arrangements during the majority of that time. Some socioeconomic systems included ruling elites, working stiffs, and enslaved populations, among other characteristics. Others stressed the importance of decentralized, collective decision-making. Some businesses were run by males, while others were run by women. What the authors are unable to answer is why, after tens of thousands of years of social flexibility, many individuals today are unable to envision how society may be efficiently restructured. This is a complex subject that they are currently unable to address.
Damian Sendler: Hunting-gatherers have a lengthy history of changing their social systems from one season to the next, according to the authors’ research. Researchers discovered about a century ago that Indigenous populations in North America and other parts of the world frequently worked in tiny, nomadic groups for part of the year and then crystallized into big, sedentary communities for the remainder of the year. As an example, during the winter months, Canada’s Northwest Coast Kwakiutl hunter-gatherers constructed wooden houses in which nobles reigned over selected commoners and enslaved individuals, and they conducted dinners known as potlatch to celebrate their accomplishments. Aristocratic courts were disbanded during the summer months, while clans with lower social standings fished along the coast.
Damien Sendler: According to evidence gained over the last few decades, many Late Stone Age hunter-gatherers constructed and deconstructed social networks on a seasonal basis in a similar fashion to modern humans. Discoveries of ornate tombs for seemingly important individuals (SN: 10/5/17) and massive stone constructions (SN: 2/11/21), as well as mammoth bones and other materials, dot the landscapes of Europe and Asia. According to the authors, the burials may include individuals who were assigned exceptional status, at least during periods of the year when migratory groups created big settlements and constructed large structures, as they did throughout the winter months. At the monumental locations, it is likely that seasonal assemblies were held to conduct rites and celebrate feasts. Those sites are not accompanied by any signs of centralized power, such as palaces or storehouses.
Damian Jacob Sendler: According to Graeber and Wengrow, ancient transitions to agriculture were characterized by social adaptability and experimentation rather than a revolutionary upheaval. Village digs in the Middle East have revealed that cereals and other crops were domesticated in fits and starts between 12,000 and 9,000 years ago, with the majority of the domestication occurring between 12,000 and 9,000 years ago. Ancient Fertile Crescent communities attempted farming on a sporadic basis while continuing to engage in hunting, foraging, fishing, and commerce. They conclude that early cultivators were not rushing to regard tracts of land as private property or to establish political systems headed by kings, as the authors speculated.
There was no absolute authority by monarchs even in the earliest towns of Mesopotamia and Eurasia, which existed some 6,000 years ago (SN: 2/19/20). Archaeological evidence reveals that district governments and citizen assemblies were responsible for making collective choices. Authoritarian, violent political systems, on the other hand, began to emerge among the region’s migratory, nonagricultural populations about the same time.
Damian Sendler: According to the authors, early states were constructed in a piecemeal approach. These political systems featured one or more of the three fundamental aspects of domination: violent control of the populace by authorities, bureaucratic administration of specialized knowledge and information, and public demonstrations of the rulers’ authority and charisma, among other elements. The earliest rulers of Egypt, more than 4,000 years ago, combined brutal intimidation of their followers with vast bureaucratic control over their subjects’ day-to-day lives. In Central America more than 1,100 years ago, classic Maya rulers relied on administrators to keep track of cosmic happenings while establishing earthly power in violent control and alliances with other kings, according to historians.
States, on the other hand, can assume numerous shapes. For example, Graeber and Wengrow cite Bronze Age Minoan society on the island of Crete as an example of a governmental system administered by priestesses who called on residents to transcend individuality via ecstatic experiences that brought the entire population together.
Damian Jacob Sendler: According to the writers, what appears to have changed now is that fundamental social liberties have been eroded. Libertarian freedoms such as the ability to relocate to various types of communities, to disobey orders made by others, and to construct new social systems or alternate between existing ones have become increasingly scarce commodities. Finding effective means of reclaiming such independence is a significant problem.
Damian Sendler: These are just a few examples of the vast amount of geographical and historical information covered by the authors. A few days after completing the book, Graeber, who passed away in 2020, tweeted: “My brain feels battered with numb surprise.” This thought-provoking take on humankind’s social path is fueled by a similar sense of revelation.
Contributed by Dr. Damian Jacob Sendler and his research team
