[jack_tripper]

>We lived as egalitarian bands of hunter gatherers for hundreds of thousands of years before that.

Only if you consider intra-group egalitarianism of tribal hunter gatherer societies. But tribes would constantly go to war with each other in search of expanding to better territories with more resources, and the defeated tribe would have its men killed or enslaved, and the women bred to expand the tribe population.

So you forgot that part that involved all the killing, enslavement and rape, but other than that, yes, the victorious tribes were quite egalitarian.

[lurk2]

> and the defeated tribe would have its men killed or enslaved, and the women bred to expand the tribe population.

I’m not aware of any archaeological evidence of massacres during the paleolithic. Which archaeological sites would support the assertions you are making here?

[lingrush4]

What an absurd request. Where's your archaeological evidence that humans were egalitarian 10000+ years?

The idea that we didn't have wars in the paleolithic era is so outlandish that it requires significant evidence. You have provided none.

[lurk2]

> What an absurd request.

If you can show me archaeological evidence of mass graves or a settlement having been razed during the paleolithic I would recant my claims. This isn’t really a high bar.

> Where's your archaeological evidence that humans were egalitarian 10000+ years?

I never made this claim. Structures of domination precede human development; they can be observed in animals. What we don’t observe up until around 10,000 years ago is anything approaching the sorts of systems of jack_tripper described, namely:

> which has always been a feudalist type society of a small elite owning all the wealth and ruling the masses of people by wars, poverty, fear, propaganda and oppression.

> The idea that we didn't have wars in the paleolithic era is so outlandish that it requires significant evidence.

If it’s so outlandish where is your evidence that these wars occurred?

> You have provided none.

How would I provide you with evidence of something that didn’t happen?

[azemetre]

Keep fighting the good fight. Asking for evidence should be the bar in conversations and too many people are willing to bend the truth to push their narratives (that the rich elites deserve everything, you were born a serf).

David Graeber wrote a great book called "Dawn of Everything" that really explains how newer techniques in anthropology have upended what we believe about modern humans.

There were 10,000+ people settlements found 30,000 years ago. The idea that humans have only developed "civilization" the last 5,000 years goes against what it means to be human. I mean we still have the same brains we did 200,000 years ago. People have always been smart, and more importantly, the book argues that humans have resisted nobility + kings since creation.

It's never cut and dry as it seems.

[jack_tripper]

Population density on the planet back then was also low enough to not cause mass wars and generate mass graves, but killing each other over valuable resources is the most common human trait after reproduction and seek of food and shelter.

[pyrale]

The above poster is asking you whether factual informations support your claim.

Your personal opinion about why such informations may be hard to find only weakens your claim.

[phantasmish]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_Before_Civilization

Last I checked there hadn’t been major shifts away from the perspective this represents, in anthropology.

It was used as a core text in one of my classes in college, though that was a couple decades ago. I recall being confused about why it was such a big deal, because I’d not encountered the “peaceful savage” idea in any serious context, but I gather it was widespread in the ‘80s and earlier.

[pyrale]

The link you give documents warfare that happened significantly later than the era discussed by the above poster.

To suggest that the lack of evidence is enough to support continuity of a behaviour is also flawed reasoning: we have many examples of previously unknown social behaviour that emerged at some point, line the emergence of states or the use of art.

Sometimes, it’s ok to simply say that we’re not sure, rather than to project our existing condition.

[lurk2]

Well, this one is at least pertinent to the time period we’re discussing:

> One-half of the people found in a Mesolithic cemetery in present-day Jebel Sahaba, Sudan dating to as early as 13,000 years ago had died as a result of warfare between seemingly different racial groups with victims bearing marks of being killed by arrow heads, spears and club, prompting some to call it the first race war.

[lurk2]

We were talking about the paleolithic era. I’ll take your comment to imply that you don’t have any information that I don’t have.

> but killing each other over valuable resources is the most common human trait after reproduction and seek of food and shelter.

This isn’t reflected in the archaeological record, it isn’t reflected by the historical record, and you haven’t provided any good reason why anyone should believe it.

[greekrich92]

This is an ideological statement not an empirical one

[jinjin2]

Sure, nobody is claiming that hunter gatherers were saints. Just because they lived in egalitarian clans, it doesn’t mean that they didn’t occasionally do bad things.

But one key differentiator is that they didn’t have the logistics to have soldiers. With no surplus to pay anyone, there was no way build up an army, and with no-one having the ability to tell others to go to war or force them to do so, the scale of conflicts and skirmishes were a lot more limited.

So while there might have been a constant state of minor skirmishes, like we see in any population of territorial animals, all-out totalitarian war was a rare occurrence.

[beeflet]

what is so bad about raping and pillaging

[RiverCrochet]

disease, for one.