SOCIETY BEFORE DOMINATION

 

Warning – long read. This was written in 2018 and covers some of the territory of DAWN OF EVERYTHING. If written today would be nuanced by DAWN. It is part of a larger work called ETHICS, ANARCHISM and HUMAN CONDITION published in January of 2021

"One of the best kept secrets is that practically all of the material and social technologies fundamental to civilization were developed before the imposition of dominator society." 1

At one time, there was a common world view; one that emphasized unity, the sacredness of nature and the common good. At a certain point in history this unity was sundered, the common good reduced to the needs of a parasitic minority and nature as wealth to plunder. How this came about is a very important question. To begin to answer this we have to look more closely at the social and economic lives of early humans and the historic peoples who still lived in relative harmony with nature and each other.

We have already seen in a previous chapter how this world-view is based upon inter-relationship and unity. Rather than reiterate, I will leave you with three examples only. The motto of Clayquot Sound people of Vancouver Island, Hishuk ish Ts'awalk (everything is one) The Nuu Chach Nulth perspective is "Nothing is isolated from other aspects of life surrounding it and within it. This concept is the basis for the respect for nature that our people live with." 2 Further north, on Haida Gwaii, the Haida concepts yahquudanga (respect for everything) and gina'waadiuuxan gud ad kwasid (everything depends on everything else) reflect the same conception of existence. That such a world-view should deeply effect and reflect the social life of these peoples should seem obvious to the reader.

Land Tenure Social life was based on what was in essence a cooperative, communally-owned economy. This cooperation lay at the very root of what it means to be human. As Richard Leakey pointed out, food sharing is the essence of reciprocity, and is something only humans do. 3 Social life was what made us intelligent, and this was rooted in sharing. 4 . According to anthropologist Levi Strauss, "reciprocity as mutual exchange [is the] fundamental structural principle of societies." 5 A food-sharing society is, of course, one that is highly egalitarian, as compared with a system where the means of existence are appropriated and consumed by a minority.

For cooperation to exist beyond a mere handful of people , sedentary living was necessary. While the remains of long houses and small villages can be found dating back to 20-30,000 years, the great move to sedentary existence came with the improved rainfall after 13,000 BCE. More rain meant more plants and no need for migration. 6. The drought of Younger Dryas period, circa 10,000 BCE, triggered agriculture. Sedentary living preceded plant domestication, and farming was “no great conceptual break” since semi-farming was done by hunter-gatherers. 7. When conditions were right – less ability to easily forage – the transition to crop growing was made.

In spite of the development of agriculture, European forest clearing was "minimal" until 1000 BCE. Early farmers were also foragers, but the clearing that happened after 1000 BCE made the fall back on wild foods difficult for some populations. 8. Europe was mostly covered with heavy forest until Roman times and the ease or difficulty of survival for farmers depended upon proximity to fishing and hunting grounds . Virtually from the beginning of agriculture, if people became fully dependent upon crops produced in a climatically dry area, such as Jericho circa 6700 BCE, environmental degradation resulted. 9. Famine caused such systems to collapse and populations to disburse to other areas.

Hence, Archaic and Aboriginal egalitarian societies practiced foraging, horticulture and animal domestication. It is an error to fetishize the various economic developments amongst these peoples as rigid 'stages' of history. As hinted at in the preceding paragraph, when people started planting crops or keeping sheep, they did not stop fishing, hunting, gathering wild plants, fruit and nuts. Foraging complemented the agricultural. What was produced was a balanced economy and thus a balanced diet. All natural economies are thus mixed economies, and few, if any, free peasant communities were ever purely agricultural. Only with the advent of the state and class division, were peasants reduced to the role of purely agricultural producers – and that was for the masters, and even then, the Commons with its foraging rights continued to exist until the 19th Century.

It has long been thought that women developed agriculture. Whether this is true or not, most Aboriginal cultures see women as the 'moving spirit' behind agriculture and the sedentary life. 10. It is not hard to see that a sedentary life would improve the lives of women and children, as compared to a nomadic existence.

Nor can agriculture be blamed for the resulting class division and state-building. Recent studies show "repeatedly" that inequality is "more than simply an epiphenomenon." [of agriculture] 11. One need only ask how it was that the peoples of New Guinea had a yam-based economy for 8000 years and never developed a state or classes. Or how the Hopi, Wendat, and Iroquois grew crops for 2000 years and rather than building a state, went in the opposite direction. Authoritarian relations are much more than an 'epiphenomenon' of agriculture, indeed, agriculture is only a necessary precondition. But a precondition is not a cause. The cause must be found elsewhere.

The development of agriculture did not necessarily mean conflict with the earlier forager populations, as they occupied different ecological niches. The earliest agriculturalists of Europe came from the Near East and settled "in exactly those areas avoided by hunters and gatherers", ie, river valleys and loess plains of Danube basin, circa 5600 BCE 12. Farming spread from the Ukraine to France in about 300 years. There was a uniformity of burial styles, architecture and artifacts, among these peoples, showing that foragers became farmers. There is "overwhelming evidence against population replacement in the spread of the Neolithic." 13

Land tenure was on a usufruct basis. Forests, meadows and uncleared land were held in common.14. Communal lands not used for cultivation were open to all for hunting, fishing, plants and timber. Usufruct "ensured an equitable distribution of property... prevented land hoarding for wealth and status." 15. Generally, land was not bought or sold. It could be loaned but never permanently alienated, since the land did not belong only to the present people, but future generations as well. 16. According to the Jesuit chronicler, Charlevoix, writing in the 17th Century New France, Indigenous people "... hold that all things should be common to all men." 17 No First Nations people ever thought of property as a commodity or even an absolute right. .

This communal concept did not vanish with the arrival of the European invaders. In Indian Territory (Oklahoma) "not a pauper in that nation, and the nation did not owe a dollar... and it built its own schools and hospitals... Yet the defect of the system was apparent... they own their land in common. It is Henry George's system and under that there is no enterprise to make your home better than your neighbors. There is no selfishness, which is the bottom of civilization..."18.

Nor was this land tenure system limited to the Americas. Indeed, it was universal before the development of class division and the state. For example, the Celts had communal land ownership, which the Romans replaced with private ownership when they conquered them. 19 The Brehon Laws of Ireland had the land shared by kinship groups. This was destroyed and turned into private property by the English in the 17th Century. 20. In Highland Scotland the clans owned the land. The clan chief was a nominal owner only, like the Queen of England as nominal owner of the United Kingdom. 21

For the Germanic tribes, “The land which was not taken possession of by the village remained at the disposal of the hundred. [local regional government of several villages] What was not assigned to the latter remained for the shire...[ county] 22 In Switzerland the lands were allotted to each family to grow crops. Once the harvest was over, the land returned to the commons to be used as a communal pasture. 23

“Thus in Sweden we find all these different stages of common holding side by side. Each village had its village common land (bys almänningar), and beyond this was the hundred common land (härads), the shire common land (lands), and finally the people’s common land. In Caesar’s time, one of the largest tribes, the Suevi,... cultivated their fields in common... Tacitus (150 years after Caesar) only mentions the tilling of the soil by individual families. But the land to be tilled only belonged to them for a year. Every year it was divided up anew and redistributed.” 24. In Kievan Russia, the peasants were defacto owners of the land, though it was nominally owned by the prince. “The peasant held his land from the commune.” 25.

Political Structure According to social critic Jerry Mander, "Virtually all traditional tribal people share three primary political principles; 1. All land, water and forest community owned... 2. all tribal decisions by consensus, in which every member participates. 3. chiefs are not coercive, authoritarian rulers... more like teachers or facilitators. According to anthropologist Pierre Clastres "no relationship of command-obedience is in force." 27. Other scholars and commentators agree with Mander's observations: North West Coast chiefs had to seek advice from councils. "... they had little direct power over free individuals... little evidence they had power over the estate or fellow house members." 28.

While villages and bands were autonomous, this did not mean there was no mutual aid or peaceful relations among these groups. Cooperation sometimes came about in reaction to outside forces. The Chumash in California faced a major drought circa 1150 AD and began to fight over scarce resources. They realized the danger of this and cooperated, shifting their resource extraction from plant food to seafood. The Chumash were "without rigid social ranks, warriors or slaves...[their society] arose as a brilliant solution to an unpredictable world of climatic extremes. 29.

The traditional reason for the formation of the Iroquois Confederacy was an attempt to overcome the violence among the various Iroquoian speaking groups. As relative newcomers to the north eastern part of North America, they were probably under pressure from the previous inhabitants. The 13h Century saw a cooling of the climate, which also would have made life more difficult for them and would also contribute to inter-group conflict.

Hul'qui'num Villages of Vancouver Island were in "loose alliances" with each other for food gathering and defense. There was "no formal organization, no village chief or council. Co-operation and ad hoc leadership [was] for specific purposes, exercised by virtue of specific skills." 30. In reference to the Montagnais people "... they have neither political organization... nor authority... therefore they never kill each other to acquire these honours... not one of them gives himself to the Devil to acquire wealth." Also the women held "great power". 31. " [They] ... cannot endure in the least those who seem desirous of assuming superiority over the others." 32. The Malecite (New Brunswick) met at an annual council to settle disputes and re-allocate hunting grounds. 33. The Ojibwa and Saulteaux, had a highly diffused, non-hierarchical form of governance. 34. . For the Athabaska, leadership was from anyone showing ability, including women. 35. The Coast Salish had house chiefs from both sexes, but their power was circumscribed. There was no central authority in spite of a very hierarchical status system. 36.

The early anthropologist W.H. Maine described the villages in India, "The council of village elders does not command anything... nor is there right or duty in an Indian village; a person aggrieved complains not of an individual wrong, but of the disturbance of the order of the entire society." 26 This latter is much like First Nations attitudes to wrongs committed, rather than punishment of , the main concern is restoring harmony to the group.

Nor was this egalitarianism restricted just to the Americas or to 'simple' foraging societies.

"The principle characteristics of incipiently stratified societies in much of later prehistoric Europe is the relatively small scale of inequality." 37. According to Colin Renfrew, a "group oriented politics" prevailed in megalithic Europe and Malta with monumental architecture, but no individual displays of wealth. 38. The civilization of the Indus Valley was "the most egalitarian of all." 39. For ancient Ireland, it was "difficult in the court tombs context to point out any object... that screamed 'kingship' or even exalted states for any individual." 40. In Bronze Age Europe there were "no powerful kings or centralized bureaucracies... most people lived in small villages much the same as the first farmers 3000 years earlier.” 41. There was "No evidence in all Old Europe of patriarchal chieftanates." 42. At a much later date, the chiefs in Celtic and Germanic societies prior to feudalism '... were subjected to the authority of the councils... the powers... belonged to the community meeting in full assembly." 43.

The natural unit in Native American society was the self-governing village.

Each village owned its surrounding territory and the 'tribe' was a European invention. 44. The self-governing village would have been the common system with foragers and non-class divided agriculturalists, elsewhere in the world. Nor were these villages necessarily tiny hamlets of a few dozen people. Wendat villages had up to 2500 or more inhabitants. 45. Cowichan villages could have as many as 1700 inhabitants. 46. The Eastern Bororo of Matto Grosso has villages of 1500 people. 47

If you look at these villages in terms of contemporary mega-cities, you will not understand the significance of their population size. By way of comparison, we have population figures from late 17th Century England. In 1688 three quarters of England lived in villages. They averaged less than 200 inhabitants. 16% lived in towns or cities, the average size little more than 1000 people. 48. About one fifth of the villages were free, ie run by the peasants themselves. The gentry, who were only 5% of the population, controlled two thirds of the territory. 49. Note also, the difference in land tenure between the English peasants and Aboriginal farmers. Unlike their Native American contemporaries, 80% of them were dominated by a parasitic 'nobility.'

How did village-based societies relate to other groups? While conflict certainly existed, it was not necessarily dominant. The Cree had a word for the type of relations they sought. This word was witaskewin – and its meaning was, "How people not of same nation can live together... [by] continually re-negotiated peaceful co-existence." 50. The natural outcome of witaskewin was to form confederacies with other groups, and if not confederacies, informal, peaceful relations based upon trade or defense. The most famous confederacy was that of the Iroquois, but the concept was widespread. Other groups must have had their own witaskawin philosophy.

In fourth millennium Western Mediterranean societies, it was "difficult to detect warlike activities." 51. The more violent Bell Beaker culture penetrated the Western Mediterranean from 2450-on. A mass burial of war victims at La Vacause occurred approximately 2000 BCE. 52. 2000 BCE, was, of course, more than 4000 years after agriculture developed in that area. There was little evidence of violence in Neolithic and early Bronze Age Ireland, but a "formidable arsenal of weapons" have been found from late Bronze Age. 53.

The following people formed confederacies; The four different Algonquin peoples in the Maine - New Brunswick area, 54. the Blackfoot Confederacy of Blood, Peigan, Blackfoot and Sub-arctic Algonquin and the Sioux had a confederacy of seven groups. 55. The Wendat were some 40,000 people in twenty five villages divided into five groups. 56. The Wendat confederacy was not just for peace but also for trade. Alliances were also made with Eries and Montagnais, as well as Mi'kmaq, Penobscots and Delawares on the Atlantic coast – a vast network of trade and friendship. 57. The Eastern Bororo showed little sign of inter-village violence. They had four different clans. Some fifty four villages were confederated and former enemies, the Kayapo, Karowa, Kurogi also joined up. "By the establishment of ritual names and reciprocity... internal peace became part of the new morality." 58.

Complex cooperative concepts of land usage also played a political role. Saltspring Island was jointly owned by the Cowichan, Snuneymuxw, Penelakut and Saanich nations. The Europeans could not understand this, "the difficulty arising from the Indian custom of descent from the female side..." Also "because of complex inter-village kinship, warfare among Hul'qui'num [was] practically non-existent." 59.

Why Did the Egalitarian Societies Change?

"No possibility that the [patriarchical] could have developed out of the Old European matrilineal... balanced society... a collision of two ideologies, not an evolution." p. 396 Marija Gimbutas, The Civilization of the Goddess, Harper, 1991

Until 400 years ago, at least one third of the population lived in stateless societies. 1600 marks the beginning of the hegemony of the state. p. 14, James C. Scott, Against the Grain, Yale, 2017

“One True God, one true answer, and one right way... results in a social structure consisting of specialists... ranked in terms of prestige... results in [a] social class structure.” Leroy Little Bear , in John Ralston Saul, The Comeback, Viking, 2014, p. 228

The classical Marxist view of the demise of what they called "primitive communism", i.e., the egalitarian societies of the prehistoric period, has been contradicted by anthropology and archeology. The Marxist concept is that early humans lived in such material scarcity they were forced to share out of necessity. Once agriculture arrived, there was now a storable surplus of wealth and eventually this was appropriated by the higher-status individuals like chiefs and shamans. This gave rise to class society – and the state which was needed to preserve with violence this class inequality.

This Hobbsian view of foragers has been contradicted by paleontologists - one example being the height of hunter-gatherers. A people living in scarcity would have a lower protein diet and hence would be short in stature. But the decline in height comes after foraging was replaced by the agricultural states. Evidence shows there was plenty of food for foragers during the paleolithic. Agriculture is also not necessary for storable wealth. There were many rich non-agricultural societies like Kwakwakawak and Tsmishian, who engaged in the smoking and drying of fish, and the manufacture of other storable food items. Humans were storing parched grain 28,000 BCE, Salting, drying and smoking of meat began long before agriculture. Some paleontologists are of the view that the semi-domestication of reindeer was occurring 20,000 years ago. Nor were storable food items the only forms of wealth that could be accumulated. Trade in shells, and useful tool-making stone like flint, nephrite, and obsidian, long preceded agriculture.

As for the origins of crop-growing, Scientists never thought to search for the origins of agriculture in the tropical regions and so reduced its origins to the Middle East. There is strong evidence that in the tropical areas humans were altering the landscape as far back as 45,000 years ago, and no clear cut division between foraging and growing.. “{Using techniques ranging from genetic sampling of forest ecosystems and isotope analysis of human teeth, to soil analysis and lidar, the researchers have found ample evidence that people at the equator were actively changing the natural world to make it more human-centric... people began burning down vegetation to make room for plant resources and homes. Over millennia, the simple practice of burning back forest evolved. People mixed specialized soils for growing plants; they drained swamps for agriculture; they domesticated animals like chickens; and they farmed yam, taro, sweet potato, chili pepper, black pepper, mango, and bananas. “

“[Scientists ]...realized they'd discovered a global pattern. Very similar evidence for ancient farming could be seen in equatorial Africa, South Asia, and Southeast Asia...They are challenging the idea of a "Neolithic revolution" ... In the tropics, there was no bright line between a nomadic existence and agricultural life...So rather than huge leaps, what we see is a continuation of this local knowledge and adaptation in these regions through time...Humans were clearly modifying environments and ...20,000 years ago in Melanesia, they were performing the extensive drainage of landscapes at Kuk Swamp to farm yams [and] bananas... There is also evidence that as soon as humans reached South America [and] took up residence in the Amazon [they] began farming.” 60.

While the "scarcity of primitive communism" is an erroneous assumption, so too, is the idea that agriculture leads automatically to state and class formation. As before mentioned, the people of Papua have been growing yams for 8000 years, but only got a state when the Europeans imposed it upon them in the 20th Century. The Iroquoian people were agricultural for over a thousand years and rather than developing state and class division went in the opposite direction, one of stateless confederalism. Numerous other examples could be given. The reality is, all states have developed out of agricultural societies, but not all agricultural societies have developed states. Thus agriculture is a necessary pre-condition for state and class division, but cannot be the essential cause. This must be found elsewhere.

According to John C. Scott, “All classical states based on grains, History records no cassava states, no sago, yam, plantain... states... only grains suited best to concentrated production.” “State formation becomes possible only when there are few alternatives to a diet dominated by domesticated grains.” 61. A broad subsistence web, foraging combined with crops and animals makes state formation difficult, 62. which is why Indigenous people of the Eastern USA, Old Europeans, Celtic, Teutonic and Slavic tribes – all grain growers, never produced a state. They were not dependent on grains. When the state arose in these areas it was imposed from without.

For liberal anthropologists like Jared Diamond, states arise from chiefdoms through competition and conquest. 63. Here the problem is that chiefdoms have existed for thousands of years without becoming states and tribes have raided and feuded all this time without conquering territory and establishing a state. The best example of this is Papua with its thousands of tiny feuding chiefdoms and nary a state. Thus chiefdoms with their competition and feuding, though necessary preconditions, cannot be an essential cause.

The science of paleoclimatology provides a possible answer.

Climate Change As Major Factor The growing of crops in the tropics began about 30,000 years ago. At this point in our knowledge we can only speculate that refugees from the flooding of the coastal plains due to the melting of the glaciers might have influenced the development of farming in the Middle East. Whatever the origins, it commenced there about 11,000 BCE and was fairly well established 2000 years later. 64. According to the American Geographical Union, climate around the time the Middle Eastern agricultural societies developed was warm and damp. This climate persisted roughly 7000 to 3000 BCE, but there were many fluctuations. Around 6200 BCE agricultural development received a severe set-back due to the flooding of glacial waters into the Atlantic Ocean. This created an arid climate in Europe and the Middle East. Conflict erupted in central Anatolia and destruction of villages by fire resulted. 65.

Increasing humidity in Europe after 6000 BCE, encouraged farmers to follow the improving climate north and west. 66. A hot, dryer climate began to emerge about 4700 BCE, persisting to 3500 BCE. At this time the Sahara Lakes and the Ural Steppes begin to dry up. Agrarian societies also disappeared in Greece and Britain. 67. Around 2200 BCE a climate crisis severely effected much of the world. Old Kingdom Egypt went into crisis, the Akkadian Empire collapsed, the temple civilization of Malta disappeared, the Harrapian civilization of India was negatively effected. Dendrochronology and glacial ice core samples show evidence for severe climate change. Some scholars think it may have been the result of a super volcano, others a large meteorite.

A second, even more severe wave of drying occurred between 2000 and 1600 BCE. (AGU Press release July 1999) The Sahara-Arabian area "played a crucial part in the history of man" and " in no other major belt was the interaction of man and milieu more oscillating in nature..." according to climate scientists. 68. Increasing aridity post 3500 BCE, led to population concentration and irrigation, preconditions for the state. 69.

Finally, there was the major crisis which effected all the Mediterranean and Middle Eastern cultures after 1200 BCE. Civilizations of Crete, Malta and Mycenae, were destroyed. Egypt and Assyria survived, but never recovered their former stature. About this time archeological evidence for an increase in violence appears in Western Europe. Many scientists think it was the result of a super volcano eruption in Iceland covering the sky with clouds of ash for several years. Other scholars, most especially Eric H. Cline, see the destruction as a combination of natural and human- made crises. 70.

The results of climate change appear in archeological remains. It appears that the change “[to] cattle keeping was probably a response to drying conditions” in the Western Desert of Egypt. “Six thousand years an overwhelming drought gripped the Western Sahara... Its effects are dramatically obvious in the archeological record... human beings virtually disappear...” 71. The Badarian culture were newcomers to the Nile Valley, having arrived from the Western Desert. The "severe fluctuations of the western pluvial 7000-2500 BCE", might have caused this influx.

"Climate change a major factor" in the development of pre-dynastic culture. 72. The Nile delta was the site of an egalitarian farmer civilization circa 5000 BCE . 73. Upper Egypt conquered the delta peoples between 3300 and 3100 BCE and established an authoritarian system. 74. "No evidence of political centralization" in Lower Egypt, during 3500-3100, unlike in Upper Egypt. "The invention of the Egyptian state largely an Upper Egyptian Affair." 75. Falling Nile levels at the end of the pre-dynastic period [3100 BCE] triggered competition and conflict... eventually resulting in unification.” 76. Upper Egypt itself was probably a creation of the earlier invaders from the dried-up Sahara lakes .

The first invasions of the Old European Culture by steppe dwelling nomads occurred circa 4000 BCE., during the first period of dry climate. The next wave of invaders circa 3500 BCE completely destroyed the civilizations of Eastern Europe. 77. The descendents of these invaders, called the "Bell Beaker People" went into Western Europe and took over the megalithic societies about 2100 BCE 78. The egalitarian civilization of the Indus Valley disappeared circa 1800 BCE, which is well within the last drying period of 2000-1600 BCE

Since the cooperative model disintegrated, is there some inherent weakness in it? Clearly not, as it was destroyed from outside. There was "no 'inner evolutionary transformation' and the state was "introduced by external factors." 79. There is, in fact, a “universal disinclination” to relinquish autonomy. The abolition of the free village could only come about through war. 80. In 1500 BCE there were an estimate 600,000 autonomous entities, by the year 2000, this had been reduced to one hundred ninety three. 81. “Force and not enlightened self-interest is the mechanism by which political evolution has led step by step from the autonomous village to the state.” 82. Societies choose subordination over extinction, thus war causes free societies to disappear. 83.

Climate change forced mass migration from the drying zones into the fertile and moist valleys. Previously, there had been the inter-group conflict that we are familiar with in observing band or village societies, which amounted to no more than raiding and feuding. We have also seen how migrants would chose different ecological niches and thus avoid conflict with the original inhabitants. With severe climate change there was seizure and permanent occupation of territory. The conquered valley populations would be more numerous than the invaders and this would lead to the need for a permanent repressive force to keep the vanquished in line. Thus the creation of the first states. The conquered would be made to work for, or at least pay taxes to their conquerors, giving rise to class division.

Slavery is a factor in class formation. Since slavery was practiced thousands of years before class division and in historically existing stateless societies, it is, like agriculture, a precondition for class and state, but not an ultimate cause. Culturally accepted enslavement meant that outsiders were game for exploitation, and it would make sense that with climate change based invasions, the conquered would be forced to work for the conquerors. The precedent had been set, perhaps thousands of years before. The difference was that in earlier times, and in existing stateless societies, slavery (or other forms of exploitation) was not the basis of the economy.

Uruk is believed to be the first state, forming 3200 BCE, but since it is not a Sumerian name, this would indicate conquest of the original population. 84. Peasants “will not automatically produce a surplus that elites might appropriate, but must be compelled to do it” In these early, but imperfect states, this would take the form of forced labour and taxation combined with slavery. 85. Only coercion prevents peasants from using alternative sources of food for subsistence, 86. as we have seen with the free peasant 'mixed economy.'

Terror is never enough to make an unequal society function. 'Soft power' is needed, and thus domination was rationalized through changes in religious ideology and practices. Nature gods were gradually or quickly replaced by tyrannical sky gods, modeled on the conquering warrior kings. Shamans were replaced by a bureaucratic priesthood, who replaced knowledge of the divine through practice with belief in and fear of the gods. These religious developments were uneven and complex. Nature divinities, while playing secondary roles, were incorporated into pantheons along with tyrant gods. Egypt, India and China never really developed a tyrant sky god, and in certain ways remained true to the old partnership religious practices. [Some scholars are of the opinion that the transition from shaman to priest was already happening prior to state formation. See David Lewis-Williams, David Pearce, Inside the Neolithic Mind] The Aztecs and several American dominator societies incorporated shamanistic practices, such as use of psychedelics, in an otherwise violent religion. By about 3000 BCE the dominator triumvirate; class division, state and authoritarian religion was in place in the Middle East and ready to spread like a fatal cancer across the globe.

Notes

1. p. 66 Riane Eisler, The Chalice and the Blade, Harper, 1995 . The list includes pottery, agriculture, towns, two story houses, building with bricks and stone, monumental architecture, weaving, spinning, use of metals, writing, art, music and musical instruments, dance, sail boats, long distance trade, jewelry, wine making and brewing, domestication of animals, use of herbal medicines and psychedelic plants.

2. p. 231 Nancy J. Turner, The Earth's Blanket, Douglas and MacIntyre.

3. p. 185, Richard Leakey, Origins Reconsidered, Doubleday, 1992

4. p. 285, ibid

5. p. 16, Harold Barclay People Without Government, London 1990

6. p. 88, David Lewis-Williams, David Pearce, Inside the Neolithic Mind, Thames and Hudson, 2009

7. p. 75, Robert Wright, Non Zero, Vintage 2000

8. pps. 122-125, ibid

9. p. 95, ibid

10. p. 63, Georges E. Sioui, Huron-Wendat – The History of the Circle, UBC Press, 1999

11. p. 259, D. Price, G.M. Feinman, Foundations of Social Inequality, Plenum, 1995

12. p.68, Ruth Tringham, Hunters, Fishers and Farmers of Eastern Europe, Hutchinson, 1971

13. p. 317, T. Douglas Price, Europe's First Farmers, Cambridge, 2000

14. p. 101. Georges E. Sioui, Huron-Wendat – The History of the Circle, UBC Press, 1999

15. p. 66, R. Douglas Hurt, Indian Agriculture in America, Univ. Of Kansas, 1987

16. p. 67, ibid

17. 35, Paul Lafargue, The Evolution of Property, Kerr, ND

18. Senator Henry Dawes 1883. pps 231, 232 Noam Chomsky, The Year 501, Black Rose 1993

19. p. 205, Brian Fagan, The Long Summer, Basic Books, 2004

20. p 51, D.M. Voskoboynik, “The Memory We Could Be”, New Society 2018

21. p. 110, Paul Lafargue, The Evolution of Property, Kerr, ND

22. Frederick Engels, The Mark, Labor News, NY, 1928.

23. p. 54, Paul Lafargue, The Evolution of Property, Kerr, ND

24. Frederick Engels, The Mark, Labor News, NY, 1928.

25. p. 132, Law in Medieval Russia. Ferdinand Feldbrugge, Martinus Nijhoff, Leiden, 2009

26. p. 53, Paul Lafargue, The Evolution of Property, Kerr, ND

27. pps 227, 229, Jerry Mander, In the Absence of the Sacred, Sierra Club, 1992

28. p. 171 Foundations of Social Inequality, eds D. Price, G.M. Feinman, Plenum, 1995

29. p. 220 Brian Fagan, The Long Summer, Basic Books, 2004

30. p. 21 Chris Arnett, Terror of the Coast, Talonbooks, 1999

31. p. 35, Pere La Jeune, Jesuit Relations 1637, Eleanor Leacock, Myths of Male Dominance, MR, 1981

32. p. 48, ibid

33. p. 44 Paul Robert Megasci, ed, Aboriginal Peoples of Canada, Univ. of Toronto, 1999.

34. p. 129, ibid

35. p. 226, ibid

36. p. 244, ibid

37. p. 249, Foundations of Social Inequality, eds D. Price, G.M. Feinman, Plenum, 1995

38. p. 266, ibid

39. p. 167. Christina Biaggi ed, The Rule of Mars, KIT, 2005.

40. p. 154 Lawrence Flanigan, Ancient Ireland, St. Martins, 1998

41. p. 192, Brian Fagan, The Long Summer, Basic Books, 2004

42. p. 324, Marija Gimbutas, The Civilization of the Goddess, Harper, 1991

43. p. 84, Paul Lafargue, The Evolution of Property, Kerr, ND,

44. p. 65. R. Douglas Hurt, Indian Agriculture in America, Univ. Of Kansas, 1987.

45. p. 83.Georges E. Sioui, Huron-Wendat – The History of the Circle, UBC Press, 1999

46. p. 46. Chris Arnett, Terror of the Coast, Talonbooks, 1999.

47. p. 321, Anna Roosevelt, Amazonian Indians, Univ. Of Arizona, 1994

48. pps 56-57, Peter Lasett, The World We Lost, Methuen, London 1976

49. p. 64, ibid

50. p. 51 John R. Saul, A Fair Country, Viking 2008

51. p. 75, Patricia Phillips, Early Farmers of the Western Mediterranean, Hutchinson, 1975

52. p. 130, 145, ibid

53. pps 159-161 Lawrence Flanigan, Ancient Ireland, St. Martins, 1998

54. p. 39, Aboriginal Peoples of Canada, ed Paul Robert Megasci, Univ. of Toronto, 1999.

55. p. 252, ibid

56. p. 87, ibid

57. pps. 166, 168. Georges E. Sioui, Huron-Wendat – The History of the Circle, UBC Press, 1999

58. pps 321, 323, 329. Anna Roosevelt, Amazonian Indians, Univ. Of Arizona, 1994

59. pps. 84, 86 Chris Arnett, Terror of the Coast, Talonbooks, 1999

60. https://arstechnica.com/.../evidence-that-humans-had...

61. pps. 21, 22, James C. Scott, Against the Grain, Yale, 2017

62. p. 49, ibid

63. p. 148, Jared Diamond, The World Until Yesterday, Viking 2012

64. p. 75, Jean Manco, Ancestral Journeys, Thames and Hudson, 2013

65. p. 82 ibid.

66. p. 73, Ruth Tringham, Hunters, Fishers and Farmers of Eastern Europe.

67. p. 104, Jean Manco, Ancestral Journeys, Thames and Hudson, 2013

68. p. 304, S. Huzayyin, Mans Role in Changing the Face of the Earth, Vol. 1, W.L. Thomas, ed. Univ. Chicago 1973

69. p. 121, James C. Scott, Against the Grain, Yale, 2017

70. See Eric H. Cline, 1177 BC, The Year Civilization Collapsed, Princeton, 2014.

71. p. 106, 115, Harry Thurston, Island of the Blessed, Doubleday, 2003.

72. pps 140, 141, Micheal A. Hoffman, Egypt Before the Pharaohs, Dorest Press, 1979

73. pps. 176 and 195, ibid

74. pps 213, 214, ibid

75. 131, Harry Thurston, Island of the Blessed, Doubleday, 2003.

76. pps 299, 301, Micheal A. Hoffman, Egypt Before the Pharaohs, Dorest Press, 1979

77. p. 205, Ruth Tringham, Hunters, Fishers and Farmers of Eastern Europe. See also pps 126 and 130, Jean Manco, Ancestral Journeys, Thames and Hudson, 2013

78. p. 389 Gimbutas, p. 168, Biaggi.

79. p. 59, Robert Wright, Non Zero, Vintage 2000

80. p. 209, ibid

81. Robert Carniero quoted p. 62, ibid

82. p. 57 ibid

83. p. 119, James C. Scott, Against the Grain, Yale, 2017

84. p. 152, ibid

85. p. 153, ibid