From Aboriginal Equality to Limited and Unstable Inequality

2021 ◽  
pp. 73-110
Author(s):  
Jon D. Wisman
Keyword(s):  
Homo Sapiens ◽  
Social Hierarchy ◽  
Incentive Structure ◽  
Political Equality ◽  
Hunter Gatherers ◽  
Material Condition ◽  
Material Goods ◽  
Ready Availability ◽  
History Of ◽  
Limited Degree

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.

Hunter-gatherers on the best-seller list: Steven Pinker and the “Bellicose School's” treatment of forager violence

2014 ◽  
Vol 6 (4) ◽  
pp. 216-228 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard B. Lee
Keyword(s):  
Homo Sapiens ◽  
Human Populations ◽  
Hunter Gatherers ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Lethal Violence ◽  
Use Of Data ◽  
Hunting And Gathering ◽  
History Of ◽  
Early Farmers ◽  
Philosophical Debates

Purpose – The question of violence in hunter-gatherer society has animated philosophical debates since at least the seventeenth century. Steven Pinker has sought to affirm that civilization, is superior to the state of humanity during its long history of hunting and gathering. The purpose of this paper is to draw upon a series of recent studies that assert a baseline of primordial violence by hunters and gatherers. In challenging this position the author draws on four decades of ethnographic and historical research on hunting and gathering peoples. Design/methodology/approach – At the empirical heart of this question is the evidence pro- and con- for high rates of violent death in pre-farming human populations. The author evaluates the ethnographic and historical evidence for warfare in recorded hunting and gathering societies, and the archaeological evidence for warfare in pre-history prior to the advent of agriculture. Findings – The view of Steven Pinker and others of high rates of lethal violence in hunters and gatherers is not sustained. In contrast to early farmers, their foraging precursors lived more lightly on the land and had other ways of resolving conflict. With little or no fixed property they could easily disperse to diffuse conflict. The evidence points to markedly lower levels of violence for foragers compared to post-Neolithic societies. Research limitations/implications – This conclusion raises serious caveats about the grand evolutionary theory asserted by Steven Pinker, Richard Wrangham and others. Instead of being “killer apes” in the Pleistocene and Holocene, the evidence indicates that early humans lived as relatively peaceful hunter-gathers for some 7,000 generations, from the emergence of Homo sapiens up until the invention of agriculture. Therefore there is a major gap between the purported violence of the chimp-like ancestors and the documented violence of post-Neolithic humanity. Originality/value – This is a critical analysis of published claims by authors who contend that ancient and recent hunter-gatherers typically committed high levels of violent acts. It reveals a number of serious flaws in their arguments and use of data.

scholarly journals Population inter-connectivity over the past 120,000 years explains distribution and diversity of Central African hunter-gatherers

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cecilia Padilla-Iglesias ◽  
Lane Atmore ◽  
Jesus Olivero ◽  
Karen Lupo ◽  
Andrea Manica ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Homo Sapiens ◽  
Central Africa ◽  
Modern Human ◽  
Archaeological Sites ◽  
Effective Population ◽  
Hunter Gatherers ◽  
The Past ◽  
Population Sizes ◽  
History Of ◽  
Local Differentiation

The evolutionary history of African hunter-gatherers holds key insights into modern human diversity. Here we combine ethnographic and genetic data on Central African hunter-gatherers (CAHG) to show that their current distribution and density is explained by ecology rather than by a displacement to marginal habitats due to recent farming expansions, as commonly assumed. We also predicted hunter-gatherer presence across Central Africa over the past 120,000 years using paleoclimatic reconstructions, which were statistically validated by dated archaeological sites. Finally, we show that genomic estimates of separation times between CAHG groups match our ecological estimates of periods favouring population splits, and that recoveries of connectivity would have facilitated subsequent gene-flow. Our results reveal that CAHG stem from a deep history of partially connected populations. This form of sociality allowed the coexistence of relatively large effective population sizes and local differentiation, with important implications for the evolution of genetic and cultural diversity in Homo sapiens.

State-Sponsored Inequality

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shuang Chen
Keyword(s):  
Qing Dynasty ◽  
Social Stratification ◽  
Social Hierarchy ◽  
The State ◽  
Structural Inequality ◽  
Political Hierarchy ◽  
History Of ◽  
Agrarian Societies ◽  
Stratification System ◽  
The Many

The book explores the social economic processes of inequality produced by differential state entitlements. Drawing on uniquely rich source materials from central and local archives, the book provides an unprecedented, comprehensive view of the creation of a socio-economic and political hierarchy under the Eight Banners in the Qing dynasty in what is now Shuangcheng County, Heilongjiang province. Shuangcheng was settled by bannermen from urban Beijing and elsewhere in rural Manchuria in the nineteenth century. The state classified the immigrants into distinct categories, each associated with differentiated land entitlements. By reconstructing the history of settlement and land distribution in this county, the book shows that patterns of wealth stratification and the underlying social hierarchy were not merely imposed by the state from the top-down but created and reinforced by local people through practices on the ground. In the course of pursuing their own interests, settlers internalized the distinctions created by the state through its system of unequal land entitlements. The tensions built into the unequal land entitlements therefore shaped the identities of immigrant groups, and this social hierarchy persisted after the fall of the Qing in 1911. The book offers an in-depth understanding of the key factors that contributed to social stratification in agrarian societies in the nineteenth- and early twentieth-century China. Moreover, it also sheds light on the many parallels between the stratification system in Qing-dynasty Shuangcheng and the structural inequality in contemporary China.

The Property Species

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bart J. Wilson
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Linguistics ◽  
Homo Sapiens ◽  
Fundamental Principle ◽  
First Century ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Full Account ◽  
Symbolic Thought ◽  
Core Property ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of

What is property, and why does our species happen to have it? The Property Species explores how Homo sapiens acquires, perceives, and knows the custom of property, and why it might be relevant for understanding how property works in the twenty-first century. Arguing from some hard-to-dispute facts that neither the natural sciences nor the humanities—nor the social sciences squarely in the middle—are synthesizing a full account of property, this book offers a cross-disciplinary compromise that is sure to be controversial: All human beings and only human beings have property in things, and at its core, property rests on custom, not rights. Such an alternative to conventional thinking contends that the origins of property lie not in food, mates, territory, or land, but in the very human act of creating, with symbolic thought, something new that did not previously exist. Integrating cognitive linguistics with the philosophy of property and a fresh look at property disputes in the common law, this book makes the case that symbolic-thinking humans locate the meaning of property within a thing. The provocative implications are that property—not property rights—is an inherent fundamental principle of economics, and that legal realists and the bundle-of-sticks metaphor are wrong about the facts regarding property. Written by an economist who marvels at the natural history of humankind, the book is essential reading for experts and any reader who has wondered why people claim things as “Mine!,” and what that means for our humanity.

Introduction

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gianfranco Pacchioni
Keyword(s):  
Industrial Revolution ◽  
Homo Sapiens ◽  
Modern Society ◽  
Full Time ◽  
Human Race ◽  
Hunter Gatherers ◽  
The Past ◽  
The World ◽  
The Universe ◽  
Radical Transformation

About 10,000 years ago, at the beginning of the agriculturalrevolution, on the whole earth lived between 5 and 8 million hunter-gatherers, all belonging to the Homo sapiens species. Five thousand years later, freed from the primary needs for survival, some belonging to that species enjoyed the privilege of devoting themselves to philosophical speculation and the search for transcendental truths. It was only in the past two hundred years, however, with the advent of the Industrial Revolution, that reaping nature’s secrets and answering fundamental questions posed by the Universe have become for many full-time activities, on the way to becoming a real profession. Today the number of scientists across the globe has reached and exceeded 10 million, that is, more than the whole human race 10,000 years ago. If growth continues at the current rate, in 2050 we will have 35 million people committed full-time to scientific research. With what consequences, it remains to be understood. For almost forty years I myself have been concerned with science in a continuing, direct, and passionate way. Today I perceive, along with many colleagues, especially of my generation, that things are evolving and have changed deeply, in ways unimaginable until a few years ago and, in some respects, not without danger. What has happened in the world of science in recent decades is more than likely a mirror of a similar and equally radical transformation taking place in modern society, particularly with the advent ...

scholarly journals An Illustrated Shiʿi Pilgrimage Scroll in the Collections of the Royal Asiatic Society

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-25
Author(s):  
ULRICH MARZOLPH ◽  
MATHILDE RENAULD
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Visual Narrative ◽  
Early Nineteenth Century ◽  
Asiatic Society ◽  
Material Condition ◽  
Visual Dimension ◽  
History Of ◽  
Initial Survey ◽  
Royal Asiatic Society

Abstract The collections of the Royal Asiatic Society hold an illustrated pilgrimage scroll apparently dating from the first half of the nineteenth century. The scroll's hand painted images relate to the journey that a pious Shiʿi Muslim would have undertaken after the performance of the pilgrimage to Mecca. Its visual narrative continues, first to Medina and then to the Shiʿi sanctuaries in present-day Iraq, concluding in the Iranian city of Mashhad at the sanctuary of the eighth imam of the Twelver-Shiʿi creed, imam Riḍā (d. 818). The scroll was likely prepared in the early nineteenth century and acquired by the Royal Asiatic Society from its unknown previous owner sometime after 1857. In terms of chronology the pilgrimage scroll fits neatly into the period between the Niebuhr scroll, bought in Karbala in 1765, and a lithographed item most likely dating from the latter half of the nineteenth century, both of which depict a corresponding journey. The present essay's initial survey of the scroll's visual dimension, by Ulrich Marzolph, adds hitherto unknown details to the history of similar objects. The concluding report, by Mathilde Renauld, sheds light on the scroll's material condition and the difficulties encountered during the object's conservation and their solution.

Cog in the Wheel of Patronage

Urbanisation ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 135-141
Author(s):  
Deepak Sanan
Keyword(s):  
Civil Service ◽  
Local Administration ◽  
Incentive Structure ◽  
Mountain Areas ◽  
Rural And Urban ◽  
Administrative Service ◽  
Making A Difference ◽  
History Of ◽  
Person Account ◽  
Limited Scope

This is a brief history of a career in the generalist higher civil service of India called the Indian Administrative Service (IAS). The article brings out the incentive structure which confronts a civil servant seeking to deliver better outcomes in the making and implementation of public policy in India. The peculiarities of India’s federal system of inter-governmental transfers, the constraints, dilemmas and limited scope for making a difference, are all explored in an anecdotal format in this first-person account of a career spanning three and a half decades. The author begins with his reasons for joining the civil service, his initial years of heading the local administration in remote mountain areas and moves on to an analysis of various postings at state and central levels, including stints in finance, rural and urban development, water, sanitation, health, land and power sectors. Each segment attempts to explain different facets and nuances of both the limits and potential of a career choice in the premier civil service of India.

scholarly journals W poszukiwaniu początków oraz prób zrozumienia „zachowań symbolicznych”. Zarys problematyki

2020 ◽  
Vol 25 ◽  
pp. 91-108
Author(s):  
Bożena Józefów-Czerwińska
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Subject Matter ◽  
Homo Sapiens ◽  
Modern Science ◽  
Hunter Gatherers ◽  
Negative Stereotypes ◽  
Academic Literature ◽  
Animal World

In academic literature there is a whole range of hypotheses relating to the genesis of the symbolic behavior, which are usually also associated with the beginnings of the development of spirituality. In the nineteenth century, the considerations conducted in this area were often influenced by negative stereotypes (relating, among others, to hunter-gatherers), which were later deconstructed. Although the discussion on this subject has been ongoing since the nineteenth century, even in the light of research and achievements of the modern science, the problem of the origins of symbolic behavior has still not been unequivocally resolved. However, it is assumed that they should be attributed primarily to the changes that were initiated in our ancestors from the Homo Sapiens family. In recent years, however, some ethologists and primatologists believe that the genesis of symbolic behavior should be sought in the animal world. I devote my article to this diversified subject matter.

scholarly journals Effect of population structure and migration when investigating genetic continuity using ancient DNA

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
NM Silva ◽  
S Kreutzer ◽  
C Papageorgopoulou ◽  
M Currat
Keyword(s):  
Population Structure ◽  
Ancient Dna ◽  
Isolated Populations ◽  
Hunter Gatherers ◽  
History Of ◽  
Genetic Continuity ◽  
Population Continuity ◽  
Local Hunter ◽  
And Migration ◽  
Genetic Pool

AbstractRecent advances in sequencing techniques provide means to access direct genetic snapshots from the past with ancient DNA data (aDNA) from diverse periods of human prehistory. Comparing samples taken in the same region but at different time periods may indicate if there is continuity in the peopling history of that area or if a large genetic input, such as an immigration wave, has occurred. Here we propose a new modeling approach for investigating population continuity using aDNA, including two fundamental elements in human evolution that were absent from previous methods: population structure and migration. The method also considers the extensive temporal and geographic heterogeneity commonly found in aDNA datasets. We compare our spatially-explicit approach to the previous non-spatial method and show that it is more conservative and thus suitable for testing population continuity, especially when small, isolated populations, such as prehistoric ones, are considered. Moreover, our approach also allows investigating partial population continuity and we apply it to a real dataset of ancient mitochondrial DNA. We estimate that 91% of the current genetic pool in central Europe entered the area with immigrant Neolithic farmers, but a genetic contribution of local hunter-gatherers as large as 83% cannot be entirely ruled out.

‘Old Mobilities’? Transatlantic Women from the West of Ireland 1880s–1920s

2015 ◽  
Vol 23 (2) ◽  
pp. 49-68 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bronwen Walter
Keyword(s):  
East Coast ◽  
First Century ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
The West ◽  
Chain Migration ◽  
Material Goods ◽  
The Usa ◽  
History Of ◽  
Late Nineteenth ◽  
West Of Ireland

The ‘new mobilities paradigm’ set out by Sheller and Urry (2006) and others urges social scientists to centre many interlocking mobilities in their analyses of contemporary social change, challenging taken-for-granted sedentarism. Drawing on the example of Irish women's chain migration from small farms in the West of Ireland to the East coast of the USA in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, this paper explores a longer history of high levels of mobility. Whilst migration lay at the heart of the movement, it encompassed a much wider range of movements of people, information and material goods. The ‘moorings’ of women in the their workplace-homes on rural farms and in urban domestic service constituted a gendered immobility, but migration also opened up new opportunities for intra-urban moves, circulatory Transatlantic journeys and upward social mobility. The materiality of such ‘old’ mobility provides an early baseline against which to assess the huge scale of rapidly-changing hyper-mobility and instantaneous communication in the twenty-first century.

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