Basic Anthropology: How to Organize a Society
Okay, that's it. I am trying to do a beginner friendly introduction to some ideas of modern anthropology, mostly because I am sick an tired of people spreading ideas in this regard that have been outdated since like the late 1990s.
I am going to try some very simple explanations. Sources for most of this are from David Graeber's book "The Dawn of Everything" (and the papers quoted in that).
How did early humans live?
Early humans lived in small groups/tribes of probably between 15 and 100 people, depending on the region. Current believe is that most groups averaged between 30 and 50 people. They lived as foragers and hunters.
Contrary to old myths it was not a "men hunt, and women father/raise kids", but a "whoever has a talent for either does that".
We also have a lot of evidence that it was generally a society built on some compassion, as we found several graves of early homo sapiens with severe disabilities, that have survived until adulthood.
There were probably little hierarchies within the groups. Decisions were probably mostly formed based on consens.
We also have very little evidence suggesting that these humans pair-bonded. So yes, monogamy was probably not on the menu for most of these early human groups. Instead children were conceived at whatever chance given, and raised within the group, as some indigenous cultures still do it to this day.
Why did humans start farming?
The common narrative is, that at some point some humans in some river valleys figured out that you could put seed into the ground and then shit would grow, so they started doing that, because it was easier than forraging.
Two problems with this narrative:
Actually it is not easier than forraging, studies have shown that agricultural work tends to be harder than forraging, and this would have been even more true in a world before environmental destruction and climate change. We also have a variaty of oral traditions from forraging cultures explicitly saying: "Hey, kids, don't farm. It will make you bloody miserable."
Humans are very intelligent. So, given that we did not start agriculture until like 10 000 to 15 000 years ago, while we have been around since 200 000 years, it is just not believable, that in the 190 000 years before no human figured out that if you put seed into the ground, stuff will grow.
We also know that a lot of cultures had a very, very long transitional period, in which they did some farming, but mostly consisted of forraging. Chances are, that some cultures were pushed into farming through environmental factors, while others were pushed into it by cultural factors.
Why farming created issues
Farming created one main issue: when forragers realize that they cannot forrage in an area any longer, they tend to have little restrictions to moving onto the next area. They are after all not too invested into a small area. Farmers meanwhile have that issue: getting a field properly started and all is a lot of work, meaning there is a lot more worth in it. This means, that people might want to own the field, and the tools needed to work it. As well as the seeds and so on and so forth. And this was a basis for conflct.
Now, for some of the ancient societies we have information on we know that this conflict did not arise instantly, but at some point it did. Basically some fields had better harvest and now everyone wanted to own those fields.
And at the same time people became more invested in keeping the fields and everything they yielded in their family.
Let me quickly explain some terms, because I know a lot of folks are confused as hell over them:
Patriarchy: a patriarchy is a society in which men tend to hold more power then women. Usually inheritance is given from a man to his sons (patrilinear inheritende). This often means that women are forced into bonding to one man only, so he can ensure that the children inhereting from him are his. This often means stricter and stricter restriction on women and enforcemnt of heteronormativity.
Matriarchy: a matriarchy is a society in which women tend to hold more power than men. Usually inheritance is given from a mother to her children, with the daughters receiving more. As mothers always know the identity of their children, men tend to be a lot freer in these societies than women under patriarchy, as their sexual fidelity is not needed. If there is a form of marriage, it tends to not be exclusive. The highest ranking members of society tend to be old women
Egalitarianism: an egalitarian society is one without strict hierarchies. Usually these live together in tribes, rather than any form of pure familiar bound house. At times there are not even clear languages to describe familiar relations (or rather: all women are "mother" and all men are "father" to any child raised within the group). Often decisions are made through discussion and consense - or by some sort of voting system.
Again, there is ample evidence that even those early farming cultures were matriarchal. But in many cases eventually patriarchy came from it due to one reason.
Why matriarchies turn into patriarchies, but not the other way
The main reason anthropologists think that patriarchies were way more common when we started to actually look into how humans live, is that matriarchies do not control men.
As mentioned above: there might be a chance, that some few matriarchies like Minoa did, but at large, this was not the case. As noted: for the base function of the society it was not needed. It does not matter with how many women a man sleeps if the only thing that matters is the matrilinear line.
But this also means that some men were able to use this low control environment to get more power to themselves. And it is quite likely that at some point they then wanted to allow their sons to inherit. Hence they pushed for patrilinear inheritence and from that grew the patriarchy.
And as patriarchies meanwhile allow women way less freedom, it is less likely for matriarchies to supplant patriarchies than the other way around.
Patriarchy is in fact not more suited for survival
A lot of the EvoPsych idiots love to talk about how totally amazing patriarchy is from an evolutionary point of view. Just one problem: it actually isn't.
Evolution wants as many of your genes to live on as possible. Which requires more children to survive. It also does not matter that much if your children or that of your siblings survive, as a lot of your genes still are in that mix then.
Science has shown again and again that children raised by larger, more complex groups (like a tribe/clan structure, rather than a nuclear family) have higher odds of survival. Which then makes for more successful "survival of the fittest" and such.
tl;dr: Please, please try to understand why societies have developed the way they did. And do not assume that anything you see in today's societies is "natural" for humans, because most of it is not.
I will see if can write something next week. Because I sure wish more people learned abotu anthropology.
