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there is not sufficient evidence to determine if in the Stone Age people had private property, nuclear families and monogamous relationships

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we do, however, have some evidence of what political and social life was like

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Sungir burial site

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28,000 to 30,000 years old

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discovered in 1955

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200 kilometers east of Moscow

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a society of mammoth hunters

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wolly mammoth

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10,000 disappeared from mainland

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4,000 years ago on Wrangel island

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main grave

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50 year old man

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strings of ivory beads made from mammoth

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3000 ivory beads

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other graves

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had less beads

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deduced that the one man was of higher rank than the others

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the children of Sungir

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two skeletons buried head to head

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one to a boy, 12 years old

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another to a girl, 9 years old, deformity on hip

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boy had hat with teeth of foxes, a belt which had 250 teeth of foxes

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at least 60 foxes had to have their teeth pulled out to make this

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girl had 2550 ivory beads

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surrounded by ivory statues

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10,000 ivory beads which covered these children required about 7,500 hours of delicate work by very experienced craftsmen, i.e. three years of combined labor

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it is unlikely that these young children were physical chiefs or leaders of this group of humans, only cultural beliefs can explain why these young children received such an extravagant burial.

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theory #1: perhaps these children were children of chiefs in a culture which believed in familial inheritance and strict rules of succession

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theory #2: at birth these children were identified as a reincarnated spirit

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theory #3: children were ordinary people ritually sacrificed and buried with objects which required much labor as a payment to the gods

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the children of Sungir are the best evidence we have that 30,000 years ago Homo sapiens could invent social political codes that went far beyond the dictates of our DNA. There is nothing like the burial of these children of Sungir among the Neanderthals.

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this burial is also a clear indication that in human bands there were hierarchy and social inequality

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warfare

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did ancient bands like the Sungir people fight their neighbors or not?

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theory #1: wars on a large scale started only after the agricultural revolution when people started to acquire property

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wars among ancient foragers was exceptionally cruel and violent

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both schools of thought have very little evidence

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the most evidence are present day forager societies

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live mainly in isolated areas like the arctic and Kalahari desert

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for these people, the opportunity to find other peoples to war with are very low

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these foragers are increasingly subject to the authority of modern states who do not their subjects fighting with one another

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anthropologists had only two main opportunities to observer large and dense population of foragers who were independetly of the control of modern states

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northwestern part of Alaska and Canada in 19th century

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in Australia in 19th and early 20th century

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in relatively fertile area with many hunter/gatherer bands

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in both cases, anthropologists found a high frequency of armed conflict

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archeological evidence is meager and

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we have no evidence of large-scale violence between people from more than about 20,000 years ago, yet we have very little evidence of anything from that time, so we don't know if inter-band violence was common or nto

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from 20,000 and 10,000 there are evidence which support both violent and peaceful theories

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only 2 of 400 skeletons in Portugal found evidence of humans dying from violence

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violence to skulls found in 18 out of 400 skeletons in Danube valley

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today the global average is 1.5%

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in 20th century, only 5% of people died from human-caused death, so this would mean that pre-agricultural humans in Danube valley was just as violent as 20th century

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Jebel Sahaba

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12,000 years ago

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contains 59 skeletons

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40% of the skeletons had arrowheads and spear points stuck in them

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Offnet cave in Bavaria

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remains of 38 foragers

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clear signs of human weapons such as knives and clubs

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injuries on older male skeletons worse

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just as today, they probably had a certain areas with various violence rates

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it's important to realize that people who lived 10,000-12,000 years ago may have had very rich, exciting and troublesome lives just as we have today, various events, religious movements, and artistic pieces even if we haven't found the remains

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in the last 10-15 years genetic evidence has provided more answers about ancient forager humans

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we know close to nothing about 60,000 years of our 70,000 year history, and these 60,000 years were very important since humans in that time shaped the world around us, and brought about changes in the ecology in these areas

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corrected

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monogomous

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monogamous

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hiearchary

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hierarchy