Political Egalitarianism During the Last Glacial
* Article: The causes and scope of political egalitarianism during the Last Glacial: a multi-disciplinary perspective. By Doron Shultziner, Thomas Stevens, et al. Biol Philos, 2010.
Abstract
"This paper reviews and synthesizes emerging multi-disciplinary evidence toward understanding the development of social and political organization in the Last Glacial. Evidence for the prevalence and scope of political egalitarianism is reviewed and the biological, social, and environmental influences on this mode of human organization are further explored."
Excerpts
The definition of Political Egalitarianism
Martin Stevens, Brian A. Stewart, et al. :
"Political egalitarianism is a social organization in which decisions are reached through deliberation and consensus; individuals do not command authority over, or coerce, other group members; social status, honor, and positions (if and when they exist) are voluntarily granted or withdrawn, and not inherited; and individuals can freely leave their group peers or residence. Political hierarchy is a social organization with opposite characteristics."
The larger context of the interplay between environment, biology, and culture
Rebecca J. Hannagan, Giulia Saltini-Semerari et al. :
"Political egalitarianism during the Last Glacial needs to be tied to a larger context of the interplay between environment, biology, and culture. As Richard Alexander remarked, the important issues are ‘‘who or what decides which novelties will be perpetuated, and how is this decided? On what basis are cultural changes spread or lost?’’ (Alexander 1979, p. 73). For our purposes, we can ask why social dynamics among nomadic foragers give rise to politically egalitarian structures and leveling practices, and not to hierarchical ones. Political egalitarianism among nomadic foragers is a product of a long evolutionary process. Homo sapiens evolved from a lineage of hominids.
Our closest living relatives from this evolutionary process are the chimpanzee and bonobos. There is no direct evidence about the social organization of our nonhuman ancestors during the approximately past five million years. What is known is that our primate ancestors evolved through several evolutionary trajectories: skeletons were adapted to a reduction in arboreal life-history; bipedal locomotion (upright walking) emerged (for a variety of explanations for this change see Kingdon 2003); and brain-size increased considerably relative to body size— encephalization (Krogman 1997; McHenry and Coffing 2000). About 2.6 million years ago our ancestors began experimenting with stone tools and later created bifacial hand-axes (Klein 2000). More importantly, hominids experienced a reduction in sexual dimorphism, which serves as indirect evidence about social organization in hominids (see section ‘‘Hominids and political egalitarianism: a physical-anthropological perspective’’). Given evidence of bi-pedalism, encephalization, and reduction in sexual dimorphism, questions arise about what influence this may have had on social organization in nomadic foragers and how it relates to the apparent universality of political egalitarianism. We argue that evolutionary theory can explain the emergence of an egalitarian social organization. The tendency for dominance behavior and hierarchical structure counterbalances itself when applied to all group members (Erdal and Whiten 1994). An individual in the group will have a biological advantage over other individuals should that individual manage to dominate the social organization.
There are considerable fitness advantages to those who monopolize high rank and status in hierarchical structures through enhanced reproductive success, higher progeny survival rates, and increased access to food and safe spatial localities (Boone 2000; de Waal 1982; Pusey et al. 1997; Zahavi et al. 1997; and see also Chagnon 1979; Grammer 1996; Hill 1984; Irons 1979; Kaplan and Hill 1985a,b; Turke and Betzig 1985; Wiessner 1996a, b). Conversely, each individual member also has a biological interest not to be dominated for exactly the same reasons. In other words, individuals strive to achieve high status and rank in their groups to maximize their fitness, and at the same time individuals tend to resist being dominated because this reduces their fitness. This logic also underlies the fierce competition (sometimes to death) between group members (including kin) and also explains why top ranks are highly changeable in many species. For males, hierarchy leads to few winners and many losers in the reproductive game, as alphas and their coalitions keep lower ranking males from mating opportunities. Yet, females have as much an interest in social organization as males (Hannagan 2008). Hierarchy can create a situation of reproductive constraint and lower offspring viability not only for males but also for females (Gowaty et al. 2007). Therefore, in non-human primates, females often neutralize male interests when they do not coincide with their own, and do so both individually and in coalitions (Hrdy 1981, 1999, 2009; Smuts 1995). Bonobos are an important example of this intra-group dynamic that involves coalitions of females that dominate the social organization (Knauft 1991, p. 386; de Waal 2001; Susman 1987). In the context of human forgers, cooperation in child rearing is an evolutionary beneficial strategy (Hrdy 2009). Female preference of males who not only are competent providers but also willingly share resources adds another dimension to understanding forager social organization. It is not surprising that women in foraging bands often have influence over political decision-making, conflict resolution, and they can also be found in leadership positions (Boehm 1999, pp. 7–9; Kelly 1995; Freedman 1980, pp. 336–337; Leacock 1978; Lee 1979; Power 1991: Chap. 6; Turnbull 1968).
Political egalitarianism among nomadic foragers is not an effortless or static state in which all members accept the egalitarian ethos; it is accompanied by repeated attempts by individuals who test the limits of group norms (Boehm 1993, 1999; Cashdan 1980). Women are as likely as men to curb the deviant behavior of those ‘‘upstarts’’ who attempt to disrupt or violate group norms (Boehm 1999, pp. 8–9; Power 1991; Erdal and Whiten 1994; Knauft 1991). The prevalence and multiplicity of leveling mechanisms that were noted above is a strong testimony for these two countervailing tendencies. On the one hand, the fact that foragers need leveling mechanisms means that there is an innate tendency of some individuals to exaggerate their rank and status. On the other hand, there exists an innate tendency to thwart others’ attempts to gain power because it may become dangerous and harmful to oneself and one’s peers (Wiessner 1996a, p. 12). The existence of these two opposing tendencies in Homo sapiens as well as in other species strengthens the idea that political egalitarianism is not a sudden departure from ancient dominance behavior patterns. Political egalitarianism emerged because dominance behavior became more restricted in the course of evolution and because strict hierarchical structures became maladaptive. As Erdal and Whiten (1994, p. 177) put it, ‘‘dominance behaviour was not entirely lost in evolution but was balanced by counter-dominant tendencies which only evolved because they provided fitness advantages in the ecological and social environments of the time.’’ Individuals can form manifold coalitions that practically prevent any one individual from controlling other band members. The invention of hunting weapons, especially projectile ones, makes physical power an ineffective means of group control compared to social sophistication. Power-hungry individuals who attempt to forcefully dominate others are stopped (either peacefully or forcefully) by other group members who do not share the interest of the former. Upon changing these highly mobile group conditions and group size, the disposition to seek high status and rank may become unchecked and leveling mechanisms may become ineffective, consequently leading to political hierarchy (Cashdan 1980, pp. 119120). Such were the manifest consequences of the ecological transformations at the end of the Pleistocene, although many foragers and horticulturists continued to maintain political egalitarianism even with sedentary life and under different subsistence economies due to individuals’ aversion to being dominated (Boehm 1993, 1999; see also section ‘‘Discussion: political egalitarianism and the transition to political hierarchy’’).
Conclusion
While variability of social organization remains a theoretical possibility, it is very unlikely that the social organization spectrum during the Last Glacial contained substantial, if any, political hierarchy. It is hard to see how such a form of social organization could have been generated and sustained under the ecological conditions of that period that would not have permitted enough time for sedentary forms of living and agriculture to be established (see Richerson et al. 2001). The subsistence economies and social organization forms of complex foragers are therefore unlikely models for reconstructing Last Glacial human life. The attainment of prestige and status in the Last Glacial would have also been confined to, and constrained by, the modes of subsistence economy characterizing egalitarian nomadic foragers (see also Bliege Bird and Smith 2005, pp. 233–235). While ethnographical models have offered new tools for modeling political structures according to internal (social and ideological) rather than external (ecological and demographic) factors as prime movers in political change (Price and Feinman 1995), ethnography has also engendered a real sense of how significant the role played by the environment is to this process (Hayden 1990). For the development of hierarchical social structures, for example, social factors are essential but not sufficient—high degrees of resource abundance and stability are also essential. As recent data shows, at least one dramatic change in the environment most probably occurred within a decade or less in the span of a mature person’s life. This surely encouraged highly mobile, flexible, fluid, and most probably egalitarian forms of social organization. There is indeed little convincing archaeological evidence demonstrating that human beings maintained year-round settlements or structured political hierarchy during the Last Glacial.
This synthesis of research sets the stage for cross-disciplinary discussions as well as more focused hypotheses testing. After all, the role of theory is both to interpret existing data and guide the search for new pertinent data. Our hypothesis that social organization during the Last Glacial was predominantly politically egalitarian may affect interpretation of social behavior and organization in earlier Homo fossils as suggested in section ‘‘Hominids and political egalitarianism: a physical-anthropological perspective’’. The question whether egalitarian social organization predominanted human evolution is also relevant to hypothesis testing in evolutionary psychology (Tooby and Cosmides 1992) and in particular for drawing attention to cognitive mechanisms which may be associated with the maintenance of political egalitarianism, such as mediating responses to over-assertive individuals (e.g. Larimer et al. 2007). Lastly, a multi-disciplinary perspective such as the one presented in this paper can help revitalize stagnated discussions and old debates within isolated disciplines, and inject them with a more comprehensive understanding of the nature and evolution of human social organization."