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Just accepted @EvolHumBehav: @HSB_Lab & I argue for social diversity during the Late Pleistocene w/ bigger groups, more hierarchy, etc. Preprint & summary in this older š§µ, so Iāll focus on how our argument differs from @DavidWengrow's #TheDawnOfEverything
Like @DavidGraeber & @DavidWengrow, we argue that the classic story (small, mobile, egalitarian bands before agriculture) needs a facelift. We point to some similar evidence (e.g., social flexibility & diversity among Holocene hunter-gatherers). Yet there are 4 major differences: 
(1) We draw on (& embrace) behavioral ecology, which analyzes behavior using an evolutionary & ecological lens. In contrast to G&W, we argue that ecology shapes societies, w/ dense, reliable (esp. aquatic) resources more often sustaining larger, sedentary, stratified groups.
Four leading historians offer their thoughts on #TheDawnOfEverything (1/6)
radioopensource.org/a-new-history-ā¦
radioopensource.org/a-new-history-ā¦
@ 12:20 Philip Deloria - Harvardās Professor of Native American History - on the Indigenous critique of European society as a force in history and its implications from past to present
#TheDawnOfEverything (2/6)
#TheDawnOfEverything (2/6)
@ 32:20 Joyce Chaplin - Harvardās Professor of Early American History - on deep time, environmental justice, and why rethinking the big questions of human history matters so much now
#TheDawnOfEverything (3/6)
#TheDawnOfEverything (3/6)
Bonus š§µ(4a?) for #TheDawnOfEverything aka #Theteatimeofeverything on @davidgraeber and @davidwengrow 's notion of ritual 'property'. See what they mean first, then a case study with the Hadza!
So G + W have section end ch.4, pp. 156-163, on ritual 'property' and the sacred, where property refers not only to things, but to knowledge, secrets, songs, dances... absolutely fine, these were often the most valued 'property' that people had to pay (in some way) to access
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And in their interesting accounts of North American h-g monumental sites, they suggest these were likely gathering places for dissemination of such ritual knowledge (likely within very bounded gender initiation groups).
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#Theteatimeofeverything vs actual #thedawnofeverything
š§µNo.4 on Ch.4, immediate return, James Woodburn, yay-they-agree-on-deep-rooted human aversion to dominance (thanks guys!)š„° And getting stuck, plus ritual 'property'. Lots here 1/
š§µNo.4 on Ch.4, immediate return, James Woodburn, yay-they-agree-on-deep-rooted human aversion to dominance (thanks guys!)š„° And getting stuck, plus ritual 'property'. Lots here 1/
Not much to argue with in the 1st part. @davidgraeber and @davidwengrow only refer to Upper Pal again, but we'd strongly agree that the #HumanRevolution in Africa, taking us beyond Africa involved transcontinental chains of connection. We've only got more parochial ever since 2/
@davidgraeber @davidwengrow As they say (pp.124-5), ever-growing parochialism makes getting stuck under domination more likely. Global horizons of free movement prevent that. We'll leave aside quibbles on egalitarianism (NOT 'being the same') and go to James Woodburn, expert of egalitarian societies 3/
So #TheDawnOfEverything ch.3 after they trash Africa! Won't get thru this tonite, since Jack š demanding head rubs. But let's go ...1/
This is about Graeber/Wengrow's model of oscillation between consciously adopted social 'morphologies' -- differing forms of sociopolitical organisation -- shifted by season, applied to the puzzling ostentatious burials of the Upper Pal. This is as far back as they go.
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1st, it's really really refreshing for social anthropologists to even deal with human origins (I know they want to call it Dawn but..). People outside anthropology won't know how much social/cultural anthro has simply run scared of all the BIG questions and left them to...
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OK Africa! Reading p.81 of #TheDawnOfEverything I'm seized by the impulse to hurl the book across the room -- but it's hefty and would endanger the health and safety of my šJack! 1/
Very unimpressed by several pages of mumbled excuses for leaving Africa out of this 'new' history of humanity. Saying "cranial remains and the occasional piece of knapped flint...is ..all we have" is just bollux!
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True, the Late Middle Pleistocene, period of our speciation, showed very diverse morphology and technology across Africa. All the more remarkable then is the extraordinary homogeneity of cultural signalling and media found across N, E. and S. Africa
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Reading #TheDawnofEveryThing, the chapter on Wendat statesman Kandiaronk and his influence in provoking the European Enlightenment is a great story! 1/
journaldumauss.net/?La-sagesse-deā¦
journaldumauss.net/?La-sagesse-deā¦
It teaches us a couple of things. First, the hierarchical 18th.C Europeans started talking about equality and freedom because, in their initial imperialist expansion, they encountered real existing societies which were anarcho-communist and egalitarian. This was NOT a MYTH! 2/
Second, which Graeber/Wengrow don't bring out enough, is the relationship of language to egalitarianism, exemplified by Kandiaronk. He was famed for superior sociocognitive linguistic skill! He argued jesuits and New French governor generals under the table in the 1690s 3/
