I notice that some anthropologist believe all humans were egalitarian in the past, and others believe inequality was more common they we currently we think with hunter gathers.
This seems to along with anthropologist using modern hunter gathers as way to look at the past which is now considered not a best practice from what I read. Which this influenced the egalitarian hunter gathers idea even more.
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Probably not, since there would be individual variations everywhere, but most pre-agricultural societies seem to have been egalitarian with few or no specialized social roles and gender equality.
“Modern hunter gatherers” is kind of complicated since most hunting and gathering groups have been in close contact with agricultural societies for thousands of years, meaning that the two cultures have influenced each other’s practices. And there’s some evidence to suggest that some hunting and gathering cultures, like the San in Africa, may have been agriculturists several hundred years ago and adopted hunting and gathering practices when they were forced in to more marginal lands by the expansion of more militant agricultural societies.
So, shit’s complicated. But it does seem that the less scarcity you have the less complex your social hierarchies are.
I think all “states of nature” are kind of a myth. Some are useful myths, some aren’t. But we’re always informed by history and material conditions - we are “naturally” unnatural as tool users, cooks, etc.
An experiment involving introducing the game “musical chairs” to children attempted to answer this question. In addition to the normal version, an alternative version where everyone would share fewer and fewer chairs was played.
The children almost ubiquitously preferred the cooperative version.
In all honesty I think if you want a tabula rasa approach then how toddlers and kindergartners organize and interact is somewhat of a possible indicator, with empathy being a huge development milestone in children and that many are naturally sharing when an individual is in visible duress. I think one approach in anthropology and recent historical research that should be supported more is to view current hierarchical society as maladaptive states of humanity under stress either via system/environment or stress via others as previous viewpoints on society and organizing viewed these things as stepping stones of advancement instead.
