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triggered by the original Neolithic Revolution. Essentially, it was all down to food

surpluses, conflict and hierarchy.

Graeber and Wengrow question this. They claim that social complexity did not
depend on these things. They claim that social complexity could arise without
farming. They argue that foragers experimented with a variety of complex social
forms, in a highly creative, almost playful ways. They show that many foraging
societies consciously rejected farming because it was oppressive and horrible. Others
combined foraging with farming. They present many foraging people as making

conscious choices for freedom.

One of their most striking claims is relevant to the Stonehenge monuments. They
claim that foraging and semi-agricultural societies had leaders and hierarchies but
only for part of the year. Their social complexity was seasonal. This would explain
how large gatherings could come together at Stonehenge and related sites for a
period of feasting and rituals, many travelling long distances, then dispersing and

leaving no trace, no kingdom, no empire, just a spontaneous eruption of temporary
complexity before returning to a season of foraging.

This has profound implications. The original narrative had an air of both inevitably
and of coercion. From bands to tribes to chieftains to state. It had the force of
necessity and survival behind it. It’s the view of philosopher Thomas Hobbes (1588-
1679) that strong authority must protect us from, ultimately, ourselves. It’s a
conservative, pessimistic view; its defenders would call it realism. In similar vein,

archaeologist and historian Ian Morris says that progress is driven by innovators
motivated by either greed, or fear, or laziness. You can see what he means, but it
reduces history to quite a low common denominator.

Graeber and Wengrow take a different line. They claim that new archaeological
evidence is undermining the traditional narrative; that we underestimate the degree

of innovation, creativity and complexity in prehistoric societies. Not only was
complexity possible, it could exist on a very large scale – albeit seasonally. More
profoundly, they argue that with the rise of hierarchical, coercive states and empires,
“civilisation” took a wrong turn. Inequality, patriarchy and war resulted, problems
which continue to afflict us. Was an alternative outcome possible? This is the
significance of Graeber’s anarchist beliefs. Anarchism is opposed to the coercive
state. The book is less sure on the question, if coercion and hierarchy aren’t
inevitable, where did they come from? One suggestion is that it grew out of slavery,
which was widespread in prehistory. Wherever it came from, it was a choice, not the

outcome of human destiny.