For 4,000 years, early agricultural civilizations lived in self-organized harmony without governance.
"The real roots of early city-states may rip up the textbooks."
Roughly between 8000 BC and 4000 BC we find settled agricultural communities with developing craft skills -- yet no evidence of anything much by way of state authority. This also poses a key question, one which resonates in the 21st century, about whether there is a necessary link between state power and community life.
New Scientist article about a book by James C. Scott
