The Dawn of Everything

The Dawn of Everything Plot Summary

Introduction

For centuries, we've been told a simple story about human history: our ancestors lived in small, egalitarian bands until the invention of agriculture, which led to cities, states, and ultimately inequality. This narrative, popularized by thinkers like Rousseau, suggests that humanity's fall from primordial innocence was inevitable—that hierarchies, bureaucracies, and exploitation are the necessary price of civilization. But what if this familiar account is fundamentally wrong? Recent archaeological discoveries have revealed a far more interesting past. From massive monuments built by hunter-gatherers to evidence of early cities without kings, the conventional timeline of social evolution is being upended. Drawing on groundbreaking research across multiple disciplines, we can now see that early humans were not simple-minded savages but sophisticated thinkers who experimented with different social arrangements. This revolutionary perspective challenges us to reconsider not just where we came from, but what kind of future we might create. Whether you're interested in anthropology, politics, or simply curious about human nature, this exploration of our forgotten past offers fresh insights into what makes us human.

Chapter 1: Indigenous Critique: How Native American Thought Challenged European Assumptions

In the early 1600s, as European colonizers established footholds in North America, something unexpected happened: Native Americans began offering sophisticated critiques of European society. Far from being passive recipients of European "civilization," indigenous intellectuals like the Wendat statesman Kandiaronk engaged European visitors in profound debates about social arrangements, freedom, and authority. These conversations took place during a time when the French were establishing colonies in what is now Quebec, creating opportunities for extended cultural exchange. The indigenous critique focused particularly on three aspects of European society that Native Americans found puzzling and disturbing: Europeans' obsession with money, their willingness to tolerate extreme inequality, and their lack of personal freedom. When Jesuit missionaries attempted to convert indigenous peoples, they were often met with counterarguments about the evident unhappiness of Europeans. As one Mi'kmaq leader pointed out to a French priest: "You are always fighting and quarreling among yourselves; we live peaceably. You are envious and are all the time slandering each other; you are thieves and deceivers; you are covetous... as for us, if we have a morsel of bread we share it with our neighbor." These Native American perspectives had a profound impact on European thought. When the Baron de Lahontan published his conversations with Kandiaronk in 1703, they became a sensation across Europe. The Wendat philosopher's incisive observations about European inequality, authority, and the corrupting influence of money informed the thinking of major Enlightenment figures like Montesquieu, Diderot, and Rousseau. Indeed, many of the ideas we associate with the Enlightenment—critiques of absolute authority, emphasis on human equality, and questioning of established customs—were directly influenced by these indigenous American perspectives. The significance of this cultural exchange has been systematically downplayed in conventional histories. European intellectuals who cited indigenous critiques were later dismissed as merely projecting their own ideas onto "noble savages." But the evidence suggests these exchanges were real, and their impact on European political thought was substantial. The indigenous critique forced Europeans to see their own society through outside eyes, helping to spark the radical questioning of authority that would eventually lead to democratic revolutions. This intellectual exchange represents a crucial but overlooked chapter in the history of political thought. It reminds us that ideas we consider quintessentially "Western"—like individual liberty and social equality—emerged not in isolation but through cross-cultural dialogue. Understanding this history challenges us to recognize the sophisticated political thinking that existed in indigenous societies long before European contact.

Chapter 2: Beyond Simple Hierarchies: Seasonal Kingdoms and Fluid Power (40,000-5,000 BCE)

Between 40,000 and 5,000 BCE, human societies developed far more diverse and sophisticated forms of organization than conventional accounts suggest. During the Upper Paleolithic period (roughly 50,000-15,000 BCE), particularly in Ice Age Europe, people created elaborate social systems that challenge our assumptions about "primitive" societies. This period saw the emergence of what archaeologists call "princely burials"—individuals interred with extraordinary wealth and ceremony—alongside evidence of monumental construction projects. At sites like Sunghir in Russia (dated to around 30,000 years ago), archaeologists have discovered burials containing thousands of ivory beads, representing countless hours of skilled labor. Similarly, at Dolní Věstonice in what is now the Czech Republic, elaborate burials suggest some individuals held special status. Yet these were not simple hierarchical societies. Intriguingly, many of these "princely" individuals had physical anomalies—they were extremely tall, short, or had visible deformities—suggesting they were valued precisely for their uniqueness rather than representing a hereditary elite. What's particularly striking about these societies is their seasonal nature. Archaeological evidence indicates that many Ice Age communities would gather in large numbers during certain times of year, creating temporary centers with monumental structures, elaborate rituals, and possibly temporary leadership roles. During other seasons, these same people would disperse into smaller, more egalitarian bands. This pattern continued after the Ice Age ended. At Göbekli Tepe in Turkey, hunter-gatherers gathered seasonally to construct and use massive stone temples, then apparently dismantled or buried them after specific ritual cycles concluded. The anthropologist Marcel Mauss recognized this pattern of "double morphology" among the Inuit, who shifted between summer bands and winter villages with completely different social structures and moral codes. Similar seasonal variations were documented among Native American groups like the Kwakiutl of the Northwest Coast, who maintained elaborate hierarchies during winter ceremonial seasons but dispersed into smaller groups during summer fishing expeditions. This seasonal alternation between different social forms had profound implications. It meant that people regularly experienced different ways of organizing society, allowing them to compare and reflect on these alternatives. As one researcher notes, "If human beings, through most of our history, have moved back and forth fluidly between different social arrangements, assembling and dismantling hierarchies on a regular basis, maybe the real question should be 'how did we get stuck?'" Rather than seeing inequality as the inevitable result of technological progress, we should ask how some societies came to be trapped in permanent hierarchies when our ancestors had been so adept at moving between different social arrangements.

Chapter 3: Cities Without Kings: Urban Experiments in Collective Governance

Between 6,000 and 4,000 years ago, the first cities emerged in Mesopotamia, the Indus Valley, Ukraine, and China. Conventional history portrays these early urban centers as necessarily hierarchical—places where dense populations required centralized authority and bureaucratic control. This narrative suggests that cities and states evolved together, with kings, priests, and administrators forming the inevitable response to the challenges of urban life. However, recent archaeological discoveries have dramatically challenged this view. In Ukraine's Dnieper Valley, archaeologists have uncovered the remains of massive settlements dating to around 4100-3300 BCE. Sites like Nebelivka, Taljanky, and Maidanetske housed populations of 10,000-20,000 people—comparable to the earliest Mesopotamian cities—yet show no evidence of palaces, temples, or marked inequality in housing or burial. These "mega-sites" were organized around circles of houses, with public spaces and assembly areas suggesting collective governance. Despite their size and sophistication, they maintained remarkably egalitarian social arrangements for centuries. Similarly, the ancient city of Teotihuacan in Mexico (100-550 CE), once home to 100,000 people, appears to have rejected individual rule in favor of collective governance. After an early period of pyramid construction, Teotihuacan's inhabitants deliberately shifted to building standardized apartment compounds where most of the population lived in similar conditions. The city's art depicts anonymous, masked figures rather than glorifying individual rulers—a stark contrast to other Mesoamerican cities where kings prominently displayed their conquests and lineages. In the Indus Valley, cities like Mohenjo-daro and Harappa (2600-1900 BCE) show sophisticated urban planning with standardized housing, advanced water management systems, and public facilities, yet lack evidence of royal palaces or monuments celebrating rulers. Their writing system remains undeciphered, but their material culture suggests a society that emphasized civic amenities over displays of royal power. These discoveries force us to reconsider our assumptions about the relationship between urbanization and political hierarchy. As one researcher notes: "There is absolutely no evidence that top-down structures of rule are the necessary consequence of large-scale organization. The three examples we've just been considering... show how self-conscious egalitarian principles could be applied to urban settings with populations in the tens of thousands." What these ancient cities demonstrate is that our ancestors were capable of creating large-scale, complex urban societies without surrendering their freedom to kings and bureaucratic elites. They developed sophisticated mechanisms for collective decision-making and conflict resolution that allowed them to coordinate activities on an impressive scale while preventing the concentration of power. These historical examples challenge us to reimagine what cities could be—not as inevitable machines of inequality, but as spaces where humans might organize their lives according to principles of freedom and equality.

Chapter 4: The Agriculture Paradox: Deliberate Rejection and Alternative Pathways

The conventional narrative of human history places the adoption of agriculture around 10,000 years ago as the decisive turning point—the moment when humans abandoned their nomadic ways, settled down, and began the inexorable march toward civilization, with all its attendant inequalities. This "Agricultural Revolution" supposedly trapped humans in a cycle of increasing labor and population growth, leading inevitably to cities, states, and stratified societies. However, the archaeological record tells a far more nuanced story about humanity's relationship with farming. Agriculture did not appear suddenly as a complete package. For thousands of years, people combined cultivation with hunting, gathering, and herding in flexible arrangements. In the Middle East's Fertile Crescent, early experiments with plant cultivation began around 10,000 BCE, but it took nearly 3,000 years before fully settled farming villages became common. During this extended transition, many groups maintained mixed subsistence strategies, moving seasonally between cultivation and foraging. Similar patterns are visible in China, Mesoamerica, and the Andes, where people incorporated domesticated plants into diverse subsistence systems long before becoming full-time farmers. Crucially, the adoption of agriculture did not automatically lead to inequality or loss of freedom. Early farming villages in places like Çatalhöyük in Turkey (7500-5700 BCE) show remarkably little evidence of wealth disparities or hierarchy. Houses were built to standard plans with similar furnishings, and burials reveal no clear status distinctions. In the Fertile Crescent, early agricultural communities often deliberately avoided architectural features that might enable some households to accumulate more than others, maintaining egalitarian principles for thousands of years after adopting farming. Perhaps most surprisingly, agriculture was sometimes abandoned after being practiced for centuries. In Britain, people gave up cereal cultivation around 3300 BCE and returned to hazelnut gathering while continuing to raise livestock—a shift that coincided with the construction of Stonehenge. In North America's Eastern Woodlands, early experiments with indigenous crops were sometimes abandoned in favor of mixed foraging strategies. These reversals suggest our ancestors were making conscious choices about their subsistence practices rather than following an inevitable path of "progress." The relationship between farming and political systems proves equally complex. Some agricultural societies developed rigid hierarchies, while others maintained egalitarian principles for millennia. Some foraging societies, like those of the Northwest Coast, developed hereditary nobility and slavery without ever adopting agriculture. What emerges is a picture not of technological determinism but of human choice and experimentation. As one researcher concludes: "The real question is not 'what are the origins of social inequality?' but 'how did we get stuck?' How did we lose that political self-consciousness, once so typical of our species? How did we come to treat eminence and subservience not as temporary expedients, or even the pomp and circumstance of some kind of grand seasonal theatre, but as inescapable elements of the human condition?"

Chapter 5: From Cahokia to Confederacies: Cycles of Centralization and Democratic Revival

Around 1050 CE, a remarkable transformation occurred in the American Bottom, the floodplain of the Mississippi River near present-day East St. Louis. The settlement of Cahokia exploded in size, growing from a modest community to a city of over six square miles, including more than 100 earthen mounds built around spacious plazas. Its population swelled to approximately 15,000, with perhaps 40,000 people in the American Bottom as a whole. This urban explosion was planned and executed with remarkable precision, centered on the massive Monks Mound facing an enormous plaza, with a "woodhenge" of cypress posts marking the sun's annual course. Cahokia represented the pinnacle of what archaeologists call Mississippian civilization, characterized by maize agriculture, mound-building, and complex political systems. The city's rulers reorganized the surrounding landscape, disbanding existing villages and dispersing the rural population into scattered homesteads of one or two families. This pattern suggests a deliberate dismantling of self-governing communities outside the city, creating a stark division between domestic life under constant surveillance and the awesome spectacle of the urban center. Early in Cahokia's expansion, public mass executions were carried out, particularly associated with the funerary rites of nobility. However, Cahokia's dominance proved short-lived. Within a century of its initial expansion, a massive palisade wall was constructed around portions of the city, marking the beginning of a long process of war, destruction, and depopulation. People fled first to the hinterlands, then abandoned the bottomlands entirely. By 1400 CE, the entire American Bottom—once home to tens of thousands—had become what archaeologists call the "Vacant Quarter": a haunted wilderness of overgrown pyramids and crumbling housing blocks, occasionally traversed by hunters but devoid of permanent settlement. The collapse of Cahokia and similar Mississippian centers had profound consequences for indigenous North American societies. Many groups consciously rejected the hierarchical models of Mississippian civilization, developing alternative political systems based on consensus and limited authority. By the early 18th century, the Southeast was divided among tribal republics like the Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Creek, and Seminole, governed by communal councils where all had equal say and operating by consensus. These post-Mississippian societies maintained traces of their hierarchical past but transformed them into more democratic institutions. Among the Cherokee, stories circulated about the Aní-Kutánî, a hereditary caste of male priests who had once ruled but were overthrown because they abused their power, particularly in their treatment of women. Such narratives reflect a self-conscious rejection of hierarchical governance in favor of more participatory alternatives. This pattern of rejection and reformation represents a crucial but often overlooked chapter in Native American history. The societies encountered by European colonizers in eastern North America were not "pristine" representatives of some primordial human condition, but the products of centuries of political conflict and self-conscious debate.

Chapter 6: Violence, Care and Political Imagination: Foundations of Social Order

Throughout human history, the interplay between violence and care has shaped political systems in profound and often surprising ways. From ancient Egypt to medieval Europe, from the Aztec Empire to the indigenous societies of North America, different configurations of these fundamental forces have created distinctive political traditions with lasting consequences. In ancient Egypt, the institution of divine kingship emerged through a complex fusion of violence and care. Archaeological evidence from the First Dynasty (c. 3100-2890 BCE) reveals elaborate royal tombs surrounded by the bodies of sacrificed retainers – servants, officials, and craftspeople killed to accompany the king in death. Yet alongside this spectacular violence, Egyptian kingship was legitimized through the pharaoh's role as caretaker of the population, responsible for maintaining cosmic order (ma'at) and ensuring agricultural prosperity through control of the Nile's floods. This paradoxical combination – the sovereign's power to kill alongside the obligation to nurture – became a defining feature of many subsequent political systems. A contrasting tradition emerged in ancient Mesopotamia, where cities were initially organized around temples that functioned as centers of economic redistribution and collective welfare. Administrative records from cities like Uruk document sophisticated systems for organizing labor, allocating resources, and caring for vulnerable populations. While violence certainly existed, political authority was primarily legitimized through administrative competence rather than spectacular displays of sovereign power. This bureaucratic tradition, emphasizing systematic care over sovereign violence, would influence political developments across much of Asia. Indigenous North American societies developed yet another political configuration. Many groups, particularly in the Eastern Woodlands, created sophisticated systems for containing violence through practices of restorative justice, consensus-based decision-making, and elaborate diplomatic protocols. The Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) Confederacy, for example, transformed endemic warfare into a peaceful federation through the "Great Law of Peace," which established procedures for conflict resolution while maintaining local autonomy. These systems didn't eliminate violence but channeled it into controlled forms while emphasizing care for the community. The Wendat (Huron) and other Iroquoian peoples maintained a sharp distinction between internal peace and external conflict. Within their communities, they refused to use physical punishment or coercion of any kind. As Jesuit missionaries noted with astonishment, they had "never known what it means to forbid something" by human law. Yet they conducted "mourning wars" against traditional enemies to assuage grief felt by relatives of someone who had died. This contrast between internal harmony and external violence reflects a fundamental principle of indigenous North American political thought: the separation of care and coercion. What these diverse examples reveal is that violence and care aren't simply opposed forces but intertwined aspects of political life that can be configured in radically different ways. Understanding these different traditions helps us recognize that modern state formation wasn't simply the triumph of a single political logic but the complex interaction of multiple traditions with different approaches to violence and care. It also reminds us that our current political arrangements aren't inevitable but represent specific historical choices about how to organize these fundamental aspects of social life – choices that could, in principle, be made differently.

Chapter 7: Rediscovering Freedom: How Indigenous Knowledge Shaped Modern Thought

The seventeenth and eighteenth centuries witnessed a remarkable intellectual exchange between indigenous North Americans and European thinkers, one that profoundly influenced the development of modern political philosophy. When Baron de Lahontan published his Dialogues with a Savage in 1703, featuring conversations with the Wendat statesman Kandiaronk, he introduced European readers to a penetrating indigenous critique of their civilization. Kandiaronk questioned the logic of private property, hereditary power, religious dogma, and economic inequality, offering instead a vision of society based on personal autonomy, reasoned debate, and the careful limitation of authority. These ideas found fertile ground among French Enlightenment thinkers seeking alternatives to absolutist monarchy. Jean-Jacques Rousseau, in his Discourse on the Origins of Inequality (1754), drew heavily on indigenous critiques, though he reframed them within his own narrative of humanity's fall from natural freedom. Montesquieu's The Spirit of the Laws (1748), which profoundly influenced the American and French Revolutions, appears to incorporate ideas from Osage and Missouria delegates who visited Paris in 1725, particularly regarding the relationship between laws and national character, and the possibility of governance without coercion. The indigenous critique was grounded in centuries of political experience and debate. The Osage, descendants of Mississippian Fort Ancient people, maintained detailed records of their constitutional history, describing a series of reforms or "moves to a new country" that gradually established checks and balances on power. Their governing council, the Nohozhinga or "Little Old Men" (though some were women), combined philosophical inquiry with practical governance, meeting daily to discuss natural philosophy and its relevance to political issues. This tradition of self-conscious constitutional development challenges the notion that such thinking originated exclusively in Europe. Similarly, the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) League of Five Nations maintained a sophisticated political system based on the Gayanashagowa, their epic constitution. This narrative describes how the Peacemaker established a federal structure with carefully designated powers at multiple levels, all operating by consensus rather than coercion. The story centers on the transformation of Adodarhoh, a fearsome ruler with the power of command, into a peaceful leader within a constitutional framework—reflecting a broader indigenous concern with preventing the concentration of power. European observers often misunderstood or misrepresented these indigenous political traditions. Jesuit missionaries were puzzled by Wendat and Haudenosaunee refusal to use physical punishment or direct commands, interpreting this as a lack of proper government rather than a deliberate philosophical position. Later colonial writers frequently portrayed indigenous societies as lacking history or political self-consciousness, despite abundant evidence to the contrary. This misrepresentation served to justify colonization as bringing "civilization" to supposedly primitive peoples, obscuring the sophisticated political thought that had developed independently in the Americas. The recovery of this intellectual history challenges conventional narratives about the origins of modern political thought. Ideas we associate with the Enlightenment—individual liberty, checks on power, government by consent, the separation of civil and religious authority—had parallel developments in indigenous North America. When Native American leaders criticized European institutions, they did so not from a position of primordial innocence but from centuries of practical experience with different forms of governance. By recognizing this exchange, we gain a more accurate understanding of our intellectual heritage and a broader range of possibilities for political organization in the present.

Summary

Throughout human history, we see a fundamental tension between freedom and hierarchy that manifests in surprisingly diverse ways. Rather than a simple progression from egalitarian bands to complex states, our ancestors created an astonishing variety of social arrangements—seasonal kingdoms where authority appeared and disappeared with the changing seasons, cities without rulers that housed tens of thousands, and foraging societies that deliberately rejected farming to maintain their autonomy. The conventional narrative of inevitable progress toward inequality is revealed as a myth, one that obscures the remarkable political creativity of our species and our capacity to reimagine social relations. This revised understanding of our past offers profound implications for our present and future. First, it suggests that the current organization of society—with its rigid hierarchies and vast inequalities—is not inevitable but contingent, the result of specific historical processes rather than human nature. Second, it reminds us that humans have always been capable of self-conscious political action, deliberately creating and dismantling different social arrangements. Finally, it challenges us to recover this lost capacity for political experimentation. If our ancestors could organize cities without kings, create sophisticated art without bureaucracy, and develop complex technologies without exploitation, then perhaps we too can imagine new ways of organizing our collective life that better serve human freedom and flourishing. The dawn of everything is not behind us but ahead—if we can rediscover the political imagination that was once our birthright.

About Author

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David Graeber

David Rolfe Graeber was an American anthropologist and anarchist.On June 15, 2007, Graeber accepted the offer of a lectureship in the anthropology department at Goldsmiths College, University of London, where he held the title of Reader in Social Anthropology.Prior to that position, he was an associate professor of anthropology at Yale University, although Yale controversially declined to rehire him, and his term there ended in June 2007.Graeber had a history of social and political activism, including his role in protests against the World Economic Forum in New York City (2002) and membership in the labor union Industrial Workers of the World. He was an core participant in the Occupy Movement. He passed away in 2020, during the Covid-19 pandemic.

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