The earliest stories in the bible (Abraham – Jacob) seem to describe people or types/archetypes who were likely pastorialists (like Bedouin?). There are a lot of references to cattle and wandering to look for water and grazing lands but little mention of sedentary farming. In fact there seem to be hints of conflicts between farmers and nomads and/or hunters – i.e. the sacrifices of Cain vs Abel and the foods brought and eaten by Jacob vs Esau.

Not until the stories move to Egypt do you start to read about farming or large-scale agriculture (i.e. Joseph interpreting Pharaoh's dreams). Of course, when the Israelites return to the land they're all about farming.

thanks, Neal. that sounds familiar. i'll move it up the to-read list.

someone was just asking me whether the biblical Abraham was a hunter-gatherer. i'm inclined to think not, but if you go back far enough, we all were. i saw a statistic recently that said 2/3 of the world's population still lived a hunter-gatherer lifestyle during when jesus was being written about.

balls! I meant "thing" not "thinking". Time for bed.

I live the DC area so lots of seafood/shellfish-based hunting (gathering?) went on around here as well as some high-carb corn farming.

I never thought of the recent Highlands as a pocket of H-G living – very interesting idea. Would love to hear more about your thoughts and any evidence you've gathered. A future post, perhaps?

"Who? What? When? Where? Why? How?" Oh, but by the way, "it doesn't matter. People have beat you down this path".

"Everything has been said yet few have taken advantage of it. Since all our knowledge is essentially banal, it can only be of value to minds that are not." – Raoul Vaneigem

i don't yet believe that all paths have been previously trodden. but even if they had, who cares? everyone hasn't heard them, and few have yet understood them to the point of being able to take advantage of them. perhaps if jefferson and paine had come after darwin (and after evolutionary psychology) we'd be closer to having a classical liberalism not mired in ethnocentric agrarian myopia. the insight available to us from applied evolutionary theory is faaaaaarrr from complete. thinking otherwise is a guarantee of a banal mind.

drop the utopia shtick; rhetorical attempts at debunking by epithet bore me. it also doesn't interest me to provide a custom argument (on a random thanksgiving post) to a cynic who already has all the answers (including other people's arguments before they've made them). i'll get to a full post when i think my research is sufficiently complete. in the interim, i'd suggest brushing up on evolutionary psychology from somewhere besides VH-1.

What exactly is your EP argument?

You're an anarchist. I get that. You also seem to be an anarcho-Leftist as opposed to an anarcho-Rothbardian; ie you think that anarchism will result in the ideal *egalitarian* society as opposed to the Rothbardians that think that the competing protection version of anarcho-capitalism will result in the perfect free market. (Me, I'm an agrarian loving Classical Liberal.) So what is it you are arguing for? Mutualism? Distributionism? I see that you don't like landlords and rent. Going down that road huh? So what's your angle? Are you saying that human psychology as shaped by the Paleolithic period mandates some version of a stateless society? Are you trying to ground anarchism on EvPsych?

Regardless, it doesn't matter. People have beat you down this path Andrew. How anarchism would work has been debated for at least two centuries. In the internet era, TONS of internet ink have been spilt over the subject. You have to answer the problem of the final arbiter, how competing protection agencies wouldn't end up as gang warfare, etc, etc, etc.. Good luck with all that.

There is nothing new here in essence. All that you are doing is attempting to dress up anarchism with EvPsych theory. I like EvPsych just fine. It really helps for getting girls. But it does NOTHING to assist you in your arguing for your anarchist utopia. Lastly, there's a Leftist-like nihilism to all this. You Paleo-anarchists just love the thought of wiping out the last 10,000 years of human cultural evolution. And of course wiping out billions of people in the process which I'm sure you would find favorable. Lovely.

Regards