At 01:32 PM 4/30/97 EDT, you wrote:
>Jay Hanson writes:
>>
>>   A few million years ago, our ancestor Homo Habilis developed
>>a hierarchical social life based on hunting and gathering.
>>Habilis males and females shared meat and produce, dividing
>>jobs by gender:  child care and gathering to females,
>>fighting and hunting to males.  Habilis originated the
>>hunter-gatherer lifestyle that was to last for millions
>>of years until the invention of settled agriculture.
>
>I don't know why you say their social life hierarchical. In fact, I've heard
>anthropologists argue that hunter-gatherer societies were not hierarchical.
>Division of labor by gender or age or anything else does not necessitate
>hierarchy.

"If you took a zoologist from another planet, showed him our
 family tree, and pointed out that the three species nearest
 our limb were inherently hierarchical, he would probably
 guess that we are too. If you then told him that hierarchy
 is indeed found in every human society where people have
 looked closely for it, and among children too young to talk,
 he might well consider the case closed." [p. 242, Wright,
 THE MORAL ANIMAL]

Jay -- http://csf.Colorado.EDU/authors/hanson/