> >, getting "dolled up" for the upcoming > > > human sacrifice - all of those things took up some > > Those barbaric practices are the specialty of > Neolithic populations, not > Paleolithic. Crime within a society is a Neolithic > phenomenon. It seems like > hunter gatherers may fight other tribes, but lack > counterproductive > behaviours like crime against their fellow > tribesmen. Although I meant this as a (apparently) feeble attempt at humor, your response once again raises the basic issue of romaticizing the paleolithic hunter-gatherers. It's not like our species woke up one day and suddenly realized, "Hey, it's a new era. We're neolithic farmers now, so let's start building cities, create a ruling class, and, while we're at it, start scarificing humans to the gods!" It's just plain silly to blame everything bad on the neolithic, and assume everything was perfect during the paleolithic. I'm sure there must have been some individuals who attempted to control others in the tribe, and, given human nature, may have even created rituals (lied) to secure that control. Once again, no matter how many remains we can dig up, or how many primitive tribes we can find and study, we can still only render educated guesses as to what society was truly like back then.