These aren't primitive people. They're specialists in being human.
And here's what really messes with our modern assumptions: they achieved something we're constantly told is impossible. They created societies without bosses, without cops, without prisons, without wealth inequality—and they worked for millennia.
How? Through what anthropologist Christopher Boehm calls "reverse dominance." They were, in his words, "fiercely egalitarian." When someone tried to get too big for their britches, the group had tools to cut them down to size. First tool: ridicule. Public humor. Making fun of the would-be alpha until their ego deflated.
References:
How Hunter-Gatherers Maintained Their Egalitarian Ways
Amazing Hunter-Gatherer Societies Still In Existence
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