Introduction

Matter is in a constant process of interaction with its environment. This interplay leads to a clash between opposing forces, thus synthesizing new forms of matter. The results not only take on characteristics from these earlier components, but usually have a more stable form, one that does not jeopardize its existence to the same degree. This is a universal rule that we see everywhere whether it be in the natural world or social. Unstable forms of matter react with others and give rise to more efficient and stable forms. Prey and predator fight to the death for survival, until one’s existence can no longer threaten the other. Incongruities in the productive forces and relations of production intensify class struggle to give more prosperous, efficient, and stable forms until there are no incongruities to contradict (no classes to struggle against).

Today we see many people who call themselves Marxists, but never put this label to practice. They carelessly and thoughtlessly take capitalism and analyze it as if it always existed in a vacuum - they call themselves materialists but conduct no materialist analysis. To have an objective conception of the social world, we must be able to understand how previous classes interacted with one another, what materially gave rise to them and what became of them, and much more. Not only this, but as Marxist Leninists, we must always test our existing theories and put them into practice. Observing the history of nature and humankind, we see the greatest validation of historical materialism, dialectical materialism, and the features of production that accompany them.

The enormous task of categorizing and understanding the entire history of human civilization has been tackled from many angles by many great minds for many years, though many details elude them, whether it be from biases or a lack of data. Until we objectively know all of history, our conceptions of it will constantly rewrite itself. Lucky for us, there has never been a time where such an abundance of information has been readily available. This of course comes at the high cost of having an enormous amount of misinformation, and these factors can scare away any Marxists from approaching the matter. This series of articles is meant to talk about all modes of production in the most concise way possible without leaving out any vital details. With that, let us begin with the very basics.

Relevant terms and Definitions

It would be rash to jump into this discussion without making sure we are on the same page when it comes to our terms and definitions. Out of the many that will be used, several will be repeated and are important to understand. These concepts are (but are not limited to):

Productive Forces:

"The instruments of production wherewith material values are produced, the people who operate the instruments of production and carry on the production of material values thanks to a certain production experience and labor skill – all these elements jointly constitute the productive forces of society."
- Stalin, Dialectical and Historical Materialism, 1938

Therefore, the productive forces encompass the individuals producing (specifically their productivity, capacity, skill, etc.) and the means of production.

As the productive forces develop, the instruments of production will advance, increasing the capacity to produce. For example, a combine can harvest more crops than a sickle, and the laborer manning the combine has a higher level of technical skill than the one with the sickle. As this continues, these productive forces transform social relations of production until the entire mode of production is revolutionized. This is of course a simplified definition, and many other factors that lead to one socioeconomic system to the next exist, but the development of the productive forces is the most revolutionary, mobile element. Productive forces try to push society to a higher mode of production (such as feudalism to capitalism) despite any obsolete forces trying to hamper it or retard it.

Means of Production:

The means of production include the following:

• Raw materials used for production (ex. - coal, copper, iron, etc.)
  
  
• Tools used for production (ex. - hammers, tractors, machinery, etc.)
  
  
• Land used for production (ex. – plot of land that a factory is on)
  
  
• The product itself (if it is used to produce, such as a hammer)
  
  

To own the means of production means to have a certain privilege regarding them. The owner, unlike those who do not own the means of production, can do many things that they want economically with the product, that is, to sell it off, hire or fire workers, sell the tools used for production, etc.

Mode of Production/Socioeconomic System:

"[...]the method of procuring the means of life necessary for human existence, the mode of production of material values – food, clothing, footwear, houses, fuel, instruments of production, etc. – which are indispensable for the life and development of society.”

[...]

“But the productive forces are only one aspect of production, only one aspect of the mode of production, an aspect that expresses the relation of men to the objects and forces of nature which they make use of for the production of material values. Another aspect of production, another aspect of the mode of production, is the relation of men to each other in the process of production, men's relations of production...Consequently, production, the mode of production, embraces both the productive forces of society and men's relations of production, and is thus the embodiment of their unity in the process of production of material values." [brackets mine: P.B]
- Stalin, Dialectical and Historical Materialism, 1938

In other words, the mode of production encapsulates the way a society produces what it needs to survive, the mode of production also entails the social relations that occur within the given system and the productive forces of society.

To summarize:

"[...] both the productive forces of society and men's relations of production and is thus the embodiment of their unity in the process of production of material values." [brackets mine: P.B]
– Stalin, Dialectical and Historical Materialism, 1938

Clarke’s Lithic Modes/Industry:

In an attempt to categorize human tools based on their level of complexity, British archeologist Grahame Clark devised five modes (one through five). As one progresses the list, the tools during a period naturally become more complex. If a certain group of people /culture adopted a mode to produce what they needed to survive, they were referred to as an “industry” and partly represented said mode. These industries were often characterized by their method of producing tools/styles of the mode they were under, and how these tools impacted them culturally. As a result, every mode has accompanying industries:

“Mode 1
Characteristics: Pebble cores and flake tools
Time period: Lower Paleolithic (early)
Representative industries from Western Europe: Chellean, Clactonian, Tayacian

Mode 2
Characteristics: Large bifacial cutting tools made from flakes and cores
Time period: Lower Paleolithic (later)
Representative industries from Western Europe: Abbevillian, Acheulian

Mode 3
Characteristics: Flake tools struck from prepared cores
Time period: Middle Paleolithic
Representative industries from Western Europe: Levalloisian Mousterian

Mode 4
Characteristics: Punch-struck prismatic blades retouched into various specialized forms
Time period: Upper Paleolithic
Representative industries from Western Europe: Aurignacian, Gravettian, Solutrean

Mode 5
Characteristics: Retouched microliths and other retouched components of composite tools
Time period: Later Upper Paleolithic and Mesolithic
Representative industries from Western Europe: Azilian, Magdalenian, Maglemosian, Sauveterrian, Tardenoisian”
- Driscoll, Stone Tool Modes – Lithic Typology, Technology and Evolution, 2017

No such mode schemes are perfect, however. It should be noted that, compared to other Lithic Mode classifications, Clarke’s categories are very broad and simplistic (Shea’s mode scheme used 17 sub-groups instead of five!). Clark's framework, though crude in some accounts, has still been used by many accomplished archeologists, and gives a decent understanding of modes for a beginner level. It should also be noted that these modes are only applicable to the Paleolithic Era. Afterward, humans developed more advanced tools that do not fit the descriptions of this scheme.

Mode 1 – Separation from the Animal Kingdom

“Man with all his noble qualities, with sympathy which feels for the most debased, with benevolence which extends not only to other men but to the humblest living creature, with his god-like intellect which has penetrated into the movements and constitution of the solar system—with all these exalted powers—Man still bears in his bodily frame the indelible stamp of his lowly origin.”
– Darwin, Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex, 1871

Why do Marxists refer to this stage of society as “primitive communism”? Such societies existed before the division of people into classes, private property, the state, etc., while any means of production were socially owned. The instruments of labor were mainly stone and wooden tools, crude compared to today’s, hence why we call the communal society “primitive.” In this article, we will break down primitive communism in stages of which new productive forces and social relations towards production rose. This is unlike Lewis Morgan, who, through a Eurocentric lens, referred to previous modes of production as “savagery” and “barbarism.” However, to view them as such is undialectical, as they were complex and progressive steps towards higher forms of production for their era. As Stalin says,

“The slave system would be senseless, stupid, and unnatural under modern conditions. But under the conditions of a disintegrating primitive communal system, the slave system is a quite understandable and natural phenomenon since it represents an advance on the primitive communal system”
- Stalin, Dialectical and Historical Materialism, 1938

The most crucial factor that led to primitive communism was the evolution of man. The most important characteristics, developing from the need to adapt to the climate changes of the day (forested environments to grassy, open savannahs), dietary changes (more fibrous food consumption), and developing social skills led to early humans being able to store and process substantial amounts of information. This gave us the ability to have more advanced social interactions between other humans, communication, tool-making, and more. Man at this time had subsisted off fruits, roots, nuts, insects, etc., and were at least partial tree-dwellers. The sizes of our brains were comparable to those of chimpanzees, but only slightly larger.

Much of men’s existence at this time depended on factors completely outside of their reach. They were at the mercy of their local environment, and if it was too hostile, they were forced to settle in a more hospitable location. It would not be for millions of years until humanity understood agriculture,

“[…] their diets were dependent on the fluctuations of natural ecosystems. They had to worry about whether overfishing a lake would deplete a crucial food source or whether a drought would wither up important plants.” [brackets mine: P.B]
- (Elshaikh, Paleolithic Societies

In other words, nature was one of the prime factors of a community thriving

Humans did not live isolated from one another. We as Marxists understand that, to procure one’s existence, one must struggle against the forces of nature to produce. Many people perished from the elements, other groups of people, predators, severe malnutrition, and much more. As a result, those working in greater numbers allowed for a higher chance to survive and reproduce, as a single human often did not have the physical capabilities to overpower predators or (sometimes) prey. Knowing this, Marx comments,

"In order to produce, they [the working people] enter into definite connections and relations with one another and only within these social connections and relations does their action on nature, does production, take place." [brackets mine: P.B]
- Marx, Wage Labor and Capital, 1849

People lived in small groups of a few dozen at most. Though there exists some debate, we can safely assume that subjugation of the sexes did not exist, as the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History notes,

“[…] sexual dimorphism in other primates is usually characterized by size differences in bodies and teeth. Fossil evidence shows that male Au. afarensis [Australopithecus] individuals had canine teeth comparable in size to those of females.” [brackets mine: P.B]
- Australopithecus Afarensis, Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, 2024

The first artificially made tools were made of sticks and bones. Tool-making finally distinguished our human ancestors from animals, as we could make instruments of labor, while they could not. As the Economic Institute of Sciences of the USSR put it,

“The emergence of man was one of the greatest turning points in the development of nature. This turning point took place when man's ancestors began to make implements of labor. The fundamental difference between man and animal starts only with the making of implements, though they be the very simplest.”
- Political Economy, Economics Institute of the Academy of Sciences of the U.S.S.R., 1954

Using these definitions, the first humans, Australopithecus, were first observed 3.9-4.2 million years ago in Ethiopia, as they were making their own tools, though existing in the germ. These tools were firstly an extension of the human body:

“…the stone, of his fist, the stick, of his outstretched arm.” (Ibid).

Tools gave the first humans more meat in their diets, providing them the necessary fatty acids, vitamins, and other vital resources needed to develop the brain. Not only this, but tool-making requires more advanced cognitive abilities to plan and problem-solve, thus developing the brain even more. Hence rose the development of primitive language, first consisting of bodily gestures (facial expressions, hand signals, collaboration, etc.) and later monosyllabic grunts. Tools also had a dialectical relationship towards the evolution of our forepaws, eventually developing themselves to better use the instruments of labor. In this respect, Anthropologist Amy Peterson comments,

“Tools provided our ancestors with a great advantage, and so human hands—and brains—continued to evolve to allow tool use […]” [brackets mine: P.B]
- Peterson, Hand Made

As a result of tool use, hands became free of travel, directly resulting saw more widespread (though bipedalism may have been first used by Sahelanthropus a few million years earlier) bipedalism.

We can see evidence of this in the structure of the pelvis, lower limbs, and spine. More compelling evidence of bipedalism was found in Tanzania, where two sets of footprints belonging to an afarensis were uncovered, dating back 3.6 million years ago. Considering humans are great long-distance runners, traveling on two legs makes sense. Running on two legs is less energy-intensive than using all four limbs. Despite lots of prey being able to outrun us, now we could outrun them long-distance, giving us a variety of game. Some tribes now divided labor based off sex. However, the existence of this before the Paleolithic Era is more so implied, rather than concrete evidence. If the division of labor existed at this time, it almost certainly was not universal in application. Some communities would have labor divided, while others were more egalitarian and had both sexes perform the same work. The division of labor would not develop significantly until the emergence of Homo Erectus, however, so we will talk on this point later.

After a relatively brief time, the struggle to find new food sources drives the innovation to make stone tools. As a result, humans now were in the Paleolithic Era, using Mode 1 tools (also known as Oldowan tools). Though the topic of when they were made is widely contested and who made them, we can say that Australopithecus did, as the oldest stone tools originate from 3.3 million years ago, ruling out Homo Habilis, as they did not emerge until 900,000 years later. On this note, Ralf Rotheimer says,

“However, with today's knowledge, the oldest Oldowan tools are known to predate the earliest Homo habilis fossils.

[…]

Behavioral and dietary changes due to tool usage most likely contributed to the development of Homo habilis, indicating that the manufacturers of the earliest Oldowan tools still belonged to the australopithecines” [brackets mine: P.B]
- Rotheimer, Oldowan Tools, 2024

While there is no direct evidence that they used stone tools, their hands showed possible use of such objects. Speaking of the tools, however, some were made with hammerstones, striking pieces of stone at the right angle to make them sharp enough to use for cutting, chopping, scraping, and more. Such hammerstones could have been used to crack open nuts as well, providing an easier way to forage food. Other examples of Oldowan tools are of heavy-duty choppers, used to cut objects. Such tools helped Australopithecus garner more meat and plants for subsistence. However, one bigger subject of interest is the use of light-duty tools, signifying that early humans had some conception of being precise when producing more delicate articles. Another interesting advancement, seen at the end of Mode 1 tools, was the use of bifacial cores, as this marks the transition between Mode 1 and Mode 2. Overall, the changes in implements, from bones/wood to stone, was a drastic innovation in the productive forces of the time, paving the way to new and more efficient ways of gathering food, affecting our consciousness.

Having higher brain functions, new ways of organizing social structures were enabled. The development in this field was of the Matriarchal Clan, where members of the commune were based on kinship, and the leading/authoritative roles came from women. This also aligns with Engel’s comments on the role of women in communal society, as his findings asserted that,

“One of the most absurd notions taken over from eighteenth-century enlightenment is that in the beginning of society woman was the slave of man. Among all savages and all barbarians of the lower and middle stages, and to a certain extent of the upper stage also, the position of women is not only free, but honorable”
- Engels, The Origin of the Family, Private Property, and the State in the Light of the Research of Lewis H. Morgan, 1884

Before the existence of private property and the state, the status of women was much different today, as there largely appeared to be no subjugation based on sex. This idea is however widely contested, and it is also certain that many clans at the time lived in a more egalitarian manner. This common existence of familial connections possibly provided members of the clan to stay together, at the same time being hostile to clans outside of theirs.

We can already see how the productive forces, besides nature, lead the development of society, bringing them from one era to the next. The invention of even the simplest tools revolutionized the physiology of many parts of the body, including the brain. This revolutionary change thus developed our consciousness, culminating in the advancement of how we socially interacted with our neighbors and the invention of more advanced tools.

Here we will give our first small summary on this time period:

1. 4,200,000 years ago – The first humans emerged as Australopithecus. Such humans were partial tree-dwellers and made the first constructed tools of bone and wood.
   
   
2. 3,600,000 – More advanced means of communication and bipedalism become more common as a result of more advanced tools being used.
   
   
3. 3,300,000 – The first artificially made stone tools were made, thus kicking off the Paleolithic era. This gives humans more access to food and serves as a catalyst to matriarchy.
   
   

Mode 2 – Division of Labor and the Discovery of Fire

Moving on to Homo Habilis, some physical features exhibited by them were their weaker jaws and larger brains. This is no surprise, however, as humans have been using stone tools for a while, making it easier to substitute harder foods like dried meat and nuts with softer foods; thus, their jaws were not needed to be so strong to eat (though Homo Habilis were still mainly vegetarian). In other words, their material conditions served as a base to evolve.

The next significant contribution came with Mode 2 tools, pioneered by Homo Erectus around 1.8 million years ago. Bone and wood would be composites of the new implements, especially those of the first hand axes and cleavers. The designs of these tools, unlike those from Mode 1, were much more symmetrical, showing how the production of these tools were much more complex and standardized than previous ones. Like the implementation of the first stone tools, Mode 2 tools show that their production demanded even more coordination, planning, and other brain-intensive work as,

“[…] the toolmakers selected their raw materials carefully, traveling to particular rock outcrops to quarry stones and perhaps even removing large slabs of rock at the quarries to get at the most desirable material. Such complex activities would require advanced planning. They also likely required cooperation and communication with other individuals, as such actions would be difficult to carry out solo” [brackets mine: P.B]
- 10.6: Homo Erectus Lifeways, Social Sci LibreTexts, Libretexts, 2023

Again, we see how the production was a social act, not of a single individual.

The advancement of these tools unsurprisingly greatly affected their mental faculties:

“Their [Homo Erectus] distinctive oval and pear-shaped hand axes have been found over a wide area and some examples attained a very high level of sophistication suggesting that the roots of human art, economy and social organization arose as a result of their development” [emphasis and brackets mine: P.B]
- Acheulean or Mode 2 Industries: History of Information

In total, tool development helped the brains of Homo Erectus become 50% larger than Australopithecus. There is a problem, however, with larger brains and proportionally large bodies (encephalization), comes an increased energy supply to power such brains and bodies. Thus, Homo Erectus became more carnivorous, and their advanced tools made this option possible to sustain (though their diets were still diverse). Its longer limbs (compared to earlier humans) made it less-energy intensive to travel as well.

Homo Erectus likely started hunter-gatherer societies. Before Homo Erectus, most meat, even with the invention of Mode 1 tools, was gathered by remains predators left behind. However, Homo Habilis, forced to adapt to the climate changes of the Pleistocene Epoch, had to find new ways of obtaining food. Bipedalism facilitated hunter-gathering lifestyles, as humans could scavenge over large areas, unlike before. Their advanced cognitive abilities made it easier to problem-solve and cooperate with clan members, both essential for a hunter-gatherer lifestyle. Their new tools helped hunt large animals. These innovations, while impressive, pale in comparison to their next – fire.

After thousands of years of careful observation and practice, Homo Erectus discovered that fire could be made from friction. The importance of this cannot be overstated – it gave us a certain dominion over many aspects of nature that had previously held back humanity from conquering them. Fire made many more foods edible, making them more calorically dense (helping Homo Erectus solve the energy problem we mentioned earlier). Fire could also help defend us against predators and be used as weapons against prey. The use of fire extended the waking day, thus we could spend more time interacting with each other (campfires provided this too), hunting, making tools, and so on. Humans could settle in colder climates, with the use of fire as a heating source. And settle they did, as we can see traces of their existence in parts of Eurasia. Living in very new environments required Homo Erectus to adapt new hunting and subsistence strategies, along with more innovations in toolmaking. Here we see a more sophisticated division of labor because of it. Men would hunt/butcher large animals, while women would gather nuts and process small foods. This aligns with the Marxist conception of the division of labor:

“As the implements of production are developed, division of labor arises. Its simplest form was the natural division of labor, i.e., division of labor dependent on sex and age, between men and women, between adults, children and old people”
- Political Economy, Economics Institute of the Academy of Sciences of the U.S.S.R., 1954

Our brief sequence of events:

1. 1,800,000 years ago - Mode 2 tools are made by Homo Erectus, increasing brain size even more.
   
   
2. To conserve energy for the demanding requirements of encephalization, humans become upright.
   
   
3. 1,000,000 years ago - Discovery of fire! Making foods more calorically dense stimulates brain growth. Now humans can settle into colder climates, eat a wider variety of foods, develop our social skills and tools even more, etc.
   
   
4. 750,000 years ago - A clearer division of labor is finally seen.
   

Mode 3 – Homo Sapiens and the Afterlife

Let us take away our attention from Homo Erectus. In Eurasia, we see evidence of Neanderthals cropping up (via a common ancestor of Homo Sapiens and Denisovans some 700,000 years ago). To protect themselves against the colder climates, Neanderthals evolved larger noses to humidify colder air, as well as developing shorter limbs, thicker bones, wider hips, and more. With most of the Neanderthal’s diet mainly consisting of meat (partly from more precarious food availability), their discovery of fire expectedly advanced their cognitive abilities. Whenever a group was finished hunting, the food would be distributed equally. Bourgeois “anthropologists” appear to be astonished at the very notion of this; they, thinking unequal ownership lasted since time immemorial, thought the family who kills the animal should get the highest share. This makes no sense, however. If one group of people received a share larger than the others, the survival of the clan was threatened. A section of the group could starve, thus jeopardizing the whole. As we have established, humans had to work together to survive. Living solo was not an option.

Relatively soon after the emergence of Neanderthals, we also see the first anatomically modern Homo Sapiens in Africa (archaic Homo Sapiens). The appearance of early Homo Sapiens had long limbs/trunks to adapt to the hot climate. At this point, humans have been bipedal for so long that there exists no curvature in the finger/toe bones, unlike Australopithecus.

During the emergence of Homo Sapiens, we see the invention of Mode 3 tools, which are different from the earlier modes by having more variety, specialization, haft, natural adhesives, efficiency, and much more. Their design required a carefully planned series of steps to be executed correctly. The use of these new tools also helped develop their brains during the hunting/butchering of large animals, as they required strategic coordination and planning never before seen at the time. Because of this, they employed the first-ever usage of clothing via animal skins, protecting them even more against the harsh elements. We can also observe Mode 3 tools with Homo Sapiens, using them to hunt more elusive prey via ranged weaponry like spears and other projectiles.
Through production, the most impressive features of Neanderthals are reflected in their social life. Mode 3 tools, the most technologically advanced implements of their time, provided a more pronounced division of labor than previously observed. Dental wear (early hominids used their mouths as a sort of “third hand” if you will) reveals that the top row of teeth for males were damaged, while it was the bottom role for women.

“Both males and females,” [Nathan H Lents says,] “had striations on the labial (front) side of their front teeth, but the striations were consistently longer in women. This does not indicate that they used their teeth for some tasks more than the men did.”

[...]

“But that they used them for a different task.” [brackets mine: P.B]
- Lents, Did Neanderthals Have Gender Roles in Their Division of Labor? 2015

While it is likely there was equal participation when it came to hunting, some tasks became more specialized. What is more striking is that this division of labor was passed down culturally.

Another problem arises, however. Hunter-gatherers, according to anthropologist Manvir Singh, owned private property, thus primitive communism was nothing more than a Marxist pipedream. However, what Singh categorizes as “private property” is inherently incorrect. According to him, all something needs to be in order to be coined “private property” is simply owning anything. Singh claims that at least 70% of hunter-gatherer societies owned some form of private property, as some groups,

“[…] owned eagle nests. Bearlake Athabaskans owned beaver dens and fishing sites. Especially common is the ownership of trees. When an Andaman Islander man stumbled upon a tree suitable for making canoes, he told his group mates about it” [brackets mine: P.B]
- Singh, The Idea of Primitive Communism is as Seductive as it is Wrong, 2022

Simply owning something does not make it private property. With this logic, owning a pile of mud is private property. Private property, in reality, is an object that only a certain person/group of people hold certain privileges under production. Thus, Singh is conflating personal property with private property. Private property, unlike personal property, can become monopolized by a separate class, regardless of if they utilize it or not. This is why means of production are private property under class societies. Thus, in order for private property to exist, classes must exist (which obviously did not under primitive communism). Singh’s critiques of primitive communism with hunter-gatherers, such as the !Kung, fall flat.

We start seeing remains of Homo Sapiens outside of Africa, such as in Palestine roughly 294,000 years ago. We also see the maximum brain size of any species of Homo in history (by around 100-200 cubic centimeters, making their brains so big that their skulls had to evolve to accommodate them). Such a large brain was needed to survive, as memorizing which foods were poisonous and which were not, making complex tools, knowing how to find/make shelter, adapting to environmental changes, etc. was advantageous if you wanted to live long enough to reproduce. The evolution of the brain also facilitated the use of more advanced speech, as it

“[…] adapted neural connections to these muscles to manage fast and precise movement which is needed in order to speak with a fluent stream of words. Inner language comes from human consciousness.” [brackets mine, P.B]
- Gärdenfors, The Origin of Speech, 2006

This is not all, however. The lower placement of the pharynx and rounded skull made it possible to make more vocal sounds, thus strengthening their social skills even more. The evolution of our brain is also evidenced by the beginnings of our rich culture. We see skeletons with marks on skulls.

“These were made when the bone was still fresh in a manner indicating ritual practice. The skull also appeared 'polished' from repeated handling before it was laid in the ground”
- Dorey, Homo Sapiens – Modern Humans

Later on, we see for the first time a species entertaining the possibility of an afterlife and ritual making. It would be foolish to amount this religious behavior as “stupid” (Neanderthals, on average at the end of their species, had bigger brains than we do); rather, their still crude economic conditions are reflected in their consciousness:

“Just as man’s knowledge reflects nature (i.e., developing matter), which exists independently of him, so man’s social knowledge (i.e., his various views and doctrines—philosophical, religious, political and so forth) reflects the economic system of society”
- Lenin, The Three Sources and Three Component Parts of Marxism, 1913

Having little-to-no understanding of science, the only way to understand the world was through religion. We also see the first signs of art, jewelry, burials, and so on. Shortly after, we see the first bows and arrows being made, marking the end of Middle Savagery.

Neanderthal language, though anatomically less capable than what Homo Sapiens developed, would have served as the vehicle for such communication (as evidence suggests the existence of a hyoid bone in the skull, serving as an anatomical prerequisite for speech). The slow emergence of speech makes sense, as working in greater numbers was already established to be advantageous. While the only Neanderthal skeletons showing a hyoid bone trace only back to 60,000 years ago, it is almost certain it existed back for much longer (considering the social feats they could pull off). Moving forward, for the first time in history, we see the invention of musical instruments by the Neanderthals. Made from the thigh bone of a deceased bear, it illustrated another clear sign that they too, had sophisticated artistic and spiritual expression. Of course, the production of the instrument would not have been possible without the use of complex tools like we see from these particular industries. Thus, once again, consciousness is developed by the innovations (in this case, innovations pushed in Mode 3 tools) of the economic system it lives under.
Our third order of events goes as follows:

1. 430,000 years ago – Neanderthals crop up. Cold/harsher climates push them to hunt for more meat, as well as evolve their bodies to accommodate for such conditions. Having a more carnivorous diet is facilitated by the use of fire, developing the brains of Neanderthals.
   
   
2. 300,000 years ago - Mode 3 tools emerged, making clothing possible, as well as developing the brains of both species even more. Archaic Homo Sapiens arise and migrate out of Africa due to climate changes and develop more advanced language.
   
   
3. 200,000 years ago – the first modern Homo Sapiens emerged.
   
   
4. 160,000 years ago – the first signs of culture from Homo Sapiens arise.
   
   
5. 80,000 years ago - We see a more acute division of labor. Religion, arts, and other aspects of culture are seen as reflected by their material conditions by Neanderthals. We see both Neanderthals and Homo Sapiens bury their dead.
   
   
6. 70,000 years ago - The invention of the bow and arrow ends Middle Savagery.
   
   
7. 60,000 years ago - The first instruments are seen made. More advanced language sprung up as a result of more advanced communication/advanced ideas in culture from the Neanderthals.
   

Mode 4 – The Culture Explosion and Semi-Settled Life

Though these findings are interesting, they do not even compare with the explosion of cultural/symbolic expression later on, with the technological breakthrough of Mode 4 tools. The invention of such, the newest innovation of the productive forces of the day, can be characterized by their longer flakes, making ranged weaponry more ideal. Unlike previous modes of tools, some Mode 4 tools were designed specifically for cultural purposes, whether it be for carving designs (via burins), sculpting, painting, and instrument-making. There of course however existed a variety of tools outside of cultural and hunting purposes, such as composite tools made for scraping, cutting, enlarging bores, etc. But speaking of culture, we see an explosion of culture exhibited by early humans (surprising?).

We see the first sculptures made, depicting figures such as animals and people (Venus figures are a famous example, another sign of the matriarchal clan). We later see hundreds of cave paintings depicting outlines of human hands, and later animals in a “twisted perspective.” While these may have been crude, they represented a large step in human cognition, with the accuracy of the drawings reflecting people’s close observation and study of nature. It is no wonder why Britannica comments,

“The art of the Aurignacian culture represents the first complete tradition in the history of art, moving from awkward attempts to a well-developed, mature style.”
- Aurignacian Culture, Encyclopædia Britannica, inc

As stated before, the only way the substantial expression of culture was possible was by mental development.

“Many researchers believe this explosion of artistic material in the archaeological record about 40,000 years ago is due to a change in human cognition […]” [brackets mine: P.B]
- Dorey, Homo Sapiens – Modern Humans

While there of course exist many theories as to why this is, we believe that Mode 4 tools at least played a crucial role to kick off more brain development, as seen in previous modes.

Shortly after the Aurignacian Industry arose, Homo Sapiens domesticated wolves (turning them into dogs) for the first time. But why? We have established that humans for millennia could hold their own against predators many times their size. While this is true, wolves simply added in more benefits that raised the quality of life and survival rates amongst a tribe. For one, being faster than humans, they were able to chase down and catch prey faster. They also served as an early detection system, whether it be against predators or rival tribes, as their senses were of course much keener than ours ever were. Keep in mind that these ancient dogs were not small and friendly, rather they were,

“[…]as large as recent dog breeds…” [brackets mine: P.B]
- Ensminger, Canine Domestication May Have Begun 30,000 or More Years Ago, 2013

What would dogs get out of this friendship? Well, for one, their survival had been threatened with the arrival of humans, as their mental prowess was able to out-compete many other species. As a result, making a pact with humans made sense. They would get assured survival for the species, as humans would give them shelter, physical protection, and shares of their food.

Dogs were not just convenient tools for the benefit of humans, they were highly valued companions. A burial site in what is now the Czech Republic has 32,000 year old the remains of a dog, showing that early humans showed great respect for their canine companions. Some later burials were taken a step further, as dogs could be buried with their owners. The fact these burials existed shows that it may have been a way to “connect with the soul of the departed dog,” if you will. After the death of a canine, their body parts and teeth (depending on the culture) would have been used for ornamentation. Note that many mammals with teeth usable for adornment were very prevalent, but early humans chose to use their hunting companions for this purpose, once again showing the close bond between the two species. We also see remains of animals being used for certain tools like awls and barbs. Despite these (now dead) dogs being a possible food source, they were sometimes chosen to be used as symbolic imagery, implying that they held a very high status. At Piedmosti, there exists strong evidence that the brains of deceased dogs were eaten or used for ritualistic purposes. From here, we see a definite extra use for the dogs, as they could also transport/haul materials for humans, saving resources and time.

With the rise of the Gravettian industry, the breakthroughs in toolmaking finally allowed a semi-settled life, where people would live for multiple seasons. In Japan, we see the first polished stone tools, which is noteworthy because these tools are usually associated with later periods like the Neolithic. It should be noted that these polished tools were certainly not common during this time, though they could still contribute to a more sedentary lifestyle. The reason polished tools are so useful for a more settled way of life is because they,

“[…] not only increased the intrinsic mechanical strength of the axe but also meant that the head could penetrate wood more easily. Polished stone axes were important for the widespread clearance of woods and forest during the Neolithic period, when crop and livestock farming developed on a large scale” [brackets mine: P.B]
- Hays, Types of Early Modern Human Tools

There existed the planning of villages, as members of the tribes started building primitive houses partially out of the remains of mammoth bones, with the exterior of the settlements covered in animal hides. Many settlements were shown to be strategically placed based on migration patterns, showing a very complex understanding of their surrounding environment.

Homo Sapiens now held a greater mastery over controlling fire, as more advanced kilns, hearths, and other instruments were used to keep warm. Here, evidence suggests the first uses of ceramics from clay, with the appearance of several hundred clay figurines made. A clan could now be made of many people (probably up to 100) instead of only a few dozen. It becomes clear that humans no longer were surviving, but thriving, being concerned with their appearance. The first nets/traps made for hunting were implemented during this time period, and the creation of such traps were likely tasked to the women and children. Besides canines, other large animal’s remains were used for tools, such as bones from horses, deer, foxes, mammoths, and more. In other places, we see the first wild wheat harvested, marking the transition from a hunter-gatherer mode of living to an agricultural one. Such harvesting probably inadvertently kicked off the first domestication of crops, as early humans probably chose to plant the seeds of crops that they saw beneficial while discarding ones that did not meet their needs.

Later, in the Solutrean industry, blades

“[…] were formed in the shape of laurel or willow leaves and shouldered points […]”, distinguishing it from other industries of the same mode [brackets mine: P.B]
- Solutrean Industry, Encyclopedia Britannica

They had gone from unifacial blades to bifacial blades. For the first time, some implements were made with workmanship so precise and careful that their uses were possibly for “luxury purposes,” suggesting that human societies started finally gaining a surplus of resources (instead of constantly living hand-to-mouth). It is certainly possible, as previous findings showed

“In the middle Solutrean levels great fireplaces are found with flint utensils and the remains of abundant feasts among the charred debris”
- Hitchcock, The Solutrean - the Peak of Stone Tools Workmanship

As a result, many objects started to become status symbols instead of tools meant for actual use. Thanks to the advanced tools, clothing more fitted to the cold environment could be made with the use of needles. In China, we see more polished tools, though they are not fully polished like what we see during the Neolithic Period. The Solutrean people also took pressure flaking to a whole new level, making any hunting tools more optimal than they had ever been before. Perhaps the greatest thing to have come out of this time period was the population explosion, increasing from a few hundred people to thousands. This great increase in the population most likely stimulated more cultural development.

Our next concise timeline:

1. 43,000 years ago – Mode 4 tools arise, signaling the explosion of culture, such as cave paintings, more advanced jewelry, small statues, etc.
   
   
2. 36,000 years ago – The first wolves domesticated. They enriched our culture and helped humans gather food.
   
   
3. 32,000 years ago – We see the first polished tools made in Japan, showing that living a semi-sedentary lifestyle, was becoming more possible. People were able to start living with more luxury than ever before. The first hunting traps were made roughly around this time too.
   
   
4. 23,000 years ago – Wild wheat and other crops are harvested for the first time.
   
   
5. 22,000 years ago – The first luxury items were made, with fine workmanship being unparalleled at this time. We see a few signs of a surplus of resources. Hunting became more optimal with better tools and strategy. More polished tools appear in China. We see a great population explosion by the end of the Solutrean Industry.
   

Mode 5 – The Final Mode

Our next greatest development is the invention of Mode 5 tools by Homo Sapiens in the Mesolithic time period. Many of these tools were characterized by their geometric microliths (small stone tools roughly a centimeter in length) attached to a shaft (a process known as “hafting”) to make serrated blades and better projectiles. This indicates a greater precision in production than Mode 4. Interestingly, we can also see that the materials used for production were from much more diverse areas, suggesting possible trading networks (or some other type of social interaction) between tribes. One of the distinguishing features of the Mesolithic however is the use of chipped stone tools, as the Paleolithic used more crude implements, and the Neolithic used polished tools more. Though polished tools technically appeared in the previous mode, it is possible they were used more than before (however, many tools were not fully polished). Around this time, humans settled into the Americas for the first time, while other humans harvested wild grasses in Palestine. People during this time did not have technology advanced enough to have full-on agricultural production, rather they lived as hunter-gatherers, harvesting plants known to grow around the region. Despite this practice being an unusual and seemingly insignificant occurrence, it is the birth of a completely new way of life, and thus this event should not be discarded.

Another very distinguishing feature of Mesolithic tools was the invention of pottery using clay. Though pottery was far more widespread during the Neolithic era, ceramics mainly came from this point in time. As a result, the Mesolithic Period ends Upper Savagery. Though semi-settled life during this time varied depending on the culture, geographic location, and level of technological advancement, some tribes were able to make walled-off communities (though other tribes still lived in caves). Culturally speaking, besides ceramics, the only notable achievement was Mesolithic rock art. Though the pictures entail scenes of nature, the main focus is on the humans, whether they be hunting, dancing, performing rituals, or starting crude agricultural practices.

After the Mesolithic, the Magdalenian started to flourish. One of the features of implements that made the Magdalenian people more unique was the larger use of bones and ivory for production and aesthetics. Industry’s semi-settled life was partially facilitated by the abundance of certain animals around settlements. If the animals migrated, the Magdalenian people would follow and settle in the new location. Such abundance once again saw a large boom in population growth, where previous tribes of around 100 members saw their numbers multiply greatly. We can turn our attention to Jordan, where wild grains, einkorn, and barley were a part of people’s diets. A thousand years later in Syria, wheat becomes processed to become more nutritional. An uncharacteristic return to more simple drawing styles occurred, where attention to detail was largely discarded. This did not last, however, as said drawings increasingly became more complex to the point where engravings and naturalist art reached a new peak.

At the end of the last Ice Age, however, people’s food supply in the area became scarce. Many animals had died off in such great numbers (perhaps due to over-exploiting resources by said people) that many species became extinct. Other species were so few in number that they did not provide a reliable, steady source of food. Not only this but certain coastal areas had been flooded by massive glaciers melting. Such a dire situation decreased any leisure time with religion and the arts. Late cave art suggests that, in a vain attempt to regain this food supply, Magdalenian people used “magic” to make the animals return. This new dearth in the food supply would plague the successors of the Magdalenian people and the Azilian Industry, thus widespread culture became a shadow of its former self. This makes sense, as, if people do not have the basic necessities to survive (food, water, shelter), they do not have time to pursue religion, cultural activities, or politics. As Engels said,

“Man must eat before he can think, and he must have shelter and clothing before he can engage in politics, science, art, religion, etc.”
- Engels, Anti-Dühring, 1887.

Such a lack of a typical food supply leads Azilian people to eat smaller animals, such as mollusks and birds. Two cites of the Azilian people even point to a “step back” in technological complexity (or at least a significant difference in attaining resources):

“With this comparison of two sites, several elements associated with the technical simplification of these industries were confronted. Broadly, these two assemblages share several features: at both sites, blades, and bladelets were manufactured from cores using a stone hammer, and the preparation of these cores was minimal”
-Cheung, A comparison of the Lithic industries from two Azilian sites in Aquitaine: how to interpret different degrees of technical simplification? 2014

Dialectically, it “checks out” – history does not progress in a perfect straight line. There are times when disastrous, even extinction-level events occur, destroying important ecosystems in a very short time period, setting large swathes of life thousands of years back. Lenin once said,

“History knows no straight lines; it knows sometimes leaps and sometimes tremendous steps backwards. To assume that history always moves in a straight line, always moving forward, is un-dialectical. History often takes leaps and sometimes even moves backwards in great strides”
- Lenin, The Collapse of the Second International, 1915

Before we go too far, let us have a quick recap:

1. 20,000 years ago – Homo Sapiens invented Mode 5 tools; people migrated to the Americas. Pottery was first introduced at this time too.
   
   
2. 14,000 years ago – Wild grasses are harvested for the first time in Palestine.
   
   
3. 12,000 years ago – Mesolithic Rock Art was created. Some tribes could make walled-off communities, even if they were very uncommon. Significant population growth was seen. Naturalist art reached a new level of complexity.
   
   
4. 12,000 – 10,000 years ago – Large shifts in climate occurred, forcing humans to lose vital food sources. A waning in technological innovation and culture is seen.

Neolithic Revolution and the Crumbling Away of Communal Society

The need to find better sources of food drove many communities of people into the Near East, where the climate was becoming more hospitable. As Chris Harman put it,

“[…] changes in the global climate prevented people from obtaining an adequate livelihood in this way. As conditions in the Fertile Crescent region became drier and cooler, there was a decline in the availability of naturally occurring wild grains and a fall in the size of the antelope and deer herds. The hunter-gatherer villages faced a crisis. They could no longer live as they had been living. If they were not to starve, they either had to break up into small groups and return to a long-forgotten nomadic way of life or find some way to make up for the deficiencies of nature by their own labor”
- Harmen, A People’s History of the World, 1999

Such climate changes gave birth to the Fertile Crescent, a C-shaped region encompassing modern-day Iraq, Syria, Egypt, Jordan, Palestine, and the Persian Gulf. The Fertile Crescent was immensely important to humans of the day because it had very fertile land and plentiful water sources (such as the Euphrates and Tigris River).

With plants and animals bountiful in a single place and the environmental conditions significantly ripening, agriculture was able to come into effect, starting in a more simplistic form: horticulture. Since tools had been made to be fully polished, this made it possible to clear out large plots of land and till them. Any extra land and debris had been burned (a method known as “swidden”). After the land had been extensively used for agricultural purposes, it was allowed to return to its natural, wild state, where people would clear away the land once more, thus repeating the cycle. Children were able to participate in horticultural labor, thus families increased in number to output more.

As horticulture progressed, stocks of goods were stored in surplus. The surplus was also expressed via surplus labor time. Some settled societies, such as Jericho, had so much surplus time and resources to the point that they could build monumental structures that had never been seen before. Other more sophisticated social apparatuses emerged, such as the higher use of trading networks between other permanent settlements. Precious materials like obsidian, seashells, and certain rocks were traded along networks. These materials were used for practical (for tool production) and aesthetical purposes (decorating certain implements). This process of trade

“[…] requires a certain degree of political and economic organization from the center pursuing importation, a fact that was closely linked to urbanization processes” [brackets mine: P.B]
- Liverani, The Ancient Near East: History, Society and Economy, 2013

Other groups of people, referred to as “pastoralists” embraced the keeping-up of animals/breeding, having them exchange their services with nearby settlements in return for goods they could not obtain on their own (such as cultivated crops).

In different parts of the world, the first groups of individuals under a social hierarchy arose, resulting from the need to manage the surplus of the village. From North America to Australia, these “egalitarian redistributors” as Fried coined, emerged from many Neolithic villages, where society had reached similar levels of economic development (horticultural societies). They served as diplomats, leaders of war (which were very uncommon at this time), consultants, or even semi-religious figures. Egalitarian distributors had not gotten their status from a privileged position, rather they had earned it through hard work. Passing power down via kinship was prohibited. In New Guinea for example, ‘Big Men’ or ‘Center Men’ were not isolated from the rest of society, living off the surplus of the community and subjugating those below him. As Richard B. Lee says,

“Leaders existed, but where they existed they were redistributors, not accumulators”
- Lee, Primitive Communism and the Origin of Social Inequality, 1990

In fact, they were subject to checks and balances and had to distribute surplus based on the needs of the commune, and owned no more resources than any other person. As Leeward says,

“They [Big Men] have no true authority and have no power to enforce any of their requests. Hence, they are often highly verbal and charismatic people” [brackets mine: P.B]
- Lee,  Horticultural Mode of Production

Society, if not completely egalitarian, would have still been matriarchal in nature, as Harmen says “There was no evidence of male supremacy, either. Some archaeologists have seen the existence of clay or stone statuettes of fecund female figures as suggesting a high status for women, so that men found it ‘natural’ to pray to women” (Ibid.). Women were probably in fact viewed as goddesses in other settlements too like Çatalhöyük, as imagery in pottery depicted such things. Spirituality advanced in other respects too, as dead family members would start being buried under their family’s homes. The rationale was that the deceased, now ghosts, would protect their living. This idea also falls in line with a lineage living in one place, further cementing evidence of a settled life.

Here, unequal distribution of resources takes shape. As our friend Singh mentioned, certain villages after hunting would use all of the food for themselves. If someone did not contribute to the hunt, they were not given a share. Singh therefore proudly beats his chest and proclaims that primitive communism never existed, as the communes were supposed to always be egalitarian and sharing, no matter what! Such a ridiculous notion can be easily debunked by taking even the shortest glance at history. Firstly, contradictions arising in the commune do not magically make it a different socioeconomic system. For example, Lee writes,

“Although the new relations of production achieve dominance, they do not succeed in completely eliminated the old from the social formation [...] In fact, it could be argued that the contradiction between communal forms and emerging hierarchy has provided much of the energy for the social dynamic during long periods of human history (since 10,000 B.C.) prior to the development of classes”
- Lee, Primitive Communism and the Origin of Social Inequality, page 230, 1990

Singh loses out on the bigger picture. What matters here is, while growing contradictions are indeed present, the vast majority of characteristics are still communistic in nature. By and large, there clearly existed no state, classes, money, slavery, etc. But these criticisms grate upon the ears of so-called “respectable academics” such as Singh.

As agriculture progressed, domestication of plants came into full force in Mesopotamia (located in the Fertile Crescent), as people’s cognitive capabilities were advanced enough to perform such tasks. Carefully selecting which crops to grow, humans would effectively engineer plants for their own uses. The first ever crops domesticated were certain types of wheat, figs, and peas intended for eating. This is no surprise, as wild wheat had already been cultivated before, and growing it was quite easy compared to other crops. Cotton/linen becomes utilized for clothing and aesthetical purposes, and the cultivation of wild cereals begins. Certain tools helped accelerate artificial selection, such as the flint sickle. At the time plants were being domesticated, lots of preparation and labor had to be put into preparing each of these crops for them to be edible. For example, it seems that the children in Syria had been tasked with transporting heavy loads of grain, causing stress on their upper vertebrae. Many skeletons of women, both adult and juvenile, showed signs of arthritis in the toes and knees, an indication that said women were grinding cereal grains. Such findings dispel the notion that the men did all of the hard work, as

“[…] the preparation of grain for eating that was the most demanding and labor-intensive activity of the settlement, as it still is in many places. The grain had to be pounded every day because the seeds would not keep once they were dehusked. The dehusking with mortar and pestle and the subsequent grinding in a saddlequern would have taken many hours” [brackets mine: P.B]
- Molleson, The Eloquent Bones of Aby Hureya, 1994

Men of the community would likely hunt and cultivate plants. Other findings show many inhabitants of the community with broken or damaged teeth, resulting from eating impurities from eating grain. To alleviate this problem, sieves were invented, a weaving tool that could filter out any impurities, as well as fining out the textures of any grains. Another specialization of labor occurred with the invention of a “craft area,” where certain skilled individuals would weave baskets, another solution for bringing back harvest grains. Another innovation in the productive forces manifested itself in the advancement of pottery, as the invention of ovens made pottery production more efficient. Pottery vessels made cereals softer via cooking, thus decreasing the amount of fracturing on the teeth. As a result, porridge could now be made, making grains more nutritious. It also helped many people with fractured jaws and teeth survive, as those unable to chew might have been unable to eat sufficiently, leading to malnutrition, weakened immune systems, and ultimately. Porridge was also used to wean infants (adjust them to other subsistence than milk) and increased fertility in adult women by decreasing time intervals between births.

Animal domestication (mainly cattle at first) finally occurred around the same time as planet domestication in the Fertile Crescent. Cows could provide subsistence (meat/milk) and shelter (using their hides). Since they are herbivores, this meant that giving them a steady food supply was fairly simple, unlike other animals. At the same time, wild goats were being hunted, then herded, and eventually bred. Goats were of particular interest to Mesopotamians because certain body parts could be made to produce tools, as well as manure. Unlike cattle, however, such goats seemed to initially fear humans. Thus, goats that did not possess this characteristic were chosen to be bred.

“Genes control the ability to lose the fear of humankind enough to accept feed and husbandry. Goats with those genes are the ones that became popular among herders. Even Neolithic samples from the Balkans (circa 8100 years old) contain behavior-related genes that are present in domestic goats today”
- Cooper, A Brief History of Goat Domestication, 2021

Sheep too were domesticated in the Fertile Crescent. Besides their immediate uses (food, shelter, etc.), the woolly coat covering its body was used for textile purposes. Other parts of the body, such as the liver, were used in ancient rituals in attempts to predict the future. The domestication of pigs followed slightly after. Since pigs are omnivores, feeding them was even less of an issue than other domesticated animals. Possibly one of the biggest achievements in animal domestication was that animals could now breed at any time of the year, instead of it being restricted to a specific season.

The domestication of crops and animals did not yield purely positive results, however. Domestication of crops and animals brought about new diseases man had previously not known. A narrower diet (as only a few certain crops were used) made the population deficient in certain vitamins. Famines were now a potential problem. If any village suffered from one and could not improve their agricultural techniques, they were essentially forced to raid a neighboring village to acquire food. After all,

“[s]tone battle axes and flint daggers became increasingly common, for instance, in the later stages of the neolithic revolution in Europe” [brackets mine: P.B]
- Harmen, A People’s History of the World, chapter 2, 1999

As a result, a new, more complex form of social organization had formed, where certain individuals could control and had extensive oversight of the storages. If any enemy were to raid a village, men and domesticated dogs were the most likely to defend the storages, as opposed to women. Despite the negatives, populations during the Neolithic Revolution greatly increased, going from a few hundred to around ten thousand, as it is easy to see how settled life was comparably much better than a mobile way of living. As a result of this population explosion mothers now had to spend more time childbearing and caring for their young (this has been culturally reflected by the idea of women being associated with “fertility” or “life-giving”).

Mesopotamians by 7000 BCE were finally able to regularly live a fully settled life, free from the threats of precarious food supplies and hospitable climate, as these cradles of civilizations, along with human intervention, were able to supply both. This also freed humanity from relying solely on hunting and gathering as a means to live. By a certain point in the Neolithic, the tools of the Paleolithic, the macroliths and microliths, had largely stopped being used due to the ever-changing production needs of the time.

As populations/surpluses continued to increase, implements became more complex, the threat of warfare became increasingly looming over society, social structures inevitably became more complex to manage society. The egalitarian redistributors, over thousands of years, likely centralized authority to such a point that they could appropriate surplus and unequally redistribute it. These newer forces of the primitive commune inherently held irreconcilable contradictions between the older, moribund forces of society, chiefly communal ownership. In other words, the old production relations of society ceased to correspond to the new productive forces. Thus, the equal distribution of resources

“[…] began to act as a brake on the development of new productive forces”
- Political Economy, Economics Institute of the Academy of Sciences of the U.S.S.R., 1954

The result, albeit of a relatively unknown process (or at the very least, seldom talked about by historians) manifested itself in a few different forms, according to Lee:

• The Lineage System: Under the lineage system, a group of male elders held power at the expense of the younger members of society. Resultantly, here the first patriarchies exist. As lineages grew in number, their complexity unsurprisingly grew, where the senior branch became the leader of society. Such leaders “[…] get their pick of arable land, and through their leverage within the lineage can concentrate wealth in land or cattle” (Lee, Primitive Communism and the Origin of Social Inequality, pg. 242, 1990.). The elders of the patriarch, owners of animals, crops, tools, and eventually communal property, engaged in exchange with other clans outside of their domain, turning these things into private property. However, any natural sites (rivers, fields, forests, etc.) used for production were communally owned, thus an aspect of its former self remained. The reach of these families grew into villages, where every commoner was not a member of the family.
  
  
• Center Men: Though already touched upon, Center Men became more authoritative and commanding as well during the latter part of its development. Such figures at least partially functioned to increase production, as they saw that, besides meeting demands for upcoming population growth, people would work for admiration/prestige. Big Men, still being able to supervise the redistribution of goods, mobilized his civilians to partake in feasts, which also served as a rally-call for his allies of war. However, with Center Men still largely lacked much-needed control over his people. Big Men thus centralized power by concentrating the wealth of surplus into their own hands. Big Men also expanded their territorial reach by taking separate villages via warfare. At the end of this process, Big Men evolved into another social mechanism entirely – chiefs.
  
  
• Chiefdom: These were nothing like chiefs of previous times. Like seniors of the Lineage System, Chiefs now inherited power via kinship. They were not held accountable for their actions and grew wealthy off of the surplus, living in larger houses, showing the first signs of inequality in architecture. In order to justify their powerful positions, chiefs often used religious beliefs, equating themselves as supernatural entities that transcended the rest of humanity. Chiefs, only being men, may have used warfare as an excuse to justify their awarded prestige. Here, classes and the state clearly existed in embryo. Agents of this “proto-state” are armed men who protect the chief. “By withholding some of the contributions and distributing them only to a select group of followers, chiefs often create a military/police group which will obey the chief. This gives the chief true power and authority, and they can compel others to do their bidding” (Horticultural Mode of Production.). Other commoners selected become other members of the chief’s advisors and assistants to help run affairs. To uphold the chief’s more lavish lifestyle, as well as the retinue, resources were distributed mainly to them. Thus, a crude form of taxation emerged.
  
  Though at least one more group of similar leaders existed (priests), they existed under the Urban Revolution. Thus, if they were mentioned here, it would bring anachronism.
  
  The blazing-fast transformation from a semi-settled mode of living to the domestication of plants/agriculture, the domestication of animals, the advancement of technology, and the rise of higher social structures, is what we call the Neolithic Revolution (a term coined by Marxist archeologist Gordon V. Childe). Its nature is fundamentally dialectical – after millions of years of small quantitative changes, from bigger brains, more advanced tools, an increase in cultural development, etc. led to a sudden quantitative explosion, fundamentally transforming nearly every aspect of life. These remarkable innovations, simultaneously occurring with Mesopotamia or afterward, took place in Spain, Asia, Central Europe, Mexico, Central America, and more. As a result, the timeframe of when the Neolithic Revolution happened largely depends on the region it occurred in. In Summary, advances in the productive forces and natural changes in the environment reshaped material life drastically, and therefore our social relations addressed newer concerns for survival. These new social relations, inherently contradictory with the traditional egalitarian communist society, usurped it, forming the incipient patriarchies, states, and classes. Thus, there existed more complex social mechanisms to run society, manage its resources, and provide for large groups of people.
  

Urbanization and the Creation of Class Society

The final progression under primitive communism was the Urban Revolution, once again coined by Childe. Lower Mesopotamia was at the forefront of this change, specifically in Eridu, located in modern-day Iraq. As a result of migration from the Caucasus region, settlement proliferation occurred. Eridu then became the first city ever built. This newfound population exerted pressure on the settlement to find resources to sustain itself. Thus, residents of Eridu discovered unusually fertile soil, only obtainable by drainage and irrigation. Once these methods were pioneered, they ensured water availability and provided enough land for cultivation. Having more sources of water was exploited by the Mesopotamians, as seafood became a new steady addition to people’s diets. Irrigation had a widespread affect on current social structures, as such processes required more widespread cooperation, even needing hundreds of people working together. Directing this production came from priests, as their accumulatively acquired knowledge of the natural world would have come to benefit.

At first, just like any other egalitarian redistributor, the priest only redistributed surplus, a servant of their community. However, just like proceeding figures in other societies, their power became more solidified and more centralized. Storages for surplus were made and were controlled completely by the priests, turning them into temples; such an event reflects the growing power of the priests. This is quite noteworthy for another reason, as previous religious activities took place within the homes of separate families. As a result,

“Those who supervised the granaries became the most prestigious group in society, overseeing the life of the rest of the population as they gathered in, stored and distributed the surplus. The storehouses and their controllers came to seem like powers over and above society, the key to its success, which demanded obedience and praise from the mass of people”
- Harmen, A People’s History of the World, chapter 2, 199

Some of the resources made for fishing were offered to the temples as a religious gesture.

The egalitarian redistributors, turning into authoritarian rulers that increasingly craved control of the wealth of society to prop itself up, naturally may alert the curiosity of those reading. Wouldn’t primitive communism be over? No. While a class-based society was clearly emerging, arising from the dying remains of an egalitarian communal mode of production, many core aspects of this system remained. No commoner of the villages was forced to do labor against their will and slavery was essentially unknown. As Lee puts it,

“And even these chiefly and ranked societies had by no means abandoned all the institutions of communalism. Many continued to hold land in common and to practice reciprocal economic relationism

[...]

In the foregoing I have argued that a long sequence and a multiplicity of pathways link the communal mode with systems of inequality. And for an extended period, elements of communalism coexist with elements of hierarchy. Yet even in these transitional forms, the contours of the communal mode are visible to those who have eyes to see it” [brackets mine: P.B]
- Lee, Primitive Communism and the Origins of Social Inequality, page 242, 1990

This would not stay for long, however.

Metallurgy had for a while been established in Eridu, marking the beginnings of the Chalcolithic Age. Copper did not exist in great supply in communities; thus, their existence made them precious, making them valuable for trading purposes.

As the Ubaid period arrived, the grandeur of the temples greatly increased in size and complexity (turning into ziggurats) once again showing how the authority of the priests was becoming more centralized in Eridu. Another reflection of this growing power was seen in pottery and trade. Specialized craftsmen and trade networks arose, as evidence shows a bountiful number of precious materials and increased production in pottery. The increase in these artifacts implies that eventual full-time craftsmen would be necessary, especially during the Late Ubaid period, when they were made in massive quantities. The craftsmen also were tasked with

“[…] cooking for and clothing the temple specialists, transporting food to the temples and organizing the long-distance exchange of products. Over the centuries the agricultural villages grew into towns and the towns into the first cities, such as Uruk, Lagash, Nippur, Kish and Ur”
- Lee, Primitive Communism and the Origins of Social Inequality, 1990

In turn, the craftsmen were given pottery, metal objects, and rare stones.

Another division of labor found itself with the invention of the plow (to increase agricultural production). Once-used hoes were upgraded into ploughs, breaking up the soil much better than its predecessor. Such ploughs were used by men, as it would be exceedingly difficult to perform this task as a woman, as they became far more childbearing than before. Later, these ploughs would be manned by large, heavy animals like cattle and ox, increasing productivity even more. Ploughs would eventually be made from wood into copper, making them more durable.

Ubaid culture by 4300 B.C. had traveled north of Mesopotamia, having lots of its temple architecture mimicked in places like Assyria. Specifically, the site Tepe Gawra showed ziggurats reminiscent of the late Ubaid but with local characteristics, showing

“[…] large courtyard flanked by three sanctuaries and combining southern elements with local ones. The temples of Level 13 feature thin and highly decorated buttressed walls, colored plaster, a tripartite plan and a lateral entrance”
- Liverani, The Ancient Near East, page 79, 2014

These connections with other places indicated a sophisticated trade of precious materials, as seen previously.

The population later flocked to Lower Mesopotamia for its natural resources. The very emergence of Uruk itself is very interesting, as it was centered along large ziggurats and public buildings, showing more social stratification. Religion had progressed to such a point where gods representing forces of nature were common (including Inanna, the god of surplus/abundance), unlike previous gods that represented very general concepts. By 4100 BCE, Uruk became the world’s largest city, as well as a large trade hub. Unlike previous societies, the total land in the society was gradually being used for religious purposes (making temples, for example). These lands were maintained first by consensual labor by the commoner, and in turn, they would receive goods. However, as the power of the priests grew, this luxury was stripped away. A small portion of a village’s earnings had to be given to the priests to maintain said land. The production of pottery reached a new height, becoming mass-produced. Such production would of course need some form of political leadership to oversee the economic output. This job was once again likely relegated to the priests. As pottery became more mass-produced, their quality had to decrease in order to output large numbers. However new methods of production like the potter’s wheel were developed. Why was pottery becoming mass-produced? It was likely because of the massive number of workers that were forced to do massive projects.

As economies grew, there came a need to record economic transactions. Envelopes would record/keep track of certain goods and transactions, making this especially practical for growing economies. At first, simple shapes (triangles, circles, cylinders, etc.) and pictures symbolized a single concept (token system). As these systems progressed,

“[…]  tokens, probably representing a debt, were stored in envelopes until payment

[…]

These markings were the first signs of writing” [brackets mine: P.B]
- The Evolution of Writing, 2014

Measurement systems became more exact and standardized. As Liverani writes,

“In Mesopotamia, the system was sexagesimal, based on multiples of six and ten. Therefore, multiples and divisors of a given unit were 60 and 360, 1/60 and 1/360 and so on”
- Liverani, The Ancient Near East: History, Society and Economy, page 71, 2013

As trade expanded, priests could not simply memorize every economic transaction that took place within their territory. Therefore, a standardized writing system that could write Sumerian (their language) was necessary. Out of this need, cuneiform was made, where simple pictographic tablets represent multiple concepts. If a priest wanted to notate multiple objects, they would repeat etching in the same picture. This system later evolved to phonograms, which could represent sounds, even if they were at first only monosyllabic. Grammatical elements would later be included as the craft became more developed. Scribes, highly educated workers from the elites, later emerged to dedicate their jobs fully to accounting. Scribes had to be well-versed in various fields, from agriculture to business, as well as memorizing over 1000 unique written characters. Said scribes were required to go to strict writing schools (the “House of Tablets”) to learn cuneiform. But being a scribe was not just about being an intellectual. Etching symbols on clay was not only a long process on its own, but the art of learning it took years of practice. The system became more streamlined to make reading less mentally taxing. Cuneiform would spread to other regions, most notably being adopted by the Akkadians.

Later on, other groups of people, like the

“[…] the Assyrians, Babylonians, Hittites, Kassites, and others – used cuneiform script to write their own languages, but the scribe still needed to know Sumerian and Akkadian and continued to copy documents from the past. Through this practice, the scribes of ancient Mesopotamia created 'history' by preserving the past in written form” [brackets mine: P.B]
- Mark, Scribes in Ancient Mesopotamia, 2023

As a result, with more concepts becoming a part of cuneiform and human experiences (even if they only came from a very small stratum of society) became more widely documented, leading to poems, songs, and stories (though this happened a few hundred years later). Even the god Nisaba was created to represent record-keeping and accounting.

Trading and other forms of economic exchange grew in complexity; the standardization of value was needed. In this sense, a concrete form of money was made. The Priests simplified standard units of value, making the comparison of them more intuitive. As silver, a relatively valuable metal, started being used, it became a standard measurement of value. One shekel of silver was the equivalent of a certain amount of wool, oil, barley, etc. in their own respect.

Priests largely pioneered forms of timekeeping in Mesopotamia, Egypt, Mesoamerica, Greece, and other parts of the world. The first of these methods were etched onto clay tablets. This system would develop into the lunisolar calendar, where each month was divided into the 12 phases of the moon, and each year was measured by the time it took for the sun to reach the same position in the sky (365 days). This way of keeping time was practical within these societies, as each year for example brought the flood of the Nile. They also could schedule religious events to align with the cycles of such celestial bodies. As a result, mathematics and astrology were pioneered, making it possible to observe other bodies in space and predict their movement. Though this prediction was obviously based on scientific practices, this still gave priests an even greater godlike status amongst their people. Science had taken on a somewhat “magical form” as such. This, along with many other innovations from the priests,

[…] were directly linked to the liberation of the priests and scribes from manual work, provided a colossal impetus to the power of scientific thought, and brought into existence the first astronomers and mathematicians” [brackets mine: P.B]
- Holroyd, O’Connel, The Origins of Class Society, 2020

At this point, Uruk reached a population of over 50,000 people; a few hundred years later saw a population of 80,000. Up to 70% of residents lived in urban areas. New types of rulers, “priest-kings” emerge around the same time. These priest-kings were both heads of states and religious leaders, directing the largest ziggurats. Priest-kings, existing when warfare became increasingly more common, took command of armies. Just like the chiefs, priest-kings also had their own administration, a group of privileged workers that would advise the king. Walls and other structures were erected to defend the city, requiring extensive hard and forced labor from its citizens. Besides the already established grandeur of the temples, this was another indication of monumental architecture, which was unknown before urbanization, save for a few rare examples. The rule of priest-kings would only live for a very short time though. Shortly after their emergence, Uruk experienced an unknown crisis, probably climate-related. One theory suggests that flooding from the south of Mesopotamia caused such widespread disruption. These floods would later become inspiration for the Great Flood story in the Bible. Previously urban areas regressed to more modest rural settlements. Formally colonized areas returned to their cultural roots (as suggested by pottery styles). Many cities of the city became uninhabited. However, other factors may have been at play. As Liverani explains, some buildings, including temples, were destroyed by fires and were replaced by houses for commoners. Had this been a sign of rebellion, of class struggle? It is in the realm of possibility that with crises unfolding, the Uruk were unable to maintain the status quo, thus they faced a social collapse and fervent social chaos.

Out of the changing sociopolitical landscape, “internal structures” would be reorganized from the Early Dynastic Periods and onward. The biggest reorganization was that of the palaces. Palaces would house certain industries of production and administration, possibly forming a secular political outgrowth of power within society. After all, mathematics and science, though viewed under a spiritual lens, were still present. Temples, however, did not take a backseat during this time; in fact, they grew in enormity. Gods were believed to reside in said temples, where only the upper stratum of society were seen fit to enter. Hundreds of statues of differing styles were seen depicting worshipers. Such worshipers however were both male and female and likely lacked any distinguishing characteristics such as class, showing once again how every citizen had to bow down to the gods. These depictions of people, unlike the cave paintings, show accurate bodily proportions, a far cry from “twisted perspective.”
The largest ziggurats were run by the high-priests, and the lower temples that were not affiliated with the city’s god were maintained by lower-ranked priests. With kingship fully established, they likely were above the position of even the most prestigious priests. If a king were not present, a queen would run the city. This is by no means a historic victory for women, however, as the vast majority of women in the society were subjugated by men and earned less rations than their counterparts for the same amount of work. It is clear that at this point, the proto-state had developed into an actual state. Rulers used the state to subjugate the economic interests of the commoners. As O’Connel and Holroyd explain,

“[…] the rise of class society has everywhere required the forcible creation of the state only reflects the fact that the final dissolution of the old communal relations, which had been prepared over thousands of years, could not be achieved in a peaceful and gradual manner” [brackets mine: P.B]
- Holroyd, O’Connel, The Origins of Class Society, 2020

Our final timeline:

1. 10,000 years ago – The Neolithic Revolution occurs in the Fertile Crescent, egalitarian redistributors emerge, animals/plants are domesticated, and the Paleolithic era ends. More divisions of labor are seen.
   
   
2. 8,000 years ago – ovens were invented, helping pottery advance. Pigs are also domesticated.
   
   
3. 7,500 years ago – Egalitarian redistributors gain more authority and some villages become fully permanent settlements.
   
   
4. 6,000 years ago – Central America and Mexico transition to domestication of crops, the Chalcolithic Age begins, the first cities pop up, end of the Neolithic Revolution, copper age begins.
   
   
5. 5,800 years ago – Irrigation was invented, Eridu was established, getting wool from sheep became common, storages of grain become temples, part-time craftsmen emerge.
   
   
6. 5,300 years ago – Craftsmen become full-time, ziggurats made, plows are made which further divided labor between sexes, later being manned by cattle and other large animals. Later the plows are made of copper.
   
   
7. 4,300 years ago – Ubaid grows to the north part of Mesopotamia, creating sophisticated trade networks, Uruk later emerges.
   
   
8. 3,500 years ago – Silver is used, actual money is made, first writing system made from astronomy and accounting, a multi-modal settlement configuration, with urban centers, cities, towns, and hamlets, Uruk colonizes Iran and 70% of people live in urban areas, bowls become mass produced.
   
   
9. 3,200 years ago – Cuneiform is invented, scribes become aristocratic members.
   
   
10. 2,900 years ago – Floods/natural disaster/possible rebellions collapsed Uruk and other cities, early dynastic period begins, pioneering art and palaces emerge, end of primitive communism.
    

Conclusion

When observing any period of human history, it becomes clear that several things remain common. For one, emerging production needs facilitate the innovation of tools that satisfy this demand. In turn, however, such tools increase the productive capacity and therefore increase production needs. In this way, both production needs and technological advancements mutually influence each other.

In this dialectical relationship, the transition from egalitarian/matriarchal hunter-gatherer society to despotic settled life occurred. Improvements in technology and production (horticulture, plant and animal domestication, specialization in tools) rose to such a point that a social organization was necessary to oversee, plan, and organize production and surplus. Correspondingly, the nucleus of class and patriarchy started to form. As surplus, production, and the threat of warfare rose too, this group of people centralized enough power to free them from physical labor and protect the surplus; thus, these Big Men, Chiefs, Elders, Priests, etc. eventually appropriated an unequal distribution of the surplus. Villages grew into cities and towns, most of them based around large temples dedicated to the gods and leaders. These temples, centers of production and industry, were owned completely by this higher class and birthed full-time craftsmen. Thus, private property rose. This new class needed to defend its interests; therefore, a public force of armed men (the armies) and an administration was necessary, and thus came the emergence of the state.

These nobles, again from the growing economies of their civilizations, needed a standardization of value for exchange, resulting in a concrete form of money. The higher need for economic administration and recordkeeping also facilitated writing systems, astrology, mathematics, and the birth of scribes. Kings and palaces rose, erecting great structures to protect their kingdoms, strengthening this newfound state even more, as well as strengthening secularism. The Economic Institute of Sciences of the USSR put this matter very simply:

“Common labor gave way to individual labor, social property to private property" clan society to class society. The whole history of mankind from this period onwards, right up to the building of socialist society, became the history of class struggle”
- Political Economy, Economics Institute of the Academy of Sciences of the U.S.S.R., 1954

However, we as Marxists understand that this was not some perfectly clean process, where every society in the world reached class society at the same time. Some places like Great Britain and Scandinavia finally became sedentary when Uruk had been well into the process of urbanization. Egypt had kings hundreds of years ahead of Uruk. Central America and Mexico started domesticating plants and animals when Mesopotamians became fully settled. Why did these historical variations occur? Material conditions, chiefly the environment, were the first main determiner of primitive society’s complexity. Certain ways of living for early humans were impossible if the environment was too harsh and inhospitable. However, as the productive forces developed, this factor lessened. The development of agriculture and fire for example had humanity hold much more control over nature, where they could settle, produce, and thrive. Now, even if environmental conditions were ripe for settling (like fertile soil), it would have remained an empty possibility if people had no means to live there. This revolutionary historical understanding reveals that class society is not an inevitability; rather, it is a product of material conditions.

The development of the productive forces of course is not done by the upper stratum of society that lives off the rest, but the producers themselves. As Stalin says,

“[…] the history of social development is at the same time the history of the producers of material values themselves, the history of the laboring masses, who are the chief force in the process of production and who carry on the production of material values necessary for the existence of society”
- Stalin, Dialectical and Historical Materialism, 1938

Here, Stalin disputes any bourgeois notion of so-called “great men” shaping history. If anything, such “great men” can be considered such if they too can carry out production to a higher level.

Though ideas, views, and theories are reflected in the material life of society, ideas too play a role in retarding or advancing society; they are not useless. Only after material life has “set new tasks for society” do these advanced ideas take shape and are pushed to the forefront. These ideas

“[…] then react upon social being, upon the material life of society, creating the conditions necessary for completely carrying out the urgent tasks of the material life of society, and for rendering its further development possible” [brackets mine: P.B]
- Stalin, Dialectical and Historical Materialism, 1938

In our case, these new ideas manifest themselves in the form of religion, patriarchy, classes, etc. which serve the more progressive forces, i.e. the egalitarian redistributors. Once the productive forces are fully developed, and the advanced ideas have gripped these forces, revolution becomes possible. This process is not peaceful and gradual, where contradictions unfold harmoniously. As Holroyd and O’Connel state,

“The Early Dynastic kings did not simply inherit a ready-made state; they had to form one through force”
- Holroyd, O’Connel, The Origins of Class Society, 2020

The result of this new and more advanced society was completely different from that of communal society. Women were subjugated in almost every society, as nearly every authority figure was male. Inheritance was only for males, making women completely and utterly reliant on their male counterparts. The surplus was unevenly distributed amongst its citizens, with most of it appropriated by a small class of people. One’s very own existence was no longer ensured, and labor became forced. Land owned by families were incrementally being taken by the priests. If one was unable to pay off any debt they amassed, they, along with their family members, were forced into slavery (like in the Athenian State). Money had been established, replacing the traditional, unstandardized trade economies. The first-class societies, private property, and the state had thus been established. A fierce war of class struggle had begun to wage its war.

The vast majority of those living under primitive communism were faceless and forgotten. Despite this, we can rest easy because we cannot think of these people as ephemeral and abstract. They were as real as we are. Though we are separated by time and space, what unites us is our common struggle, a class struggle. By understanding the roots and development of class society, we are better equipped to challenge and dismantle the structures that perpetuate exploitation. Much to the chagrin of bourgeois historians, capitalism or any class society will not last for an eternity.

“Bourgeois ideologists represent matters as if private property had existed for ever. History refutes such inventions and convincingly bears witness to the fact that all people passed through the stage of primitive communal society based on communal property and knowing no private property”
- Political Economy, Economics Institute of the Academy of Sciences of the U.S.S.R., 1954

Workers of the World, Unite!

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Image Attribution:

David Stanley from Nanaimo, Canada, CC BY 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons