Changes

Perhaps the most "equitable" forms of societies are often hunter-gatherer societies. Such societies, ostensibly, often do not display any major social hierarchy. Even if there is a "leader," of the group, often social power is limited and can be easily reversed. Wealth differences are also not usually very different limited between members of such societies. Based on this, and archaeological evidence, some archaeologists and historians have argued that a form of socialism or at least classless societiesexisted in the distant past (i. e., more than 7-8,000 years ago in most parts of the world). In fact, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engles had noticed this and advocated that hunter-gatherer societies are egalitarian and represent a type of primitive communism.<ref>For more on hunter-gatherer egalitarianism, see: Fitzhugh, B. (2003) <i>The evolution of complex hunter-gatherers: archaeological evidence from the North Pacific</i>. Interdisciplinary contributions to archaeology. New York, Kluwer Academic/Plenun Publishers.</ref>

While modern hunter-gatherer groups often do show limited differences in classes and even sexes in cases, it is not clear how prevalent this was in the past. Nevertheless, few hunter gatherer groups have been found to have direct evidence where a person would have greater authority or access to resources. One argument is that agriculture likely created the circumstances for inequality to emerge more easily. In this case, with agriculture, the ability to raise resources through the land is not equal. This could be because not all land is equal in productivity and some simply may be better. Once specific individuals were able to accrue more resources than this opened the possibility for socially unequal societies to emerge. Furthermore, agricultural societies create dependencies for individuals, as those who cannot easily take care of themselves through disadvantages they have become dependent on others. This helps to then form the foundation of larger-scale societies, where dependencies between individuals form that create the possibility to have larger communities.<ref>For more on inequality and equality in ancient societies and size, see: Dyble, M., Salali, G.D., Chaudhary, N., Page, A., et al. (2015) Sex equality can explain the unique social structure of hunter-gatherer bands. Science. [Online] 348 (6236), 796–798. Available from: doi:10.1126/science.aaa5139.</ref>

One possibility is that, although agricultural societies may have fostered greater inequality, a type of egalitarian and, even a form of socialist societies, did exist in a type of "vertical egalitarianism." In these cases, kinship and social networks were likely not equal for these communities, which were often larger as they utilized agriculture. However, on the surface, there may have been limited power or no real differences in power between family heads. Wealth may have been similar among familiesand families would share resources, including farming equipment and land. In essence, such societies display hierarchy, in that not all members are the same and power is unequal; however, authority would be limited in that no central leader or wealthier individuals can easily emerge. What could have limited power for any central authority is that population was still relatively limited and larger groups may divide or fissionif power accrued too greatly.<ref>For more on vertical egalitarianism, see: Frangipane, M. (2007) Different types of egalitarian societies and the development of inequality in early Mesopotamia. <i>World Archaeology</i>. [Online] 39 (2), 151–176. Available from: doi:10.1080/00438240701249504.</ref>