One of the prevailing myths in the West is the idea that, at some point, ancient humans (or “hominins”) wandered about, reproducing here and there, without any real social structure.
I’m not sure how that would have ever been possible. Even if we assume that humans gradually evolved from primates, we would also assume that human groups (of 150) naturally grew out of primate groups (of 8-20). Technically there never was a nuclear family. Women were never “hypergamous” insofar as they evolved to select for the most adventurous men; rather, all marriage was done by exchange. There was never a Game-style dating market. It was always a closed-loop system.
(I would even argue that, contra modern Game proponents’ claims, there is still no open dating market. For instance, in America, all marriage is still an exchange system, except it’s no longer enforced by the woman’s kin network. Instead, vengeance is enforced by the modern state bureaucracy. If as a male you reneg on your duties as a father, even if you refuse to marry the mother of your children, the state will seek child support payments from you. Toxic as this relationship might be for both sides, it appears to be a response to the nuclear family, college system, and interstate highway system that emerged after World War II.)
The myth that humans once lacked kinship networks produces one particularly aberrant belief: that cultural technologies (or technics) can “evolve”. For instance, it’s commonly assumed that humans acquired monotheism, written languages, cities, etc. through some kind of natural evolution of culture. But if two or more tribes are united through intermarriage, the constant exchange of totems, dialects, and property over distance not only makes monotheism, writing, and cities impossible; these things are unhealthy within a marital exchange system. The more conservative approach of wide, matrilineal kin networks is conducive to broader tribal health. It reduces warfare and allows one to traverse huge distances without worrying about plunder and murder.
It’s only when a nation breaks from the norm and begins transferring inheritance from father to son and brings in brides locally can cities form; when limiting the influence of foreign dialects can a written langugae form; and when limiting the influx of totems can a zodiac or monotheism form. Nations that are at the crossroads of warfare might have a vested interest in doing this, such as Israel, Rome, and Greece. Once you have the emergence of a city with writing and a strong holy code, you might consider yourself a domineering force, but your laws are no longer compatible with the surrounding matrilineal networks. Your inheritance schemes are now directly opposed to theirs, and if you cannot intermarry with them, you now have to contend with them in warfare.
I’ve mentioned previously that the idea of “ancient technology” might simply be the result of pre-Bronze Age patrilocal cities cropping up from this scheme. After 5 generations, given the city can extract enough tribute, food, and captive brides from the surrounding regions, the city can explode in population from an initial 50 to, say, 50,000. This merely demands each couple, each generation, needs to have roughly 12 children, a not-so-difficult feat in traditional society. This could feasibly be done in a single person’s lifetime. This large population, if tasked with only innovating a handful of technologies like burial, ceramics, or statuary could reliably create some innovations that would appear truly “alien” to the matrilineal networks, which can offer no such technological innovations.
It seems that this was one of the goals of 19th century Mormonism: establish cities that could expand quickly through patrilocal, polygamous marriage, which after only a few generations would create massive fortifications that could combat the kin networks emanating westward from Europe and the East Coast. So the latter hit the Mormons where it hurt: they outlawed polygamy and imposed stiff penalties (fines and jail time) on any violators. The LDS later reformulated as being anti-polygamy, though the FLDS retains the practice. (Though anti-polygamy legislators claimed to espouse Christian values, it’s far more likely that they saw Mormon forts as security threats.)
However, if the city can’t defend against the matrilineal networks, then it won’t survive. I wouldn’t be surprised if this happened quite frequently. Why couldn’t it have happened 5,000 years ago? 10,000 years ago? 100,000 years ago? The belief that the only way for these technologies to descend on humanity was through Watchers or aliens betrays an ignorance (and underestimation) of kinship. Without a doubt, a single city can change the world, if it can survive.
How can a city survive the onslaught of a wide matrilineal network? It appears that, without a furnace that could create bronze, the city had no hope. Even with bronze, its chances of survival were slim. Bronze weapons just don’t hack it very well. They can’t be repaired easily and turn into poking weapons after repeated use and resharpening. And without tin, a rare element, you have no bronze. Iron is abundant, but requires a massive forge, the product of a big city. Iron can be hammered back into a blade, and iron blades can be easily distributed to a conscripted army. Melee, swinging attacks with iron swords were the bane of the bronze age chariot-based army.
In short, without iron, the city could not remain. But with iron, we not only acquired the city, but also monotheism, written language, and the sciences. To ascribe these phenomena to aliens and spirits, or to natural evolution, is to negate the real power of human networks and fall prey to the myth of the kinless caveman, which is part and parcel to the myth of the weaponized ape. Both descend from a theory that humans are just animals, that kinship and religion are options in human society, and that human behavior is generally patterned on animal behavior, differing only in degree. This produces lots of strange beliefs about lizard people and Elohim flying around on saucers, none of which is necessary if we just take a moment and realize that humans are fundamentally and mechanically different from animals.