Mutual Aid: A Factor of EvolutionKropotkin, Petr Alekseevich, kniaz
Science
Mutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution
Kropotkin, Petr Alekseevich, kniaz
Cooperation; Social groups; Social institutions
Traces of a more advanced period, already characterized by the use of
some pottery, are found in the shell-heaps of Denmark. They appear, as
is well known, in the shape of heaps from five to ten feet thick, from
100 to 200 feet wide, and 1,000 feet or more in length, and they are so
common along some parts of the sea-coast that for a long time they were
considered as natural growths. And yet they "contain nothing but what
has been in some way or other subservient to the use of man," and they
are so densely stuffed with products of human industry that, during a
two days' stay at Milgaard, Lubbock dug out no less than 191 pieces of
stone-implements and four fragments of pottery.(6) The very size and
extension of the shell heaps prove that for generations and generations
the coasts of Denmark were inhabited by hundreds of small tribes which
certainly lived as peacefully together as the Fuegian tribes, which also
accumulate like shellheaps, are living in our own times.
As to the lake-dwellings of Switzerland, which represent a still further
advance in civilization, they yield still better evidence of life and
work in societies. It is known that even during the stone age the shores
of the Swiss lakes were dotted with a succession of villages, each of
which consisted of several huts, and was built upon a platform supported
by numberless pillars in the lake. No less than twenty-four, mostly
stone age villages, were discovered along the shores of Lake Leman,
thirty-two in the Lake of Constance, forty-six in the Lake of Neuchatel,
and so on; and each of them testifies to the immense amount of labour
which was spent in common by the tribe, not by the family. It has even
been asserted that the life of the lake-dwellers must have been
remarkably free of warfare. And so it probably was, especially if we
refer to the life of those primitive folk who live until the present
time in similar villages built upon pillars on the sea coasts.
It is thus seen, even from the above rapid hints, that our knowledge of
primitive man is not so scanty after all, and that, so far as it goes,
it is rather opposed than favourable to the Hobbesian speculations.
Moreover, it may be supplemented, to a great extent, by the direct
observation of such primitive tribes as now stand on the same level of
civilization as the inhabitants of Europe stood in prehistoric times.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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