It was surprising to learn…

 I was surprised to learn that the first human societies were very egalitarian societies. They did not have formal structures such as chiefs, bureaucrats , soldiers, nobles or priests (p.20). Even men and women had different responsibilities. For instance, men were responsible for hunting and women were responsible for gathering , and because of this, both were equal then later societies. This is based on a study of the San people of southern Africa. They found out that women would be responsible for gathering plants that constituted 70 percent of their diet, versus men who were responsible for hunting and accounted for 30 percent of their diet (p. 21). Why was there no apparent conflict between the sexes? At what point men became the domineering force? Was it when their masculine  identity became more strong as they were more successful in killing larger animals?