Political philosophers and political theorists often write about “the state of a nature,” “the origin of property rights,” and “the origin of the state” in ways that read very much like myth making. Authors who tell such stories about the distant past are seldom clear about whether and the extent to which their conclusions rely on empirical claims or whether discussions of prehistoric and small-scale societies are offered purely as metaphors or hypothetical examples. The goal of this work is to show that misconceptions about prehistoric and small-scale societies are embedded in many influential theories in modern political philosophy and social science. To do that, it first shows that many theories in modern political philosophy necessarily rely on empirical claims about prehistory. It then examines those claims against the best existing evidence from anthropology and archaeology.
