Early Holocene human presence in Madagascar

originally posted by: Spider879

originally posted by: andy06shake
a reply to: Spider879

There will always be leaders, and there will always be followers, not so much to do with politics, more to do with Human nature.

Not get much done without a figurehead to spur on the crowd to carry out there will.

Yeah but communal decision making was more in those times, top heavy was not really a thing then.
However you maybe right Gobeki Tepi would take a very strong chief if not a king to pull that off.

I think it is more to do with organising, you need someone to bring people together, identify strengths and weakness, and divide up the labour. It is not necessarily about being chief, initially, as it is about having the ability to effectively communicate to others and equally important, to be listened to. Shackleton (I think) when asked who of his men would take over leadership if he was nolonger able to, waved in the direction of his party and said one in five of them (or words to that effect). I think part and parcel of our success as a species is that those qualities have been selected for.

For something like Gobekli Tepe, and given the different social identities that are perhaps presented at the site by the T stones, it is more likely, to my mind, that you have a conglomeration of "big men" (and possibly "big women" then) who possess those qualities to such an extent to be able organise and administrate a much larger force of labour. I think that since it was a seasonal site too that the whole purpose of the site was to come together and work side by side, accomplish something, as well as a little pairing going on and then party before parting.

With Madagascar there may be a little of the pairing involved too. Something prized that could be presented to win a bride? On Crete young men would risk their lives to obtain a sprig of Dittany, which only grew o cliff faces, to present to their intended. Could be as simple as that.