populations directly adjacent to the Californian ‘shatter zone’ were aware of their northern neighbours and saw them as warlike, and as disposed to a life of luxury based on exploiting the labour of those they subdued. It implies they recognized such exploitation as a possibility in their own societies yet rejected it, since keeping slaves would undermine important social values (they would become ‘fat and lazy’). Turning south, to the California shatter zone itself, we find evidence that, in many key areas of social life, the foragers of this region were indeed building their communities, in
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