there is simply no reason to assume that the adoption of agriculture in more remote periods also meant the inception of private land ownership, territoriality, or an irreversible departure from forager egalitarianism. It may have happened that way sometimes, but this can no longer be treated as a default assumption. As we saw in the last chapter, exactly the opposite seems true in the Fertile Crescent of the Middle East, at least for the first few thousand years after the appearance of farming.
