A 600-Year-Old Blueprint for Weathering Climate Change

Underlying the structural changes was an ideological shift toward reciprocity, an ideal of sharing and balance that undergirded economics, politics, and religion across much of the continent. The Sonoran Desert–living O’odham, for example, developed a himdag , or “way of life,” that taught that people are supposed to share with one another accordin... See more

There are many sources of inspiration. New anthropological and archaeological research in books like The Dawn of Everything shows that the history of our species is full of diverse political and social structures and that humans 10,000 years ago were likely more engaged in the politics that ruled their lives compared to today’s average person. They... See more

The point should not be overstated, but it is striking that the key tenets of the new societies that rose from the Migration Period crisis seem to have included a marked rise in militaristic ideology, infused with uncompromising codes of honour, oath-bound loyalty, and the obligations of violent redress. These values were expressed in the growth of

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