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Concept
Urgesellschaft
Summary
Urgesellschaft is a term that, according to Friedrich Engels, refers to the original coexistence of humans in prehistoric times, before recorded history. Here, a distinction is made between the kind of Homo sapiens as humans, who hardly differed from modern humans biologically (an assertion disputed by anthropology), and other representatives of the genus Homo such as the Homo erectus or the Neanderthal. Engels claimed "that animal family dynamics and human primitive society are incompatible things" because "the primitive humans that developed out of animalism either knew no family at all or at most one that does not occur among animals". The U.S. anthropologist Lewis Henry Morgan and translations of his books also make use of the term.
In specificity, this long period of time is not directly accessible through historical sources. Nevertheless, in archeology, the study of material cultures provides a variety of opportunities to gain a better understanding of this period, work that is likewise present in sociobiology and social anthropology, and in religious studies through the analysis of prehistoric mythologies.
The so-called primitive society, or more appropriately, the primitive societies, probably span by far the longest period in the history of mankind to date, more than three million years, while other forms of society have existed and continue to exist for only a relatively short period in comparison (less than 1 percent of the period).
From archaeology comes the term Stone Age for the period in which stone tools (fist wedges) are the oldest chronologically classifiable and roughly datable finds. Other, even older tools and objects made of natural or animal materials (wood, bones, skins) decayed and did not survive. This Stone Age also includes the development of new social structures about 20,000 to 6,000 years ago. Generally, the advent of arable farming and livestock rearing is considered to be the transition to the New Stone Age and the end of this phase.
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