Wouldn't you agree that late 20th Century ideas about dramatic and irreconcilable "difference" between pre-modern and modern societies are also "appealing to the bourgeois mind"? Not to mention popular culture... Simply because these ideas are tied up with cliched notions of a timeless, static and ahistorical "traditional culture" (which seem eternally appealing to liberal anthropologists), that doesn't mean that is exactly the way that hunter-gatherers themselves saw it.
My own reading of historical sources has tended to dispel any notions of "primitive communism", or --- more importantly --- the ability to make meaningful generalisations about pre-modern people around the world. Or, in particular, about a notional group of people who happened to occupy a continent and who in 1788 spoke 200+ different languages and had thousands of moieties. That's why I said I wasn't sure.
As far as evidence for inegalitarian practices go, Tench is just one example. Another is Eddie Mabo's famous and successful case, which rested (in part) on the facts that everyone on Mer knew it was his land and it had clear boundaries marked by stones!
As someone else has pointed out, this discussion is likely to get tied up in ideological differences, since the facts (and any inherent meaning attached to them) are impossible to establish. In any case, the tendency of globalisation -- which perhaps had its origins when one tribe traded fish for another tribe's pelts --- is increasing homogenisation. So I think "primitive communism" is ultimately a moot point.
Regards,
Grant.