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And many hunter-gatherer societies, I believe (Charles can confirm this I believe) had no such institutions either, but lasted for tens of thousands of years.
^^^^ CB: Yes, in accord with some of andie's discussion, I would define law as state enforced custom or tradition or culture. Since all human societies prior to about 7 or 8,000 years ago were stateless, by this definition they did not have laws. State's arise with class divided society, and so does law therefore.
The state is institutions of special repression, standing bodies of armed personnel ( mostly men through history), prisons, dominance of force.
The importance of this version of human history is that it gives hope that we can have stateless societies in that human nature does not give rise to criminal conduct, rather it is socially constructed, as we like to say around here. So, with the right social construction, everybody will behave satisfactorily such that we don't need police , army etc. The state may whither away.