Miles Jackson wrote:
>
> I wonder about this. Most hunting and gathering societies we know of
> today do not have the kind of formal political authority we take for
> granted in industrial societies (they typically do not have "chiefs" or
> "leaders" whose orders the others must obey). To engage in wild
> speculation, I see no adaptive advantage if everyone in a human tribe
> blindly follows some single leader.
Miles is undoubtedly right. One comment however: "A single leader" is not the only form of leadership, and how leadership works in contexts in which there is no formal leadership would be a useful question to explore.
Carrol