Conjecture

The best evidence in the book for the value thesis is a natural experiment between two species. From about 70,000 years ago, Sapiens campsites begin showing long-distance trade: seashells from the Spanish coast in central Germany, and obsidian tools on New Ireland traced to deposits 250 miles away on New Britain, which is better toolmaking material and not available locally. Neanderthals had big brains, dexterous hands, expansive territories and rudimentary language, and they did not do this. Part I's inference is that long-distance trade in things other than biological necessities requires a flexible conception of value unmoored from its biological origins, and that Neanderthals, built for tribal self-sufficiency, were not psychologically flexible enough to see the point of trading luxury goods for tools and thereby cooperating implicitly with other tribes. Two hominids, comparable hardware, one trades.

Coordination architecture