Urgesellschaft

Urgesellschaft (meaning "primal society" in German) is a term that, according to Friedrich Engels,[1] refers to the original coexistence of humans in prehistoric times, before recorded history.

The gradual dispersal of early human groups (estimated at 1 to 10 kilometers per year) initially placed few demands on them and their generational succession-they did not perceive any changes, especially in equatorial regions.

The isolation of individual groups, e.g. during the glacial periods or in insular settlement areas, led to culturally different traditions as well as to phenotypic, also racial theoretical differentiations.

Some religious traditions also speak of a primal society, referring to the preforms of later religions spread across all hunter-gatherer groupings, derived from the social practices of their members.

[5] Still, in modern macrosociological theories, there are sophisticated assumptions about common features of a primitive society, for instance in Thomas Hobbes, Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Friedrich Engels.

Economically, this society is based on an occupation economy, depending on the geological time or vegetation zone to dictate whether one takes the profession of hunter, fisherman, or gatherer.