Scale doesn't determine social organization

Big societies can be simple and egalitarian. Small societies can be complex and hierarchical.

Dense and successful civilizations don't need to be violent or hierarchical:

• Uruk in Mesopotamia lacked walls and signs of hierarchy (until it was taken over by their former colonies).
• Mohenjo-daro of the Indus Valley Civilization was hierarchical but peaceful; there are no signs of a warrior class until 1000 years later.
• In the Buddha's time (564 BCE), many South Asian cities were led by democratic councils called sangas that operated by consensus.
• Taosi in the Jinnan Basin of China had the first known revolution (circa 2000 BCE). They trashed the palace and lived in relative prosperity for the next 200 years.
• Around 300 CE, Teotihuacans revolted. The people stopped building pyramids and started building public housing instead.
• Bali's seemingly rigid caste system mixes formal hierarchy with informal equality.

Cities weren't a shock

Non-urban people were part of large networks of humans. These groups may have been more geographically spread out, but there's nothing innately human about small groups.

For example, a member of a totemic society in the pre-Colombian Americas would have had strong social ties from Arizona to Ontario.

Families aren't fundamental

Social bonds across broad distances allowed folks to leave their biological family and become part of a different, chosen family.

Indigenous peoples are often found in "families" that have few genetic relationships.