I think the problem I really have with all their pre-government talk is that they make it sound like humans were completely dominant and always the master of their land. If you believe in evolution (which I do) and that we originally came from Africa I somehow find it hard to believe humans were worried about each other so much as the creatures surrounding them.

If anybody has read Sahlins' Stone Age Economics, in it focuses on The Original Affluent Society - in which he basically says hunter-gatherer societies live a much happier life based on the fact they want for less because they want less (in a nutshell). They exert less energy than those of us in modern western society because of their relatively low needs, and are healthier and happier for it. Hobbes' theory that man resorts to a state of conflict because of desire and continual jealousies doesnt really wash with me. Human beings are naturally gregarious creatures. We've had to be, its a survival mechanism. Cooperation was vital to the cohesion of the group and consequent survival.