Religione, economia e civiltà: le scienze sociali nel futuro della preistoria

The article discusses the interpretative effects of recent archaeological discoveries on the “conventional” ways of social sciences to explain civilization processes and the consequent postulate that economics is a naturalized science. It will be argued that human groups’ existential placement in a vital world is a necessary condition for forming their economic and social structures. The hypothesis of the work is that civilization was articulated through three media between the biological and social nature of men. The first is the sacred and the establishment of an elsewhere where to place the cosmic order of the world (formation of religious thought). The second is power as an institution external to society where the leader no longer serves the community but as sovereign he becomes a divinity (formation of the state). The third is economic exchange, where distribution and production are gradually mediated by specialized) agents capable of coordinating resources that exceed subsistence (market formation). These three media coexist and operate jointly in the different social orders by coding the cultural memory that is necessary for cohesion and collective identity