The maintenance of order in prestate societies is rooted in a commonality of material interests. The greater the amount of common interests, the less need there is for law-and order specialists. Among band-level cultures law and order stem directly from the relation between people and the natural habitat from which subsistence is derived. All adults usually have open access to this habitat: the rivers, lakes, beaches, oceans; all the plants and animals; the soil and the subsoil. In so far as these are basic to the extraction of life- sustaining energy and materials they are communal “property