ABSTRACT
For an evolutionary biologist, howe\'er, these belief systems need to be explained as behaviour. The emergence ora concept oflife after death, or the claim that all members of a society share the blood of a distant founder, cannot be treated as a cause without implying the creation ex nihilo of
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The theoretical modeb derived from inclusive fitness theory are thus consistent with empirical evidence on one central point. The belief in common 'ethnic' or hiologically based bonds underlying the emergence of a state is hardly sufficient to explain the causes of centralized states and governments. Rather, such bdie(~ are predictable consequences of social cooperation on a broadt'r level than was possihle among hunter-gatherers, scavengers, or even incipient agriculturalists. If so, an evolutionary approach to the origin of human states points to ethnicity as epiphenomenon or secondary factor, lending legitimacy to behaviours whose benefits derive from other factors.
