ICYMI, The Creation of Inequality: How Our Prehistoric Ancestors Set the Stage for Monarchy, Slavery, and Empire

Book by Joyce Marcus and Kent Flannery. However, they only look at the past 5,000 years. Now we know there were cities 12,000 years ago (Gobekli Tepe, etc.). And before that, during the last Ice Age, sea level was 400 feet lower than now, and since human cities tend to be coastal, the remains of those cities would be under water. The Ice Age cave paintings have an interesting feature: a set of 32 graphic symbols used for 25,000 years. If they are a syllabary, then you need to know the language in order to read them (which is why we can't read Linear A). That suggests a language that lasted 25,000 years. Though we use the Latin alphabet, few people speak Latin today.

The conclusion of The Creation of Inequality is that it started with gender discrimination. The men built a "men's house" where women were not allowed. Again, this is based on evidence only 5,000 years old. Human associations with canines go back through the Ice Age, and some anthropologists have suggested that maybe humans learned hierarchy from hunting with wolf packs. Wolf packs have two hierarchies, male and female.