What little I know of the disputes around Graeber suggest this is not going to end his isolation in the wider community of archeologists, economists, sociologists.

This is I guess one of the bigger problems with Graeber, like when he was attacking Silicon Valley he demonstrated he had absolutely no idea what he was arguing against.

Likewise, armchair reading of human social development has never appeared to be linear to me. Palace Economy > Crash > Temple Economy > Crash seems pretty damn standard. I was watching an old documentary on the socioeconomic development of Egypt and it looks like they discovered and rediscovered several important social and economic reforms, that were then lost and rediscovered by themselves and other societies over and over again.

The question is, was Graeber an idiot and just didn't know what he was talking about or was Graeber just another grifter like Hancock who relies on misrepresenting other peoples arguments for financial gain.

Where exactly did you see that proof?

"The new study points to a different process for much of the assemblage." "The match offers an explanation for why the fragments appear so widely scattered."

This is the language in use here. We are talking about bones that were buried 12 000 years ago, got chewed partially by rodents, crushed by earth pressure and moved around with the soil. So no indication that there was human sacrifice, but also no definite proof otherwise.

Çatalhöyük

Non-royal Sumer and Babylon

Poorer Mayans (from what can be found, there's much of the ancient Maya unexplored)

The LoWiili culture and some other West African cultures

The Tikopia until the arrival of Christianity

Some neolithic sites in Europe, but not believed to have been too common there