Societas et Iurisprudentia (Dec 2020)

A Prehistorical Law? Some Remarks on Book Prehistory of Law by José María Ribas Alba

  • Peter Vyšný

DOI
https://doi.org/10.31262/1339-5467/2020/8/4/103-121
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 8, no. 4
pp. 103 – 121

Abstract

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The paper briefly deals with the importance of knowledge of the prehistory as well as the possibility of the existence of a law in the prehistory and the overall nature of such a law, both in a general perspective and in the light of the scientific monograph Prehistory of Law by José María Ribas Alba. From the analysis of this book contained in the paper, it is clear that the book has a significant contribution to the legal science and legal history, since: 1. it proves quite convincingly the existence of a certain law in the prehistoric society; 2. it systematically reconstructs the features, forms and development of this law; and 3. it relatively sufficiently verifies the hypothesis that elements of prehistoric law are legal universals, having, at least to some extent, universal (all-mankind, panhuman, global) and timeless character, and, therefore, in the context of the legal (social, cultural) evolution of mankind can be considered for a kind of analogy of the genes involved in its biological evolution.

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