The evolution of agriculture is responsible for the development of property rights

Current Biology has published an article that puts forward the theory, with convincing evidence, that the evolution of homo sapiens from foragers/hunter-gatherers to agricultural based civilizations is the main factor in the development of what we now look at as Property Rights:

"To test this hypothesis, Bowles and Choi developed a model that incorporates population dynamics, climate variability, different approaches to food provision, and different approaches to property sharing. Model runs showed that overall the transition to farming is an unlikely one and only succeeds under a small range of conditions. In all successful simulated transitions, the model showed that the property rights among farming populations co-evolved with the introduction of farming methods."

Read the entire fascinating article here at CURRENT BIOLOGY