A strange story I read was in the earliest polytheistic era its an evolutionary economic advantage for an entire region or culture to enforce a level of economi

A strange story I read was in the earliest polytheistic era its an evolutionary economic advantage for an entire region or culture to enforce a level of economic protectionism on villages. Stops one village from gaining total economic ascendancy over the region. Its an inoculation against civil war, we could kill them and take their pigs, but we can't eat pigs, and since we're not in economic competition we're not much richer than they are so there's no guarantee they won't end up killing us and taking our cows, which they can't eat... Sort of pre-history zoning rules. Naturally things look weird later on if one tribe takes over the whole region, much like it would be weird to have a city zoned entirely for nothing but an endless sea of McDonalds restaurants.