I may have misunderstood your intent but -- taking prevarication to mean evasion of the truth; deceit, evasiveness -- it is widely accepted that prevarication was indeed common and widespread in hunter-gatherer communities ... and among many other Ape species too!

This may well be the case, but isn't very helpful. References to the animal kingdom must not lead to indulgence. As long as I define myself as human, there is a strong distinction between animals and humans - not wrt to the physical apparatus, where this distinction is pointless (which is why the term zoonosis is ridiculous), and not by the psychical pontential - but by the basic needs and aims of what can be coined human.

Somebody said (was it Steiner?): "humans have instincts, while animals are instincts". Which of course is an over-generalization, since animals do love and have emotions, and the same or even more potential than humans, and many species are e.g. able to transcend themselves and help even members of other species out of critical situations (think dolphins). And then, much of human intelligence is instinct driven, is tied to instincts and nothing but a refinement of them.

So, among the most basic needs of a human (his animal needs aren't looked at here, among which are many human liberties) are: transcendence and introspection, pursuit of knowledge and happiness (which is distinct from animal pleasure, but a delight of inner peace and achievement). This leads to the necessity of containment of men's animal condition and its instinct-driven forces (which btw is the meaning of Genesis 1, 28 "fill the earth and subdue it": it is men's own earthly condition which shall be subdued and filled with humanness). This never ever can be achieved by war against the animal condition, nor by negation or torturing it, only with love.

Having said this and coming back to prevarication: the human needs are present and don't die, and if they are overcome by the animal condition and subdued (by self or society), they don't go away but are perverted, and lead to abuse of both the animal and human condition of the human being. And this is the kind of prevarication Discipulus talkes about, at least I perceive it that way. It leads to atomic bombs and gain of function virus research.

I can smell abuse of power miles against the wind, and in hindsight I guess that this is one strong reason for me not to pursuit any kind of career whatsoever. And in the same notion, "Codes Of Conduct" are a bill of shame any community expedites to itself, not only to those who are blamed for making such proceedings necessary, but also for those who believe in fixing anything with that codes.

Prevarication is related to privatization (in fact "privare" in latin means "to rob"), and capitalism is built upon privatization and abuse of power, and it is nothing but the expression of lack of "subdueing the earth" wrt some aspects in the above sense.

There are and have been other ways. E.g., even in the US, and more so in Canada, there are small towns whose inhabitants leave their ignition keys stuck to the cars: to make sure anybody in need of a car gets one. There are as much or more unlocked doors in Canada (in percent of households) as those with rifles in the US. Go figure.