LEGAL ANTHROPOLOGY AND ITS ROLE IN STUDYING THE GENESIS OF LAW AND STATE

The article substantiates the necessity of a comprehensive study of the genesis of law and state using the entire set of indirect sources provided by natural-historical and human sciences. A key role in this study is given to legal anthropology since it is an interdisciplinary science which arose at the intersection of law, comparative law, social anthropology, ethnology, sociology, history, cultural studies and philosophy. Legal anthropology and ethnology, studying contemporary pre-class societies, have a vast source base, which allows finding answers to many urgent questions related to the origin of normative regulatory and potestary structures, their further transformation into the phenomena of law and state. The earliest material, provided by field research, has a particular value as it registered those regulatory relationships that had not yet disturbed by any outside impact.