the idea that no modern society has not functioned without police is absurd, plenty of European nations did....

Also, it is a very intentional choice to ignore non-nation-state societies. Which is no surprise. It's part of the liberal strategy to pretend you cannot have human society without a violently oppressive institution dictating 99% of your living conditions and aiming them all toward the support and protection of capitalism.

It's almost a tautology, in a world where capitalism is globally ubiquitous: I'm going to ignore societies that don't have police in order to pretend that societies cannot exist without the police.