In the wild there is ownership (or possession), and animals defend it with brute force. Property rights regulate this and tend to enforce the concept of ownership in a civilized way.

Without property rights, we'd be back to defending ownership with violence, even on the individual level. Few people want that, and I'm not one of them.

By the way, we are not at risk of going back to defending ownership with violence, for the simple reason that we haven't left that situation. Property is defended with violence and the threat of violence every day in the most civilized of countries. That's what police and prisons are: violence.

True. That's why I added "even on the individual level". It's difficult to explain what is different about the way say a lion defends his territory by attacking any intruder and the way a man defends his house by calling the cops when burglars show up, but I'm sure there is a difference, and I believe it makes sense to say that one of the method is civilized when the other is not.