Property rights have no foundation, any more than morals. All are nailed down in the air for reasons related to practical outcomes. In other words, rules that produce favourable outcomes for people, statistically over time, tend to stabilise, while those that do not produce such outcomes disappear. Indeed, property rights are little different in any respect from moral rules, however surprising that may seem at first blush; a tedious explanation might be possible, but to cut a long story short, property rights are just a set of domain specific moral rules, and traditional wisdom categorises them in this way (as witness the Decalogue).
Putting aside factitious doubts and being honest with ourselves, we know why property rights have stabilised: they are advantageous, statistically, for individuals in those societies. It is as simple as that, but of course there is no reason to suppose that they are optimal for all or any individuals at any one time, any more than there a straightforward physical adaptation will be optimal for any or all possessing that trait at any particular time.
The utility of a moral rule may on average be general, but at any observed instant it may happen to be exploited by a minority or an individual for sectarian or personal advantage.
Property rights have stabilised all over the world because, for the most part, they secure, however indirectly, individual reproduction. But, as ever, there is a tension between the interest of the individual in maximising their own property and restraining others in their exercise of this freedom, and the efficiency of the system at maximising aggregate wealth (and resilience to external shock) is a principal feature of individualist societies; but in fact individuals prefer collectivist societies with low levels of variation in wealth even if this produces (as it does) low levels of aggregate wealth and less resilient societies. Fortunately they cheat as much as they possibly can; private vices bring forth public benefits.