Orgins of Warfare in Humanity's History

Problem with War’s traditional explanation

More productive definition?

Modern biases?

Non-state forms trivialized?

Restricts database of cases

Implies “recent” (modern or historic) origins

Limits understanding (variation, changes over time

• Better definition?

“Collective violence between politically

distinct groups of people…whether they

involve nation-states, tribes, village communities,

nomadic bands, or even terrorist organizations“

General indicators for violence and warfare

• Specialized implements

• Skeletal trauma

• Fortification features- Nicosia, Cyprus (V-shaped ditches, bastions, fortified gates)

• Iconography

How to interpret warfare

Context is required

 Violence does not mean warfare!

 Must distinguish “warfare” (organized) from

homicides, interpersonal violence

 Be aware of other forms (that leave no direct

material traces)

More indicators, stronger inference

Otzi

Man from 5300 BP

• Lodged stone arrowhead, blunt

  force trauma to head, other injuries – traces of

  blood (DNA shows 3+ others

Toluene’s Valley, Germany

What, What does it imply

• Bronze Age site along riverbank, c. 1200 BCE

• Event not found in any history books — writing

  not common here for another 2000 years

• Wooden weapons, Human humerus with embedded flint arrowhead, bronze arrowhead embedded in cranium

• Well-equipped men→ likely warfare

Linearbandkeramik (LBK) Culture

Earliest farmers - Central Europe

 Germany, Belgium, France

 Millennia before “cities” of

Mesopotamia, Nile, etc. Reconstructed house

Adzes & pottery

Recent decades: evidence of intra-societal and

inter-societal violence  skeletal trauma,

defensive architecture

Halberstadt site (Germany)

Linearbandkeramik (LBK) settlement,

c. 7000 BP: mass burial – haphazard treatment

Perimortem fractures, aberrant positioning, signs of animal damage “postmortem neglect”

Attack of village, public killing (?) –one of several cases

Nataruk site, West Turkana (Kenya)

Hunter-Gatherer Case: c. 10,000 BP

27 individuals exposed, excavated. Still more?

Attacking group (using clubs and arrows) likely bigger

Honeypot Ants

On occasion, colonies raid neighboring nests 

steal repletes, larvae, workers

Chimpanzee and war

Evidence for and against

Male chimps often organize into “warring” gangs that raid each other’s territory, sometimes leaving mutilated dead bodies.

-chimpanzees have evolved (millions of years)

-many other primate analogs (e.g., bonobos)

-human behavior is different (we fight for more than just

territory, resources  defend non-kin, religious beliefs, etc.)

Pleistocene fossil/material evidence of warfare

Mostly skeletal data (fragmentary)

 Neandertal trauma, cannibalism(?)

 Homicide or warfare? Other reasons?

 Hard to say – ambiguous

Schöningen spears (Germany)

Uniquely preserved wooden throwing

spears (c. 300,000 BP)

-Found w/ ~16,000 animal bones

-Suggests cooperative hunting

(Neandertals)

Would “warfare” have been possible? Maybe, but ambiguous

Bodo hominin cranium, 600 kya

• Cutmarks from stone tool

- Consistent with defleshing

Violence? Cannibalism? Curiosity?

Other reasons? Lacking larger

context…ambiguous