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An Ancient, Brutal Massacre May Be the Earliest Evidence of War
HughPickens.com writes: Violence has always been part of human behavior, but the origins of war are hotly debated. Some experts see it as deeply rooted in evolution, pointing to violent confrontations among groups of chimpanzees as clues to an ancestral predilection while others emphasize the influence of complex and hierarchical human societies, and agricultural surpluses to be raided. Now James Gorman writes in the NY Times that scientists have discovered a site in Africa dated about 10,000 years ago where a group of hunter-gatherers attacked and slaughtered another, leaving the dead with crushed skulls, embedded arrow or spear points, and other devastating wound. It's not clear that anyone was spared at the Nataruk massacre. Of the 27 individuals found, eight were male and eight female, with five adults of unknown gender. The site also contained the partial remains of six children. Twelve of the skeletons were in a relatively complete state, and ten of those showed very clear evidence that they had met a violent end. In the paper, the researchers describe "extreme blunt-force trauma to crania and cheekbones, broken hands, knees and ribs, arrow lesions to the neck, and stone projectile tips lodged in the skull and thorax of two men." Four of them, including a late-term pregnant woman, appear to have had their hands bound. "These human remains record the intentional killing of a small band of foragers with no deliberate burial, and provide unique evidence that warfare was part of the repertoire of inter-group relations among some prehistoric hunter-gatherers," says Dr Marta Mirazon.
The killers carried weapons they wouldn't have used for hunting and fishing, including clubs of various sizes and a combination of close-proximity weapons like knives and distance weapons, including the arrow projectiles she calls a hallmark of inter-group conflict. " This suggests premeditation and planning," says Mirazon Lahr. Other, isolated examples of period violence have previously been found in the area, and those featured projectiles crafted of obsidian, which is rare in the area but also seen in the Nataruk wounds. This suggests that the attackers may have been from another area, and that multiple attacks were likely a feature of life at the time. "This implies that the resources the people of Nataruk had at the time were valuable and worth fighting for, whether it was water, dried meat or fish, gathered nuts or indeed women and children. This shows that two of the conditions associated with warfare among settled societies—control of territory and resources—were probably the same for these hunter-gatherers, and that we have underestimated their role in prehistory."
The killers carried weapons they wouldn't have used for hunting and fishing, including clubs of various sizes and a combination of close-proximity weapons like knives and distance weapons, including the arrow projectiles she calls a hallmark of inter-group conflict. " This suggests premeditation and planning," says Mirazon Lahr. Other, isolated examples of period violence have previously been found in the area, and those featured projectiles crafted of obsidian, which is rare in the area but also seen in the Nataruk wounds. This suggests that the attackers may have been from another area, and that multiple attacks were likely a feature of life at the time. "This implies that the resources the people of Nataruk had at the time were valuable and worth fighting for, whether it was water, dried meat or fish, gathered nuts or indeed women and children. This shows that two of the conditions associated with warfare among settled societies—control of territory and resources—were probably the same for these hunter-gatherers, and that we have underestimated their role in prehistory."
There were wars long before humans. Even termites and ants exhibit such behavior. We are not special snowflakes who invented the idea.
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
Who would have guessed? I must have all started with Adam and Eve apple...
Everything I write is lies, read between the lines.
So they discovered those killed by Moongazer's tribe?
How about an article describing how to insert your head into various orifices, and through various openings..
We are not kids.
This is not news for nerds as the title of the website suggests..
Another slow news day, DHI??
Pfft
!
But it was aliens using obsidian tipped arrows and clubs to cover up the fallout from a failed genetic experiment....
If you post as Anonymous Coward, don't expect a reply.
The title is pretty honest: this is early evidence of war. I agree that we likely cannot observe too many battlegrounds 10,000 years later. The annoying thing about these reporting on this article is that it makes it sound like humans invented war 10,000 years ago! A human 10,000 years ago is virtually identical to us today, so why would we expect them any less capable or motivated to commit mass murder than someone today?
This can't be true. Humans were noble savages before we invented capitalism.
But look at the leaps and bounds we've made! What you're saying can't be true, look at the wonderful things X Y and Z have done and contributed to Humanity!
An individual can act more evolved than the average, and entire populations of people can be just wonderful -- so long as everything is going well for them, there's no problems, and everyone has everything they want or need. But you put populations under stress? The animals that we are inside our skins comes out and you find out what we're really like.
Nice try, Humanity. Come back in another 10000 years and we'll see if you've made any real progress.
Early humans certainly faced limited access to food, water, tools, and materials for shelter. When populations increased, the amount of resources available to each person or tribe was less. It would be possible to travel farther for the resources or access resources that are more difficult to reach at a given location. However, when resources are scarce enough relative to the population, it becomes easier to simply take someone else's resources, when they do the work to gather or build them. Killing other people or tribes to obtain the resources also reduces the population and the competition for those resources while requiring less work or skill. It also serves a purpose in natural selection in which those are fittest also survive to procreate. Strength and fitness were certainly necessary to be effective at hunting or building tools and shelter. But they also were essential in war. Those who were fastest and best at hunting animals would also be best at hunting other humans. Killing the weaker tribes for their resources probably improved the survival of early humans as a species, where the more violent tribes would have survived.
As the article points out, there's abundant evidence of wars in Africa, in particular, with weapons and the people whom those weapons were used to kill. Undoubtedly, this influenced the genetic makeup of people in that area, and the genes that provided an advantage for early humans likely persist in Africans and their descendants to this day. There's plenty of evidence that genes that make canines docile provided a survival advantage because they would approach humans for food. These genetic traits and tendencies have persisted to this day in the modern dog. It's likely that the early humans who warred in this manner have passed along the same genes that favored violence for survival and those also persist in some modern humans. It's a fascinating study.
the only thing that can stop a bad caveman with a sharp stick is a good caveman with a sharp stick.
Thank you, try the veal!
Obligatory.
You can have my sharp stick when paleontologists pry it from my cold dead finger-bones.
There had been blunt instrument control. Then this senseless massacre never would have happened! I blame the National Club Association and all the blunt instrument manufacturers and their lobbyists for allowing tragedies like this to continue unabated!
nt
I might have known!
They got what they deserved. Clearly God was on the side of the winners, and if history is any indication he likely ordered his people to kill the others.
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
As a species, we somehow got the idea to be shocked that we act like animals instead of being shocked that occasionally we don't.
Ancient people were peaceful. They did not kill innocent, feeling animals for food. They grew only wholesome, natural, organic, pesticide-free vegetables to survive. They sang and danced in front of camp fires. They were one with nature.
They smoked pot.
Time to legalize now!
The idea that obsidian weapons is evidence for some outside group involved in the fight is somewhat ridiculous. It is well-acknowledged that humans of the described era (and far earlier eras) were involved in the long-distance trade of superior tool-making stones like obsidian.
This film may have gotten it right. Haven't read the short story ("The Sentinel") or book, but assume those opening scenes in the film were represented in the short story by Clarke. Apparently the book of the same title was written concurrently with the film's production and released after the film's release. For the film, the screenplay was co-written by Kubrick and Clarke.
In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act. George Orwell
Way to go, shitdot.
At the bottom of the
Did they see their enemies driven before them? Did they hear the lamentations of their women?
If you were me, you'd be good lookin'. - six string samurai
There are still tribes of hunter-gatherers today, and ethnographers who study their lives report them to be orders of magnitude more likely to die from violence than the inhabitants of Chicago. Steven Pinker documented the exact numbers in Better Angels of Our Nature, a book worth reading for anyone interested in the history of violence.
This suggests that the attackers may have been from another area
Or that the obsidian from the Arabian Peninsula was widely traded in the East Africa. Although the Red Sea is a narrow sea, we can assume these people were not from beyond the Wall, hunting white walkers and such.
At every region,as the population density hit a critical level, humans preyed upon each other for resources they competed for. This led to violence which caused the population density to plateau, so the population remained steady instead of rising as it had earlier. This constant low-grade warfare led to the evolution of fear as a successful adaptation to space. Much later, conquerors imposed civilization on the regions, so local warfare was prevented by civil authorities. The fear of space was then exploited by priests who steered it into a fear of time. Now we are sold insurance against fear of space by the government and insurance against fear of time by religion. Without this, fear would disappear from our species.
Edwin Starr summed it up pretty succinctly.
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
Commentor: War... War never changes.
NPR: Be careful out there in the Wasteland.
if you have the wrong politics you can be labeled as a Hitler and your academic career is over.
First off; what race were the parties involved. If they were crackers killin other cracker or better yet crackers killin African americans. That is the best of all worlds. Write it up and get the nobel prize. That means crackers were the first to start war. Now on the other hand if they parties involved were not fair skinned, you are treading on very dangerous ground. To say non crackers would every perpetuate violence without cracker instigation will get you barred from just about everything except clan meetings. No, if there were non crackers involved, the best thing to do would be to ignore the story. The next best thing would be somehow to explain that the only possible reason that these ancient people might have been violent is if somehow crackers were using their cracker powers to gobble up all the good land, thus forcing the peaceful natives to kill each other.
Again I haven't actually read any of this, but I would say that before any scientific facts are established, we need to establish the correct political facts and possible courses of action. I really hope and pray that the guilty parties involved were in fact white. Perhaps and ancient swastika can be placed / found on the graves.
early ghetto thugs kill a family for their possessions and food
"This shows that two of the conditions associated with warfare among settled societies—control of territory and resources"
Certainly plenty of wars have been fought over that, but wars have been fought over religion, or ideology, too. Wars have been fought over slavery.
The Greek historian Thucydides pointed out that the causes of war are three: greed, fear, and ideology.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Palaeontology is completely nerdy. Fuck off.
"Let me tell you something about Hew-mons, nephew. They're a wonderful, friendly people – as long as their bellies are full and their holosuites are working. But take away their creature comforts... deprive them of food, sleep, sonic showers... put their lives in jeopardy over an extended period of time... and those same friendly, intelligent, wonderful people will become as nasty and violent as the most bloodthirsty Klingon."
We need to start a campaign for the payment of reparations to the present-day descendants of the victims of this atrocity
That's pretty brutal — can it be blamed on American imperialism somehow?
What about Faux News?
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
Far before we were even fully human. Even if you make the argument that it has only come about since we became human... even that happened MUCH MUCH MUCH further back than 10,000 years. Why, we had already killed all the mammoths off by then!
Besides, neanderthal interbreeding had (probably) already stopped by then, you can't tell me that all the probable raping and pillaging associated didn't cause a few fist fights at least?
Conan the barbarian quote. Funny. Until you realize that they DID hear the lamentation of the women and child that they killed, including a late pregnant woman. Then at least for me I fail to find that THAT funny.
[quote]The killers carried weapons they wouldn't have used for hunting and fishing, including clubs of various sizes and a combination of close-proximity weapons like knives and distance weapons, including the arrow projectiles she calls a hallmark of inter-group conflict. [/quote]
What utter nonsense. Does she really think arrows are not useful for hunting? Clubs and knives are useful for hunting too, especially the type that humans engaged in during our pre-history: run an animal to exhaustion and then beat and stab it to death. The entirety of human weapons history is a tale of adapting hunting weapons to war, and war weapons to hunting. There's rarely a useful distinction when the only difference is whether the target has two legs or four.
First of all, are you personally killing people? Then why are you using the term "we", as if you are? I suggest you kill that bad habit, and start being more precise in your arguments. Human beings are unique, thinking individuals, not borgs. Every human being is individually responsible for their own actions -- no more, no less. Human nature tells us that.
Second, the vast majority of murders in this world are NOT conducted "for fun" or "for sport". They are driven purely by self-interest. Personal gain. Selfishness. Don't muddy the waters by trying to take our eyes off the target. This is an application of common sense, not speculative philosophy.
What is war, if not a primitive behavior leftover from the earlier stages of evolution? Coercion in general (theft, fraud, physical force) is merely an animal trait that hasn't evolved away yet.
What really riles groups of people up, all the way to murderous rage, is the belief, right or wrong, that they are under threat -- of attack, of poaching, of losing land or cattle or water, etc. If that's correct, then warfare among hunters and gatherers would be relatively rare, while warfare among horticulturalists would be relatively common. The correlation between being predators and being warriors is essentially zero.