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."

Comments

War was not invented 10k years ago

[Lluc]

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?

Re:War was not invented 10k years ago

[Feral Nerd]

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?

War seems to be a consequence of population density. The bigger populations get and the scarcer the resources are, the more you are likely to get war. That makes sense since long as there is plenty of land to hunt in and humans are thin on the ground like they were in Europe up to ~25.000 years ago why would I go to war with the first group of people I have run into in six months when I can settle in the uninhabited valley across the ridge be friends with the neighbours and swap single men/women with them (i.e. arrange marriages)? This is one reason why the theory that Modern Humans and Neanderthals lived in Europe side by side for 15.000 to (possibly up to) 25.000 years, never interacted in a significant way and that two teenagers from either group never did what horny teenagers do with the resulting pregnancies, pair-bonding and hybrid offspring. There is hardly a shred of evidence for warfare in Europe, for example, until the Neolithic and the Copper/Bronze-age when warfare (well mostly raiding) really starts to become fairly common. This is not to say that war is unknown in low density populations. there is always some witchdoctor with a claim that is conjuring up evil spirits and sending them over to make your tribe's kids sick (or something) resulting in a massacre but that seems to be quite rare as long as population density is small. There are some examples of Neanderthal, Heidelbergensis and proto-modern human skeletons with cut marks on them that are quite old but that could just as easily be evidence of ritual cannibalism or ritual de-fleshing of the dead as it is evidence of warfare/predatory-cannibalism.

P.S. This is not that much older than the previous oldest example (that I can remember off hand) which is Kennewick Man who died in 8.9k to 9k BP and had a spear point embedded in his hip (a would he survived by many years): https://img.washingtonpost.com... Just a reminder that these people were tougher than nails.

Re:Not at all

[JazzLad]

Cats do too. Yes, that is a silly piece, not to be taken too seriously, but Google cats kill for fun and see 7M results, not all humour.