Talk:Prehistoric warfare

[Untitled]
I removed the link to the article on captives in the American Indian wars; Native Americans were not then prehistoric, and it is pretty obviously problematic to use them as 'examples' of 'prehistoric people'. This kind of 'evolutionary anthropology' is an outdated and heavily biased approach, and it's extremely prevalent in this article. There's nothing to suggest that hunter-gatherer societies and the present day have anything to tell us about the behavior of prehistoric humans and to argue otherwise generally involves an extremely bigoted definition of the word 'primitive'. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.212.84.142 (talk) 01:28, 30 November 2012 (UTC)

Other groups, such as the famous Bushmen of the Kalahari live extremely peaceful lives with conflict and murder all but unheard of.

Ah, the noble savage...man, what century is this? Is there a source for this claim? From what I remember about them they have just as many conflicts as any other group of people. Adam Bishop 17:58, 2 Oct 2004 (UTC)


 * I'm actually more astonished by the preceding statement. I would like to know which hunter gatherer groups wage war.  Can someone answer this?
 * I'm interested of that too, if there is no reference, the sentence should be removed. For me, that sentence sound like referring to some swidden agriculturalists in Amazon area. If that's the case, then it should be no problem to "Which of these states was more common among early humans is still unknown, and is a matter of deep debate." That line also need some kind of reference.

Also i think that this part: "What is common among those groups that remain and fight frequently is that warfare is highly ritualized, with a number of taboos and practices in place that limit the number of casualties and the duration of a conflict, a situation known as endemic warfare. Among tribal societies engaging in endemic warfare, conflict may escalate to actual warfare every generation or so, for various reasons such as population pressure or conflict over resources, but also for no readily understandable reason.", refers mostly to agriculturalists in New Guinea and gardener/pastoralist warfare by large?


 * Hunter Gatherer groups generally do not recogonize themselves as having territory, at least not until recently. And the Ju/wasi or whatever you want to call em' mentioned above do indeed get themselves murdered sometimes, Nisa is a good book to read if you want a personal picture of Botswana ju/wasi society.  They do not war though because they do not have property (beyond what can be carried), however in Namibia the army does recruit memebrs from hunter groups to help them hunt people.  Either way, hunter gatherers are not p74rehistoric peoples so i guess it doesnt matter.  I think this whole paragraph should be removed.   ~FreddieResearch


 * That is a good, good point. What is common among those groups that still remain and fight frequently is that warfare is highly ritualized...
 * "Those groups that still remain?" What does that mean? --RL

My question is the same: You say "What is common among those groups that still remain and fight frequently..." What do you mean by "those groups that still remain"? Do you mean current groups living lives similar to what we think Paleolithic and/or Neolithic people might have lived? I think it would be good to clarify this. Athana 00:44, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

You say "Agriculture created large enough surpluses to enable farmers to spend some of the year as warriors, or to support a dedicated class of fighters." This statement should be qualified if not outright stricken from the article. There must be scores of theories about why warfare increased through time. This may be one, but it's only one. And it should also be referenced; otherwise it lowers one's confidence in the article. Athana 00:53, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

I don't disagree with this line, but would like a reference: "While there are no cave paintings of battles between men armed with clubs, the development of the bow is concurrent with the first known depictions of organized warfare consisting of clear illustrations of two or more groups of men attacking each other." Especially it should be added that where these paintings are found geographically.

Bible Times
I know many of you might not think the Bible is all-out true, but it is still a historical document. The very first "battle" or "war" recorded in It is Genesis 14. I posted this same thing in "Ancient Warfare" as the story, I think, fits better over there. Colonel Marksman 17:54, 20 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Is it the first war recorded though?  Ungovernable Force  Got something to say? 05:41, 27 October 2006 (UTC)
 * the Hebrew Bible is a historical document to be sure, documenting Canaanite history from ca. the 7th to 4th century BC. That's more than a millennium after our first reliable sources concerning warfare of the Assyrian Empire. dab (&#5839;) 07:53, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

bronze age warfare
there is a problem with the one of the dates regarding egyptian warfare. accoriding to David O'connor and many other scholars of Nubian history. Nubia or more properly the kingdom of kerma during this period of time wasn't subdued until 1500bc 1450bc at the latest the date given here coinsides the middle to classic phase of the kerma state during which Nubia is not only independant but rivals Egypt in millitary strength retaking lower nubia

Ignorance
"One half of the people found in a Nubian cemetery dating to as early as 12,000 years ago had died of violence. The Yellowknives tribe in Canada was effectively obliterated by massacres committed by Dogrib Indians, and disappeared from history shortly thereafter. Similar massacres occurred among the Eskimos, the Crow Indians, and countless others."

ONE: The indians didn't even know north america existed back then. TWO: Eskimo is an old, offensive term (much like calling a native american an indian) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.207.58.166 (talk) 23:59, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

ONE: It's still a term in general use. There's a host of problems with pretty much every term for the tribes, and they're all offensive to somebody. TWO: You mean calling them Eskimos is offensive to the Inuit tribes who, after all, aren't Esquimo and are a very different group altogether. The Esquimo don't seem to mind the term. It's kinda like saying African-American is offensive because it doesn't apply to Jamaicans; the failure is not in accuracy of the term, but rather accuracy of its use. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.122.106.210 (talk) 08:26, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

Endemic Warfare Citation
Specific to your comments:
 * txt refers to a sub-set of citation info
 * Saying 'hunter gatherer' would be inaccurate because the citation does not refer to hunter gatherers at all. This would be being more specific than citations allow. You can not refer to a sub-set of citation info if there is no basis for it in the citation.


 * citation supports text not vice-versa
 * I have no idea of the text supporting the citation. If you change the content from the citation to the text, then citation no longer supports the text.

Also, substituting hunter gatherer for 90% of tribal societies would make it seem as though all the societies taken into account were hunter gatherers. As far as we know from this, it could have been that none of them were hunter gatherers. Another possible occurence is that the hunter gatherers surveyed were only part of the 10%. Looking at the societies he describes [ http://www.amren.com /ar/1998/01/ here], examples given are 'the Chippewa Indians, Fiji islanders, the Dinka of West Africa, and certain New Guinean tribes', 'Tahitians, Zulus, and some New Guinean tribes' and 'The Iroquois', all of which are farming societies.

Being 'not total strangers to violent conflict' is no major thing anyway. Even if there was only on average one fight once every 20 years, that would still mean everyone except wee kids would be 'not total strangers to violent conflict'.

Munci (talk) 15:40, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

Here is something saying that another guy, Kelly, says that hunter gatherers weren't warlike:

He accepts almost all of what Keeley points out about tribal peoples since the Neolithic. He also accepts that tribal peoples everywhere have been violent, not peaceful and gentle. Yet, sifting the evidence finely, he still believes that warfare originated very late in human evolution and that he can pinpoint what led to its emergence and proliferation. He observes that “excepting a single Upper Palaeolithic site, archaeological evidence points to a commencement of warfare that postdates the development of agriculture. This strongly implies that earlier hunter-gatherer societies were warless and that the Palaeolithic was a time of universal peace.” Munci (talk) 16:39, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

Neolithic warfare
Here are some articles claiming extensive warfare in the Neolithic or earlier. Bvanevery (talk) 06:33, 2 June 2008 (UTC) http://www.historicaltextarchive.com/sections.php?op=viewarticle&artid=167 http://www.britarch.ac.uk/ba/ba52/ba52feat.html http://www.austhink.org/monk/War2.doc

Azar Gat
If someone wants references, http://books.google.com/books?id=Qxr5v9r0vYcC&printsec=frontcover&dq=steven+leblanc+conflict&source=bl&ots=CCGwL_FsVc&sig=sQMwfa9JNw2qIel0UY3ayownKyo&hl=en&ei=csnkS-LKKpf4tAPCvcXRCw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=2&ved=0CB4Q6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q&f=false

Also see Azar Gat Keith Henson (talk) 02:20, 8 May 2010 (UTC)

Cemetery 117
Changed the date of "at least 7000 years old" to "determined to be around 13,140 to 14,340 years old." which has the virtue of being factual. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.135.244.44 (talk) 02:29, 21 May 2010 (UTC)

content blanking
I have difficulty what to make of this edit. The summary sounds as if this happened in good faith, Revert logical, but unsourced material, but seeing that the blanked content was a coherent and careful summary of the source quoted, I must assume there is some other rationale for the edit. Please explain. In the meantime, I have restored the blanked content.

Next time you go ahead and remove referenced content, do us the minimal courtesy of consulting the source cited and present some sort of judgement of how the content deviates from that found in the source. The reference in this case is Kelly 2005 (citing Kelly 2000), and I have even gone as far as putting Kelly's term of "Paleolithic warlessness" in quotes to indicate the term is taken from the source, not an interpretation of the source.

The only unreferenced claim in the section is the one to the effect that the interpretation of Cemetery 117 is "disputed". I left this in as I found it out of courtesy, even though Kelly is unambiguous on the evidence being certain, not "disputed". Since nobody seems very eager to provide evidence that this is, after all, disputed, I suppose we can remove this point. --dab (𒁳) 13:09, 17 June 2010 (UTC)

Some points to stir up old arguments
I'm coming late to this discussion, but I want to make a few points that are in agreement with user Muncie, who wrote his comments over two years ago. Sorry, not trying to stir up old arguments, but I feel there are a few points that should be made.

First, I agree with Muncie and others that the section on warfare prior to the Neolithic makes the past seem much more pacifistic than the most recent evidence supports. The sections cite Keeley, but totally ignore his points or take things out of context.

However (point two), I think a great deal of this stems from the definition of "warfare," a point made in the introduction but then not touched upon. A section right after the introduction on what exactly is meant by "warfare," and perhaps on how the definition of warfare versus low-scale inter-group violence differs according to some, could help this. There is extensive evidence of violence in the archaeological record prior to the Neolithic, but some argue that this is not really "warfare" so much as just the occasional inter-group killing. Fair enough, but this is basically ignored in this article.

Third, there are several recorded incidences, including a very recent one that was recorded, of chimpanzee warfare (or, if you prefer, "warfare"). A possible section discussing how some primatologists and anthropologists view these incidences as a possible reflection of our own violent past would be useful.

Finally, a point is made that Paleolithic people lived in low enough densities that they could simply move away instead of engage in acts of violence makes this sound like it's a proven fact. However, evidence, such as cannibalized Neanderthal bones and skeletons bearing marks of violence, doesn't support this interpretation. This evidence doesn't support the idea of constant low-level warfare entirely, but a discussion of the arguments on both side would be useful here.

Raulpascal (talk) 13:46, 9 July 2010 (UTC)
 * I am not sure what point you are agreeing with me on. Is it the quotation of Kelly at the end of my last comment on this talk page? Personally, I believe Keeley is overcited on this and related articles. He is surely not the only recent author to have written about this topic. Most importantly, we should look for sources, and a variety of them, and make sure to soruce them correctly. Munci (talk) 16:53, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

Cemetery 117
Paleolithic ''The first conclusive archaeological record of a prehistoric battle is about 12,000–14,000 years old, and is located on the Nile in Sudan, in an area known as Cemetery 117. A large number of bodies, many with arrowheads embedded in their skeletons, indicates that they may have been the casualties of a battle. Warfare originated independently in other parts of the world as late as 4,000 years ago'' Neolithic ''The first archaeological record of what could be a prehistoric battle is on the Nile near the Egypt-Sudan border. Known as Cemetery 117 it was determined to be around 13,140 to 14,340 years old. It contains a large number of bodies, many with arrowheads embedded in their skeletons, which indicates that they may have been the casualties of a battle.''

I would edit one of these out in order to fix the repetition of information in this article. However, as I am new, I currently prefer to use the talk page before any I make any major edits of an article. Werefaw (talk) 08:42, 25 July 2010 (UTC)


 * I'm not sure what other would say but, considering Cemetery 117 is in the category 'mesolithic' and Mesolithic is in between Palaeolithic and Neolithic, I think a new section should be made entitled Mesolithic and it can have info about Cemetery 117. Munci (talk) 17:43, 25 July 2010 (UTC)

Jebel Sahaba (Site 117) is undoubtedly Palaeolithic rather than Mesolithic, as the Mesolithic in Sudan does not begin until c. 8000 BC, so I'm afraid the Palaeolithic section needs rewriting.≈≈≈≈ — Preceding unsigned comment added by European Prehistorian (talk • contribs) 14:33, 24 December 2014 (UTC)


 * Site 117 belongs to the Upper Egyptian Qadan culture, which was Mesolithic.1Halpo1 (talk) 17:23, 24 December 2014 (UTC)


 * Thanks for that, 1Halpo1. However, the most recent work on the site of which I'm aware, by Antoine, Zazza and Friedman on the radiocarbon dates for the site, describe it as Palaeolithic and belonging to the Epipalaeolithic Qadan Culture, so there doesn't seem to be a consensus that Mesolithic is the right term to use.  In the context of the article, it is potentially confusing to have evidence from 10,000 BC in the Palaeolithic section, then earlier evidence in the Mesolithic, without an explanation of how this can be the case. European Prehistorian (talk) 17:57, 3 January 2015 (UTC)

Doesn't "epipalaeolithic" refer to the early Mesolithic? Or to a period of increasing sedentism and population density that merges developmentally with the Mesolithic? According to the Wikipedia article of the Qadan culture, "Systematic efforts were made by the Qadan people to water, care for, and harvest local plant life, but grains were not planted in ordered rows" -- sounds like incipient cultivation to me.1Halpo1 (talk) 16:03, 11 January 2015 (UTC)

Endemic Warfare (Remove?)
Article is here for prehistoric warfare knowledge, not modern day warfare. If someone has relevant info for the article referring to prehistoric endemic warfare, it should be documented here. Werefaw (talk) 06:02, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

The point is that our best shot at studying prehistoric warfare is by looking at societies which are themselves still in the prehistoric era. This applies to (historical, 19th to 20th century) descriptions of the stone age societies of Southeast Asia, Oceania, tropical Africa and South America. This is prehistoric warfare in the sense that the societies engaging in it did not develop written history. This is of course to be set in relation to the warfare of the actual prehistoric era as evident from archaeology, and needless to say, all of it is to be pulled from secondary references. It's just a matter of delving into the literature as with any other topic on Wikipedia, there is nothing wrong with the topic itself. --dab (𒁳) 19:59, 30 July 2014 (UTC)


 * I disagree that this is our "best shot" and so does Douglas Fry, who writes extensively about this very issue, starting with the new heading on page 171 of his 2013 book: http://books.google.com/books?id=YtwSz2A12e8C&q=170 Fry argues that warfare in modern tribal societies originates from the state societies around them (influencing them), rather than from any Paleolithic origins. The only unambiguous type of endemic warfare we refer to in this article is endemic warfare in modern societies--whether tribal or non-tribal. Wolfdog (talk) 01:08, 29 October 2014 (UTC)

Paleolithic section
The paleolithic section in the article begins with "This part of the article is simply a matter of opinion. It cannot be proven in any way, shape, or form." I thought opinions had no place on wikipedia, this is supposed to be factual information. Should this section be either removed, or edited to make it more scientifically factual. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Dk2852 (talk • contribs) 03:32, 9 April 2011 (UTC)

Religious bias
There is an unabashed bais towards the religion of evolution in the article. If Wikipedia is unbiased, then all evolutionary indications need to be removed. Evolution is not fact- you silly evolutionists still haven't proven your theory! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.228.186.13 (talk) 15:23, 30 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Evolution is not a religion. Removing references to mainstream scientific understanding would be the opposite of "unbiased".  Evolution is a fact.  Personal attacks are nto allowed here.  The theory ("explanation of how it occurs") of evolution is "proven" as well as any scientific theory can be.  Please sign your posts.  I think you may feel more at home at Conservapedia. Wardog (talk) 16:20, 18 September 2012 (UTC)

Paleolithic
The section about the Paleolithic could be much more detailed. Alas, I've been too lazy to make any major additions to it ever since I first encountered this article, though I believe that I'm well-read enough to make a fair contribution. It looks as though Paulscrawl wants to expand the section now, so it might be worthwhile to discuss it here.

Paulscrawl, in an edit summary you said that you intended to add Lawrence Keeley's (by the way, it's "KEEley," not "Kelley") "influential rebuttal" of notions of a peaceful Pleistocene. I assume that you're referring to War Before Civilization; if so, please don't use it. The book is fine proof that the state is not a prerequisite of war, but has no bearing on the section because it simply has nothing to do with war in the Paleolithic (e.g. Keeley doesn't provide any examples of war between nomadic hunter-gatherers). 1Halpo1 (talk) 07:26, 23 December 2014 (UTC)


 * Thanks for reading edit summaries! I have no particular axe to grind, other than restoring some needed sense of controversy in a field involving human nature and so necessarily concerning many scholarly disciplines, peopled with incompatible philosophical predispositions and competing theories, and riddled with distinct geographic areas, not necessarily falling into lockstep periodization across the board.


 * The general public for whom we write should not be force fed one pacific theory of human nature as established fact. I planned on using Keeley as previously cited World Archaeology article did, as a foil, carefully discounted for methodological reasons but credited with bringing question to forefront, to introduce the fact that the origins of war is as controversial as ever. I agree, that book not strictly relevant to the Paleolithic section, better perhaps in lead with a similarly broad rejoinder book, such as recent anthology Peace, War, and Human Nature. Then chronology, with more details. But in each section, at least pro/con to some degree.


 * All I want to do is set up the article with a bit more of a dialogue in each chronological section. Hobbes and Rousseau are pegs on which to hange the two Ks, or alternative figureheads. It gets a bit more Hobbesian as we get closer to the historical moment. From a chronological dialog, first step as I see it, one might then expand into regional considerations at play in each period. We need more representation on Australia, the Americas, for instance. Obviously, ethnography needs to supplement archaeology; might even go into primatology. In any case, teach the conflict, not your/my conclusion. That what I had in mind - interesting article, good sources, not too specialized.


 * What would you suggest for making this article better balanced? -- Paulscrawl (talk) 08:03, 23 December 2014 (UTC)


 * My bad! I thought that you meant that you wanted to use Keeley to counter Kelly. War Before Civilization might be okay in the intro, but if so it doesn't need a "rejoinder book" to balance it: Keeley makes no claims about warfare in the Paleolithic, and I doubt that any anthropological book denies that many tribal societies were warlike.


 * I'm not sure if the purported "inherent inconclusiveness" of Paleolithic archaeology applies to Haas and Piscitelli's skeletal survey. Does the survey contain a significant number of well-preserved skeletons? If so, how many definitely didn't belong to victims of homocide? Unfortunately, Haas and Piscitelli don't answer those questions, although one might be able to find out by examining their sources. Anyway, assuming that victims of homocide are as likely to be preserved as non-victims, the following conditions would refute the possibility of warfare having been normal in the Pleistocene: 1) There are a significant number of unambiguous, well-preserved Paleolithic skeletons from around the world; 2) a very high proportion of the specimens clearly did not die of lethal violence.


 * Ethnography of nomadic hunter-gatherers is relevant. Traits shared by all or most nomadic foraging societies are probably characteristic of the type of society and therefore of Paleolithic society. Some authors point out social and economic factors that logically should have made war unlikely.


 * Citing statistics compiled by Sam Bowles, Steven Pinker in The Better Angels of Our Nature claims that hunter-gatherers, along with all other types of stateless societies, are characterized by a high rate of warfare-related death. (This is especially significant due to the popularity of Pinker's book). On pages 16 - 18 of War, Peace, and Human Nature Douglas Fry critiques the claim: The original sample size of 8 cultures is already too small, yet Fry ultimately demonstrates that 4 of them are invalid. Furthermore, "war" isn't defined, and the context of each killing isn't given -- did they raid to obtain goods, to threaten a rival group, or to avenge homicide by targeting individuals who were in another group? Furtherfurthermore, Fry has a study of 21 nomadic foraging societies that obviously casts doubt upon Pinker's generalization.


 * Bowles and Richard Wrangham have published evolutionary explanations of war or "coalitionary killing": http://www.life.umd.edu/faculty/wilkinson/BIOL608W/BowlesScience2009.pdf http://www.unl.edu/rhames/courses/war/Wrangham-coalitionaryx.pdf . Those might be worth discussing. 1Halpo1 (talk) 23:24, 10 January 2015 (UTC)


 * I've been planning to write this for a couple of weeks, but I'm so damn lazy.


 * My reasoning about the skeletons isn't entirely correct, because it's possible to be killed without receiving skeletal damage. However, the low percentage of perimortem (i.e. unhealed and therefore near death) injuries is still significant, by logic of comparing it to later samples where skeletal evidence of war is plentiful.


 * I've taken the liberty of deleting the paragraph about Azar Gat. I agree that we should compare the archaeology to relevant ethnography, but I find the paragraph to be somewhat problematic: You wrote, "[according to Azar Gat] the paucity of evidence is expected due to . . . absence of preservative burial practices, and the resulting poor condition of remaining artifact-damaged skeletons," but in the cited source Gat writes that in the Upper Paleolithic "preservation is better not only for natural reasons but because people have begun to bury their dead." According to the paper by Haas and Piscetelli, which is cited in the article, there have been many successfully preservative Paleolithic burials.
 * The absence of evidence doesn't disprove the existence of war, but I argue that it suggests rarity at most. If so, "inherently inconclusive" is misleading. (By the way, the 29 smashed skulls at Sandalja II, which Gat mentioned in the cited passage, don't exist. I searched it up and didn't find any reliable corroboration.) 1Halpo1 (talk) 23:27, 10 January 2015 (UTC)


 * Incidentally, I think that when I finally get around to working on the article, I'll reorganize it into two major sections: 1) theories of the origins of war and 2) examples categorized by region. 1Halpo1 (talk) 03:00, 18 February 2015 (UTC)

Citation 32 is a dead link, heres a NYT link
https://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/16/world/middleeast/archaeologists-unearth-a-war-zone-5500-years-old.html Sorry for not doing it myself, still a Wikipedia noob Evan2030 (talk) 02:19, 14 September 2022 (UTC)