Abstract
In the past 20 years, there has been a resurgence of archaeological interest in prehistoric and ancient warfare. Whether warfare is seen as a cause or an effect of features of and changes in the archaeological, ethnohistorical, or ancient historical record, it is back “in play.” This change was the result archaeologists working in Europe and the New World who were confronted by the warfare obvious in records in their areas of research. They then argued in the most widely read and stringently refereed publication venues, citing unequivocal evidence and using clear logic, that prehistoric and ethnohistoric warfare did occur and needs attention. One area that is still neglected by most archaeologists are the rare periods of relative peace—periods during which evidences of both war and homicide are rare. If recent archaeologists have shown limited interest in peace, they have at least now recognized that prehistoric war is not an oxymoron. While we vehemently disagree about the causes of war and when it began, archaeologists now recognize that ancient and prehistoric warfare did exist and that it is a topic that we can and should investigate, and most are gratified by the attention given to this subject by a new generation of scholars.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
Ironically, the philosopher Hobbes has been accused of advocating this state-formation hypothesis and of being an apologist for the violent expansion of European empires (Ferguson and Whitehead 1992). When, in fact, he argued (contrary to much prehistoric and historic data that we now possess) that states were created by covenants or agreements and that strong, centralized states that resulted from these covenants were the rational antidote to the violent anarchy of non-states or dissolved states.
- 2.
Any anthropologist interested in warfare and violence is questioned about Chagnon’s description of the Yanamomo/i. The basic question should be and is: what are the facts, as far as we can know or reasonably infer them? Those are that the Yanomano frequently resorted to deadly violence, including warfare, as did neighboring “tribal” groups. Instead, Chagnon’s critics seem to have been driven to the functional equivalent of idiocy by his sociobiological interpretations (which, as noted above, I do not find compelling) rather than the facts he recorded regarding Yanamomo life and society in the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s. The critics have ignored or illogically (see below) dismissed many other observers, both anthropologists and laypeople (including a kidnapped Brazilian girl who lived with them for several years), who have clearly described the common resort to violence and warfare by the Yanomomi and its effects, or documented the same behaviors among many other neighboring non-Yanomomo “tribal” groups in the Amazon and Orinoco Basins. These critics have also resorted almost entirely to a logically and scientifically invalid form of argument—ad hominem—against not just Chagnon but any other ethnographers whose observations parallel his. The only reasonable conclusions about the traditional life of the Yanomamo are that they were a violent people, often kidnapped young women (Early and Peters 1990) and used nondeadly forms of physical violence (chest-pounding and club fights) as their principal method to prevent wars.
References
Anthony, D. W. (1990). Migration in archeology: The baby and the bathwater. American Anthropologist, 92, 895–914.
Anthony, D. W. (2008). The Horse, the wheel, and language: How Bronze-Age riders from the Eurasian steppes shaped the modern world. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Arkush, E. (2011). Hillforts of the ancient Andes: Colla warfare, society, and landscape. Gainesville: University Press of Florida.
Arkush, E., & Stanish, C. (2005). Interpreting conflict in the ancient Andes: Implications for the archaeology of warfare. Current Anthropology, 46, 3–28.
Carneiro, R. L. (2003). Evolutionism in cultural anthropology: A critical history. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.
Early, J. D., & Peters, J. F. (1990). The population dynamics of the Mucajai Yanomama. New York: Academic Press.
Ferguson, R. B., & Whitehead, N. L. (1992). The violent edge of empire. In R. B. Ferguson & N. L. Whitehead (Eds.), War in the tribal zone: Expanding states and indigenous warfare (pp. 1–30). Santa Fe, NM: School of American Research Press.
Golitko, M. (2010). Warfare and alliance building during the Belgian early Neolithic, late sixth Millennium BC. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Department of Anthropology, University of Illinois, Chicago.
Golitko, M., & Keeley, L. H. (2007). Beating ploughshares back into swords: Warfare in the Linearbandkeramik. Antiquity, 81, 332–342.
Goring-Morris, A. N. (2009). Two Kebaran occupations near Nahal Soreq, and the reconstruction of group ranges in the Early Epipalaeolithic of the Israeli littoral. Eurasian Prehistory, 6, 75–93.
Haas, J. (2001). From leaders to rulers. New York: Kluwer.
Habu, J. (2004). Ancient Jomon of Japan. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Junkers, L. (1999). Raiding, trading, and feasting: The political economy of Philippine chiefdoms. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press.
Keeley, L. H. (1974). Technique and methodology in microwear studies: A critical review. World Archaeology, 5, 323–336.
Keeley, L. H. (1996). War Before Civilization. New York: Oxford University Press.
Keeley, L. H. (2001). Giving war a chance. In G. E. Rice & S. A. LeBlanc (Eds.), Deadly landscapes: Case studies in prehistoric Southwestern warfare (pp. 332–342). Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press.
Keeley, L. H., Fontana, M., & Quick, R. (2007). Baffles and bastions: The universal features of fortifications. Journal of Archaeological Research, 15, 55–95.
Kelly, R. L. (2000). Elements of a behavioral ecological paradigm for the study of prehistoric hunter-gatherers. In M. B. Schiffer (Ed.), Social theory in archaeology (pp. 63–78). Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press.
Lambert, P. M. (2007). The osteological evidence for indigenous warfare in North America. In R. J. Chacon & R. Mendoza (Eds.), North American indigenous warfare and ritualized violence (pp. 202–221). Tucson: University of Arizona Press.
LeBlanc, S. A., & Register, K. E. (2003). Constant battles: The myth of the peaceful, noble savage. New York: St. Martin’s Press.
Malthus, T. R. (1999). An essay on the principle of population. New York: Oxford University Press (originally published 1798).
Milner, G. R. (1999). Warfare in prehistoric and early historic eastern North America. Journal of Archaeological Research, 7, 105–151.
Otterbein, K. F. (2004). How war began. College Station: Texas A & M University Press.
Weissner, P. (1998). Indoctrinability and the evolution of socially defined kinship. In F. Salter & I. Eibl-Eibesfeldt (Eds.), Warfare, ideology and indoctrinability (pp. 133–150). New York: Berghahn Books.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2014 Springer Science+Business Media New York
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Keeley, L. (2014). War Before Civilization—15 Years On. In: Shackelford, T., Hansen, R. (eds) The Evolution of Violence. Evolutionary Psychology. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-9314-3_2
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-9314-3_2
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, New York, NY
Print ISBN: 978-1-4614-9313-6
Online ISBN: 978-1-4614-9314-3
eBook Packages: Behavioral ScienceBehavioral Science and Psychology (R0)