While the revival of archaeological interest in warfare is relatively recent, it is clear that several regions during certain periods were either very war-torn or remarkably peaceful. Thus far, such periods are only discernible in those regions that are among the best archaeologically covered and most intensely studied in the world, implying that when other regions become as well known, more examples will be identified.
The skeletal remains of late Mesolithic hunter-gatherers of northwestern Europe indicate a high level of violent death, including massacres of men, women, and children. At several Late Mesolithic cemeteries (c. 6000-5000 BC), evidenced by arrow points embedded in their bones, as much as 8 to 15% of all those buried died violently. (To put such percentages in perspective, during the four-day battle of Gettysburg, about 4% of the soldiers engaged were killed.) At Ofnet Cave, the skulls of 38 Mesolithic men, women, and children were found in two contemporaneous pits; most adults had holes knocked into their crania by stone axes and almost all had cut marks on their neck vertebrae indicating decapitation at or just after death. The following Early
Neolithic period (c. 5000-4200 BC), many human remains show unhealed weapons traumas (as high as 16%!), some villages are fortified by palisades fronted by deep ditches with baffled gates, arrowheads are common although hunting was rare, and there is clear evidence of wholesale massacres of hamlets and small villages. The best known of the latter is the mass grave at Talheim where the remains of 34 men, women, and children were found thrown into a large pit. Almost all the skulls, especially for men, bore traumas from axe blows, multiple blows any one of which would have been fatal (i. e., ‘overkill’). The later prehistory and, of course, the history of Europe usually has been war-torn.
In central and Eastern North America, certain prehistoric regions and periods have been very violent. In the Midwestern and eastern US, Late Archaic period (c. 4000-1000 BC) human remains often show weapons traumas, particularly embedded arrowheads. Later, after AD 800, warfare again became especially prevalent in this large region as attested by common weapons traumas and mutilations (especially cut marks from scalping) on human skeletons, village and town fortifications, occasional finds of weapons of war and depictions of them in use. Similar evidence of intense warfare has been found, at about the same time (AD 800-1500), in the Pacific Northwest, the Santa Barbara Channel, the American Southwest and the middle Missouri valley (i. e., the Dakotas). The most horrific evidence of a pre-Contact massacre was found at the prehistoric (c. AD 1325) village site of Crow Creek in South Dakota. The skeletal remains of 500+ people were found thrown into the fortification ditch of a burned village. These remains bore traumas from arrows, clubs and axes, most (90%+) bore cut marks from scalping, many had been decapitated and their remains had been left exposed to scavengers and the elements for a few months before they had been collected and hastily buried in the village’s ditch. Estimates based on the number of houses imply the village population was about 800. As young women are very underrepresented among the buried corpses and, at least for a few months, it seems there were no survivors left nearby to bury the victims, apparently many of the young women had been taken away as captives.
The reasons for these periods of intensified warfare are still being debated. Environmental changes seem to be associated with several cases. Intruders fleeing desiccation of the Plains seem to have played a role in the middle Missouri Valley case as did frequent droughts in the Southwest. A rapid change in the temperature of coastal waters with a subsequent loss of marine resources coincides with the increased prehistoric violence evidenced along the
Santa Barbara Channel region. Political consolidation may have played a significant role in the Southwest and the Pacific Northwest instances. Both the Early Neolithic and the middle Missouri cases involved colonization by newcomers. ‘Crowding’ of prime hunting-fishing-gathering or farming locales may have exacerbated conflicts among the Late Mesolithic, late Early Neolithic and Late Archaic groups of their respective regions.
The first settled villagers of Levantine Near East (Natufian and Pre-Pottery Neolithic A (PPNA) cultures, 11 500-7000 BC) were remarkably peaceful. There are almost no weapons traumas found on their skeletons and their villages of stone-mudbrick houses were unfortified (the function of the only known exception - the PPNA wall and tower at Jericho, c. 7200 BC - is unclear). The Natufians were hunter-fisher-gatherers while cultivation and herding seems to have supplied some food during the PPNA. The Middle Woodland period (AD 100-800; especially the Hopewell and Adena cultures) of the eastern Mississippi drainage was also very peaceful by any measure. Despite building some spectacular earthworks for burial and ceremonial purposes, these villagers did not fortify their settlements. Also, unlike in the very violent preceding and following periods, human skeletons bearing weapons traumas are almost unknown. As with the PPNA of the Near East, some plants were cultivated by the Middle Woodland villagers. These two cases clearly contradict the hypotheses claiming that warfare began when humans ‘settled down’ and/or started farming. The reasons why these two regions during these time periods were so free of violent conflicts are obscure since many other early farmers were much more bellicose.
World History
