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The birth of war: an archaeological survey concludes that warfare, despite its malignant hold on modern life, has not always been part of the human condition
Natural History, July-August, 2003 by R. Brian Ferguson
In northern Australia, rock art depicts what appear to be duels between two or a few individuals as early as 10,000 years ago. Large group confrontations--war--appear by 6,000 years ago. Climate change was a factor here too, as rising sea levels gradually submerged a vast plain that once connected Australia and New Guinea.
The ancient Middle East provides some of the best evidence for the emergence of war from a warless background. Extensive remains have been found of the Natufian hunter-gatherers, who lived between about 12,800 and 10,500 years ago in what are now Israel, the West Bank, Jordan, Lebanon, and Syria. Careful analysis of 370 skeletons has turned up only two that show any signs of trauma, and nothing to suggest military action. The first walls of Jericho (dating from between 10,500 and 9,300 years ago) were once taken as conclusive evidence of war, but they are now understood to have been built for flood control, not defense.
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There is a certain ironic logic, given recent events, that the regular practice of warfare that has continued without interruption down to the present began about 10,000 years ago in what is now northern Iraq. Evidence from three early farming sites, the earliest from Qermez Dere, includes maces, arrowheads found associated with skeletons, defendable locations, and village defensive walls. That's war--the true "mother of all battles."
Signs of war appear beginning 8,000 years ago along mountain routes through southern Turkey. Along the southern Anatolian coast, a specialized fort--not just a walled village--has been unearthed at Icel; the fort was built around 6,300 years ago, then destroyed and later resettled by a different culture. The early record along the Nile in what is now Egypt was wiped out by the river's erosion, but when the record picks up again, about 6,300 years ago, maces similar to those found in Mesopotamia are present. Far upriver, near Khartoum, what may have been maces show up 2,000 years earlier, even before agriculture began in that area.
In Central Asia, east of the Caspian Sea, the remains of settled hunter-gatherers and early farmers show no signs of war, but war was clearly going strong by 5,000 years ago. In the high country of what is now Pakistan, farmers began to put up walls at least 6,000 years ago.
The archaeological record in China shows that though millet was under cultivation at least 8,000 years ago, no signs of war appeared for more than a thousand years after that. Starting 7,000 years ago, in one Neolithic cultural tradition, deep ditches were dug around villages, some accompanied by palisades. Elsewhere in China, except for a single skeleton with a point embedded in its thigh, there are no hints of war until at least 4,600 years ago. Then, rammed earthen walls and other signs of war occur throughout the core areas of historical China. One village well contained layers of scalped and decapitated skeletons.
In Japan, intensive agriculture came in with migrants from the mainland about 2,300 years ago. Archaeologists have excavated some 5,000 skeletons that predate the intrusion, and of those only ten show signs of violent death. In contrast, out of about 1,000 postmigration excavated skeletons, more than a hundred show such signs.
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