Luwians vs. Hittites and Mycenaeans vs. Luwians

A rather imaginative reconstruction of the events surrounding the Sea Peoples and the ending of the end of the Bronze Age.

Bronze Age war in northern Germany

Slaughter at the bridge: Uncovering a colossal Bronze Age battle

About 3200 years ago, two armies clashed at a river crossing near the Baltic Sea. The confrontation can’t be found in any history books—the written word didn’t become common in these parts for another 2000 years—but this was no skirmish between local clans. Thousands of warriors came together in a brutal struggle, perhaps fought on a single day, using weapons crafted from wood, flint, and bronze, a metal that was then the height of military technology.

...

In 1996, an amateur archaeologist found a single upper arm bone sticking out of the steep riverbank—the first clue that the Tollense Valley, about 120 kilometers north of Berlin, concealed a gruesome secret. A flint arrowhead was firmly embedded in one end of the bone, prompting archaeologists to dig a small test excavation that yielded more bones, a bashed-in skull, and a 73-centimeter club resembling a baseball bat. The artifacts all were radiocarbon-dated to about 1250 B.C.E., suggesting they stemmed from a single episode during Europe’s Bronze Age.

...

Northern Europe in the Bronze Age was long dismissed as a backwater, overshadowed by more sophisticated civilizations in the Near East and Greece. Bronze itself, created in the Near East around 3200 B.C.E., took 1000 years to arrive here. But Tollense’s scale suggests more organization—and more violence—than once thought. “We had considered scenarios of raids, with small groups of young men killing and stealing food, but to imagine such a big battle with thousands of people is very surprising,” says Svend Hansen, head of the German Archaeological Institute’s (DAI’s) Eurasia Department in Berlin. The well-preserved bones and artifacts add detail to this picture of Bronze Age sophistication, pointing to the existence of a trained warrior class and suggesting that people from across Europe joined the bloody fray.

...

There was reason for skepticism. Before Tollense, direct evidence of large-scale violence in the Bronze Age was scanty, especially in this region. Historical accounts from the Near East and Greece described epic battles, but few artifacts remained to corroborate these boastful accounts. “Even in Egypt, despite hearing many tales of war, we never find such substantial archaeological evidence of its participants and victims,” UCD’s Molloy says.

...

Ancient DNA could potentially reveal much more: When compared to other Bronze Age samples from around Europe at this time, it could point to the homelands of the warriors as well as such traits as eye and hair color. Genetic analysis is just beginning, but so far it supports the notion of far-flung origins. DNA from teeth suggests some warriors are related to modern southern Europeans and others to people living in modern-day Poland and Scandinavia. “This is not a bunch of local idiots,” says University of Mainz geneticist Joachim Burger. “It’s a highly diverse population.”

Murderous chimps

Nature 513, 414–417 (18 September 2014) doi:10.1038/nature13727

Lethal aggression in Pan is better explained by adaptive strategies than human impacts

Michael L. Wilson et al.

Observations of chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) and bonobos (Pan paniscus) provide valuable comparative data for understanding the significance of conspecific killing. Two kinds of hypothesis have been proposed. Lethal violence is sometimes concluded to be the result of adaptive strategies, such that killers ultimately gain fitness benefits by increasing their access to resources such as food or mates1, 2, 3, 4, 5. Alternatively, it could be a non-adaptive result of human impacts, such as habitat change or food provisioning6, 7, 8, 9. To discriminate between these hypotheses we compiled information from 18 chimpanzee communities and 4 bonobo communities studied over five decades. Our data include 152 killings (n = 58 observed, 41 inferred, and 53 suspected killings) by chimpanzees in 15 communities and one suspected killing by bonobos. We found that males were the most frequent attackers (92% of participants) and victims (73%); most killings (66%) involved intercommunity attacks; and attackers greatly outnumbered their victims (median 8:1 ratio). Variation in killing rates was unrelated to measures of human impacts. Our results are compatible with previously proposed adaptive explanations for killing by chimpanzees, whereas the human impact hypothesis is not supported.

Link

Armed conflict in the Sahara, ~13 thousand years ago

An interesting story from the Independent:

Scientists are investigating what may be the oldest identified race war 13,000 years after it raged on the fringes of the Sahara. French scientists working in collaboration with the British Museum have been examining dozens of skeletons, a majority of whom appear to have been killed by archers using flint-tipped arrows.

...

Parallel research over recent years has also been shedding new light as to who, in ethnic and racial terms, these victims were.

Work carried out at Liverpool John Moores University, the University of Alaska and New Orleans’ Tulane University indicates that they were part of the general sub-Saharan originating population – the ancestors of modern Black Africans.

The identity of their killers is however less easy to determine. But it is conceivable that they were people from a totally different racial and ethnic group – part of a North African/ Levantine/European people who lived around much of the Mediterranean Basin.

The two groups – although both part of our species, Homo sapiens – would have looked quite different from each other and were also almost certainly different culturally and linguistically. The sub-Saharan originating group had long limbs, relatively short torsos and projecting upper and lower jaws along with rounded foreheads and broad noses, while the North African/Levantine/European originating group had shorter limbs, longer torsos and flatter faces. Both groups were very muscular and strongly built.

Simulating three thousand years of history

There is a video in the press release for this paper showing how the simulation matches up with reality.

PNAS doi: 10.1073/pnas.1308825110

War, space, and the evolution of Old World complex societies

Peter Turchin et al.

How did human societies evolve from small groups, integrated by face-to-face cooperation, to huge anonymous societies of today, typically organized as states? Why is there so much variation in the ability of different human populations to construct viable states? Existing theories are usually formulated as verbal models and, as a result, do not yield sharply defined, quantitative predictions that could be unambiguously tested with data. Here we develop a cultural evolutionary model that predicts where and when the largest-scale complex societies arose in human history. The central premise of the model, which we test, is that costly institutions that enabled large human groups to function without splitting up evolved as a result of intense competition between societies—primarily warfare. Warfare intensity, in turn, depended on the spread of historically attested military technologies (e.g., chariots and cavalry) and on geographic factors (e.g., rugged landscape). The model was simulated within a realistic landscape of the Afroeurasian landmass and its predictions were tested against a large dataset documenting the spatiotemporal distribution of historical large-scale societies in Afroeurasia between 1,500 BCE and 1,500 CE. The model-predicted pattern of spread of large-scale societies was very similar to the observed one. Overall, the model explained 65% of variance in the data. An alternative model, omitting the effect of diffusing military technologies, explained only 16% of variance. Our results support theories that emphasize the role of institutions in state-building and suggest a possible explanation why a long history of statehood is positively correlated with political stability, institutional quality, and income per capita.

Link

Warlike Minoans

War was central to Europe's first civilization, contrary to popular belief

Research from the University of Sheffield has discovered that the ancient civilisation of Crete, known as Minoan, had strong martial traditions, contradicting the commonly held view of Minoans as a peace-loving people.

The research, carried out by Dr Barry Molloy of the University of Sheffield's Department of Archaeology, investigated the Bronze Age people of Crete, known by many as the Minoans, who created the very first complex urban civilisation in Europe.

"Their world was uncovered just over a century ago, and was deemed to be a largely peaceful society," explained Molloy. "In time, many took this to be a paradigm of a society that was devoid of war, where warriors and violence were shunned and played no significant role.

"That utopian view has not survived into modern scholarship, but it remains in the background unchallenged and still crops up in modern texts and popular culture with surprising frequency.

Personally, I'm not very surprised about this re-appraisal of the relationship of Minoans with war. There are multiple lines of evidence for Minoan power (e.g., the Thucydidean thalassocracy, the belief in Minos and Rhadamanthys as judges in Hades, the Theseus/Minotaur/Attican tributes legend) that have always suggested to me that the Bronze Age Cretans did not achieve pre-eminence only due to the attractiveness of their culture and/or their trading acumen, but also because they actually projected power by force.

One of the biggest arguments for Minoan pacifism was the lack of fortifications in Minoan sites. But, I've never found that argument convincing, because this lack might actually signify an excess of power (strong nations having no need of fortifications), and we need not forget that other unfortified city called Sparta, which, hopefully, no one could ever mistake as a champion of pacifism.

The Annual of the British School at Athens, 107, pp 87-142doi:10.1017/S0068245412000044

MARTIAL MINOANS? WAR AS SOCIAL PROCESS,PRACTICE AND EVENT IN BRONZE AGE CRETE 

Barry P.C. Molloy

Together with politics, economics and religion, war is one of the fundamental factors that canshape a society and group identities. In the prehistoric world, the sources for the study of war are disparate and their interpretation can be inconsistent and problematic. In the case of Cretein the Bronze Age, a systematic analysis of the evidence will be undertaken for the first time inthis paper, and this opportunity is used to critically evaluate the most effective ways of employing the widely agreed sets of physical correlates for ancient war in the archaeological record. A further objective in exploring the diachronic roles of war in these societies is to movethe discussion from a niche field to a more integrated, and systematic, social analysis. Theexistence and character of a warrior identity is examined, and it is proposed that it oftenconstituted a conspicuous element of male identity. The varying scales and time spans throughwhich war can influence a society are discussed, and a broad framework for understanding war in social process, practices and events is proposed.

Link

Skull trauma in Neolithic Scandinavia

I would be interested to know how this Neolithic sample might differ from more recent ones. My limited understanding suggests that between-male violence often has a signalling component whereby an individual's or group's dominance over another is asserted, so the fight often does not go all the way to death, but only until the status quo is manifested by the controlling party or toppled by a challenger.

This type of "signalling" aspect of violent behavior does not apply to male-to-female violence because of the physical strength inequality between the sexes. Indeed, as with violence towards children or the elderly, male-to-female violence may have a "reverse signalling" effect, because it suggests that the perpetrator is unable to fight with "the strong" and is only able to assert physical dominance in "easy fights". On the other hand, such "easy fights" might be more abundant if perpetrators tend to enter fights they can win.

Fight-to-the-death, on the other hand, may occur either by accident (e.g., when the aim is to assert dominance, but the killer underestimates the tolerance of the victim), or by intent (when the aim is physical annihilation, either because reconciliation with the victim is perceived to be impossible, or because the victim's death may help keep other challengers in check).

There may be lots to learn about gender roles and social hierarchy from large palaeoanthropological samples. For example, how much did ideology affect secular patterns of interpersonal violence, and how much did changes in weapon technology (e.g., from Neolithic to Bronze, Iron, and more recently firearms).

Am J Phys Anthropol DOI: 10.1002/ajpa.22192

Patterns of violence-related skull trauma in neolithic southern scandinavia

Linda Fibiger et al.

This article examines evidence for violence as reflected in skull injuries in 378 individuals from Neolithic Denmark and Sweden (3,900–1,700 BC). It is the first large-scale crossregional study of skull trauma in southern Scandinavia, documenting skeletal evidence of violence at a population level. We also investigate the widely assumed hypothesis that Neolithic violence is male-dominated and results in primarily male injuries and fatalities. Considering crude prevalence and prevalence for individual bones of the skull allows for a more comprehensive understanding of interpersonal violence in the region, which is characterized by endemic levels of mostly nonlethal violence that affected both men and women. Crude prevalence for skull trauma reaches 9.4% in the Swedish and 16.9% in the Danish sample, whereas element-based prevalence varies between 6.2% for the right frontal and 0.6% for the left maxilla, with higher figures in the Danish sample. Significantly more males are affected by healed injuries but perimortem injuries affect males and females equally. These results suggest habitual male involvement in nonfatal violence but similar risks for both sexes for sustaining fatal injuries. In the Danish sample, a bias toward front and left-side injuries and right-side injuries in females support this scenario of differential involvement in habitual interpersonal violence, suggesting gendered differences in active engagement in conflict. It highlights the importance of large-scale studies for investigating the scale and context of violence in early agricultural societies, and the existence of varied regional patterns for overall injury prevalence as well as gendered differences in violence-related injuries.

Link

The rise and wane of the cremation ritual

A thought occurred to me recently as I was reading about the Urnfield culture and the two components of the Andronovo horizon, the Alakul and Fedorovo cultures which contrasted in their practice of cremation vs. inhumation. It seems that the cremation ritual rose to prominence during the Bronze Age and then largely waned during the Iron Age.

Of course, this did not occur everywhere, not was it an entirely linear process. For example, most of the patrician Roman gentes practiced cremation into historical times. The Greeks, on the other hand, who mostly practiced inhumation during the Bronze Age, seem to have adopted cremation during the Dark Age, and this was the custom immortalized by Homer. Of the Indo-Iranians, one branch leading to the modern Hindus adopted a cremation ritual, while another, leading to the Zoroastrian Persians adopted the well-known exposure ritual.

But, nonetheless, it is a fact that the cremation burial first rose to prominence during the Bronze Age, and this requires an explanation.

I don't know whether this hypothesis has been advanced before, but it seems to me that the most practical reason for the cremation burial is to facilitate transportation of remains.

In modern times, the desire to be buried in familiar surroundings is often strong, and people are often buried in a different place than where they die. Of course, thanks to technological advanced related to preservation and transportation, this is often practical. But, this would not have been so in the past: cremation may have been devised as a way to dispose of the dead and carry their remains.

I have argued before that a sort of "globalization" took place during the Bronze Age, as extensive networks associated with metallurgy, combining prospecting, mining, metalworking, distribution, and security were formed. The non-local nature of these natures was driven by the need to co-ordinate a range of activities that took place in geographically distant areas: sources of ore needed to be identified and mined; metal needed to be worked on by talented experts who could fashion it into useful instruments of high added value; the end products had to be protected (because of their high value) and transported to areas where it would be in demand.

In the context of this theory, the rise of the cremation burial makes sense. In Paleolithic times, there was no concept of "home", as humans lived nomadic lives, endlessly driven away in search of resources. In Neolithic times, a strong concept of "home" emerged, as humans were tied to their crops and domesticated animals, and to the dwellings they had created. And, indeed, people were literally buried under their homes in the earliest Neoltihic.

The revolution of the Metal Age was the rise of mobility. This was facilitated by advanced in transportation technology associated with wheeled vehicles, and was driven by the trade in metal objects and other specialized, high-value items. The segment of the population involved in this business formed the elite, because of their access to weaponry and wealth, and these elites were intrinsically mobile for the reasons enumerated above. They, like other Neolithic peoples, had inherited a "love of home" and were territorial, but their way of life demanded that they live and fight away from "home".

Hence, the rise of the cremation ritual, which was then copied by others, due to its association with the elite, as well as its signalling effect, because a proper full cremation requires a large quantity of wood and is expensive to prepare and carry out. The intensification of warfare during the Bronze Age may have been an additional factor in the rise of the cremation ritual, because it is a convenient way to dispose of the dead at a battle site, or away from an established cemetery.

My hypothesis may not capture all the complexities of the phenomenon, but I think that a utilitarian origin of the ritual, which later assumed ideological, social, or religious connotations may make good sense of at least the origins of the practice at a wide level during the Bronze Age.

An obvious downside of the cremation ritual is its almost certain detrimental consequences for the preservation of ancient DNA. As more DNA evidence from the prehistoric past continues to accumulate, it is useful to remember that part of the puzzle may have been irretrievably lost, although I suspect that the transience of the practice in many parts of the world and its co-existence with inhumation in others may have left us with enough evidence to work out the larger picture.

Our baby-eating ancestors

Much of modern cannibalism revolves around the ritual consumption of one's adult enemies, but apparently this was not what was practiced by H. antecessor. The case for Neandertal cannibalism was advanced by White and Toth, but it's my impression that it's controversial. Since the Upper Paleolithic, modern humans have certainly devised numerous new ways of being cruel to one another, but it seems that cannibalism is not one of them. Certainly, our more recent ancestors have imbued meaning and ritual to the process, but it does seem that the act could very well be performed by a symbol-free culture.

Hominid Hunting has more.

J Hum Evol. 2012 Sep 1. [Epub ahead of print]

Intergroup cannibalism in the European Early Pleistocene: The range expansion and imbalance of power hypotheses.

Saladié P, Huguet R, Rodríguez-Hidalgo A, Cáceres I, Esteban-Nadal M, Arsuaga JL, Bermúdez de Castro JM, Carbonell E.

Abstract

In this paper, we compare cannibalism in chimpanzees, modern humans, and in archaeological cases with cannibalism inferred from evidence from the Early Pleistocene assemblage of level TD6 of Gran Dolina (Sierra de Atapuerca, Spain). The cannibalism documented in level TD6 mainly involves the consumption of infants and other immature individuals. The human induced modifications on Homo antecessor and deer remains suggest that butchering processes were similar for both taxa, and the remains were discarded on the living floor in the same way. This finding implies that a group of hominins that used the Gran Dolina cave periodically hunted and consumed individuals from another group. However, the age distribution of the cannibalized hominins in the TD6 assemblage is not consistent with that from other cases of exo-cannibalism by human/hominin groups. Instead, it is similar to the age profiles seen in cannibalism associated with intergroup aggression in chimpanzees. For this reason, we use an analogy with chimpanzees to propose that the TD6 hominins mounted low-risk attacks on members of other groups to defend access to resources within their own territories and to try and expand their territories at the expense of neighboring groups.

Link

Science special issue on Human Conflict

The content is free for registered users (not necessarily subscribers).

Co-evolution of belligerence and bravery

PLoS ONE 6(7): e21437. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0021437

The Demographic Benefits of Belligerence and Bravery: Defeated Group Repopulation or Victorious Group Size Expansion?

Laurent Lehmann

Intraspecific coalitional aggression between groups of individuals is a widespread trait in the animal world. It occurs in invertebrates and vertebrates, and is prevalent in humans. What are the conditions under which coalitional aggression evolves in natural populations? In this article, I develop a mathematical model delineating conditions where natural selection can favor the coevolution of belligerence and bravery between small-scale societies. Belligerence increases an actor's group probability of trying to conquer another group and bravery increase the actors's group probability of defeating an attacked group. The model takes into account two different types of demographic scenarios that may lead to the coevolution of belligerence and bravery. Under the first, the fitness benefits driving the coevolution of belligerence and bravery come through the repopulation of defeated groups by fission of victorious ones. Under the second demographic scenario, the fitness benefits come through a temporary increase in the local carrying capacity of victorious groups, after transfer of resources from defeated groups to victorious ones. The analysis of the model suggests that the selective pressures on belligerence and bravery are stronger when defeated groups can be repopulated by victorious ones. The analysis also suggests that, depending on the shape of the contest success function, costly bravery can evolve in groups of any size.

Link

Ottoman terror in 15th c. Croatia

Peaceful co-existence, Islamic tolerance, Ottoman benevolence in action...

American Journal of Physical Anthropology doi:10.1002/ajpa.21152

The harsh life on the 15th century Croatia-Ottoman Empire military border: Analyzing and identifying the reasons for the massacre in epin

Mario laus et al.

Abstract

Excavation of the historic period cemetery in epin, Croatia revealed the presence of a large number of perimortem injuries distributed among males, females, and subadults. Archaeological and historical data suggest these individuals were victims of a raid carried out by Turkish akinji light cavalry in 1441. Comparisons with the frequencies of perimortem trauma in 12 other, temporally congruent skeletal series from the Balkans (n = 2,123 skeletons) support this assumption. The role of the akinji in the Ottoman army was twofold: to supply war captives, and to terrorize and disperse local populations before the advance of regular troops. This article tests the hypothesis that the purpose of the 1441 raid was the latter. To accomplish this, perimortem trauma in the series were analyzed by sex, age, location, and depth of the injury. A total of 82 perimortem injuries were recorded in 12 males, 7 females, and 3 subadults. The demographic profile of the victims suggests that young adults were specifically targeted in the attack. Significant sex differences are noted in the number, distribution, and pattern of perimortem trauma. Females exhibit significantly more perimortem injuries per individual, and per bone affected, than males. The morphology and pattern of perimortem trauma in females is suggestive of gratuitous violence. Cumulatively, analysis of the osteological data suggest that the objective of the 1441 akinji raid was to spread terror and panic in the epin area, either as revenge for recent military setbacks, or as part of a long-term strategy intended to depopulate the area around Osijek.

Link

Warfare rather than agriculture as a cause of fires in the Neolithic of northern Vietnam

PNAS doi:10.1073/pnas.0813258106

Warfare rather than agriculture as a critical influence on fires in the late Holocene, inferred from northern Vietnam

Zhen Li et al.

Fire has played an essential role in the development of human civilization. Most previous research suggests that frequent-fire regimes in the late Holocene were associated with intensification of human activities, especially agriculture development. Here, we analyze fire regimes recorded in the Song Hong delta area of Vietnam over the past 5,000 years. In the prehistoric period, 2 long-term, low-charcoal abundance periods have been linked to periods of low humidity and cool climate, and 5 short-term fire regimes of 100–150 years in duration occurred at regular intervals of ≈700 years. However, over the last 1,500 years, the number, frequency, and intensity of fire regimes clearly increased. Six intensified-fire regime periods in northern Vietnam during this time coincided with changes of Vietnamese dynasties and associated warfare and unrest. In contrast, agricultural development supported by rulers of stable societies at this time does not show a positive correlation with intensified-fire regime periods. Thus, warfare rather than agriculture appears to have been a critical factor contributing to fire regimes in northern Vietnam during the late Holocene.

Link

Did Homo sapiens kill Shanidar 3?

The evidence suggests that modern humans were responsible for this Paleolithic murder mystery, although it's not one of those cases were the evidence is strong enough to "stand up in court", so to speak.

I think that if modern humans and Neandertals ever crossed paths -- and the evidence is very clear that they were very close to each other, at least in Europe -- then inter-species violence is almost a given. Humans have been known to kill all sorts of animals, including members of their own species, so it would have been really difficult to imagine them not killing Neanderthals, if given the opportunity.

But, occasional conflict is not the same as annihilation. So, even if Shanidar 3 did die of a modern human hand, the conclusion is far from certain that Neanderthals as a species did.

Elsewhere on the web: MSNBC, Science Daily.

John Hawks has a thorough review:

Plugging into Bayes' theorem, that means that an encounter rate of 1 modern human for every 28 Neandertals would yield a five percent chance that a modern human was the culprit. Did Shanidar 3 encounter one modern human for every 28 of his own? If not, we have to conclude its very unlikely -- less than five percent -- that his wounds were caused by a modern human.

Arriving at a probability relies at many guesstimates of parameters; this is why I said that the authors' case wouldn't stand up in court. One of Prof. Hawks's hypotheses is:

We don't know the probability that Shanidar 3 encountered modern humans. We'll assume that Shanidar 3 would have been attacked with equal probability by whomever he encountered.

This hypothesis is probably as good as any, but the actual probability could very well be either higher or lower. For example, in a first contact scenario, within-group violence might decline in the face of a common "Other". A classical example is the temporary banding together of Greeks in the face of advancing Persians. While Greeks had a good chance of killing each other before and after the early 5th c. BC, the inter-Greek violence probability experienced a dip in order to face the Persian danger.

In a long-term cohabitation scenario, we might be tempted to assign slightly higher probability to inter-group than to intra-group violence. But this is far from a certain conclusion, since groups may differ in their average tendency to violence. Members of the more violent group may actually have a higher probability of being attacked by one of their own than by a member of a more peaceful group: put 100 mercenaries and 100 Buddhist monks together, and each mercenary will have a higher probability of being attacked by another mercenary than by a monk.

Were modern humans and Neandertals different in their tendency to violence? Did modern human succeed so well because they expanded peacefully and weren't held back by constant bickering? Or did their expansion result from them being warlike and prone to arguments and divisions that eventually led some of them to the ends of the earth? Perhaps, by a careful counting of spear points and traumas, we will, one day, be able to answer that question.

Journal of Human Evolution doi:10.1016/j.jhevol.2009.05.010

Shanidar 3 Neandertal rib puncture wound and paleolithic weaponry

Steven E. Churchill et al.

Abstract

Since its discovery and initial description in the 1960s, the penetrating lesion to the left ninth rib of the Shanidar 3 Neandertal has been a focus for discussion about interpersonal violence and weapon technology in the Middle Paleolithic. Recent experimental studies using lithic points on animal targets suggest that aspects of weapon system dynamics can be inferred from the form of the bony lesions they produce. Thus, to better understand the circumstances surrounding the traumatic injury suffered by Shanidar 3, we conducted controlled stabbing experiments with replicas of Mousterian and Levallois points directed against the thoraces of pig carcasses. Stabs were conducted under both high and low kinetic energy conditions, in an effort to replicate the usual impact forces associated with thrusting spear vs. long-range projectile weapon systems, respectively.

Analysis of the lesions produced in the pig ribs, along with examination of goat ribs subjected primarily to high kinetic energy stabs from an independent experiment, revealed consistent differences in damage patterns between the two conditions. In the case of Shanidar 3, the lack of major involvement of more than one rib, the lack of fracturing of the affected and adjacent ribs, and the lack of bony defects associated with the lesion (such as wastage, hinging, and radiating fracture lines) suggests that the weapon that wounded him was carrying relatively low kinetic energy.

While accidental injury or attack with a thrusting spear or knife cannot absolutely be ruled out, the position, angulation, and morphology of the lesion is most consistent with injury by a low-mass, low-kinetic energy projectile weapon. Given the potential temporal overlap of Shanidar 3 with early modern humans in western Asia, and the possibility that the latter were armed with projectile weapon systems, this case carries more than simple paleoforensic interest.

Link

Aristotle on heterogeneity as a cause of civil war

Aristot. Pol. 5.1303a

A difference of race (1) is also conducive to civil war, until they acquire a common spirit: just as a city (2) cannot come into being by a chance multitude, nor in a chance length of time: this is why, whoever has accepted co-settlers either in the beginning or later (3), most of the time they revolted.

στασιωτικὸν δὲ καὶ τὸ μὴ ὁμόφυλον, ἕως ἂν συμπνεύσῃ: ὥσπερ γὰρ οὐδ᾽ ἐκ τοῦ τυχόντος πλήθους πόλις γίγνεται, οὕτως οὐδ᾽ ἐν τῷ τυχόντι χρόνῳ: διὸ ὅσοι ἤδη συνοίκους ἐδέξαντο ἢ ἐποίκους, οἱ πλεῖστοι διεστασίασαν

Notes:

1. A. is not speaking of a difference of race (τὸ μὴ ὁμόφυλον) in the modern sense of continental groups; his examples following this passage all involve different Greek peoples who were involved in a common settlement. Indeed, the very word translated as "conducive to civil war" (στασιωτικὸν) refers to inter-Hellenic conflicts (cf. Plat. Rep. 5.470c, where the terminology of στασιάζειν is applied to "unnatural" inter-Hellenic conflicts, while war itself (πόλεμον) is reserved for inter-ethnic conflicts.)

2. Note that by city (πόλις), A. is not speaking only of the physical entity of a city, but rather its political identity, i.e., a city-state. A physical city can certainly exist with a "chance multitude", but A. warns that a city-state cannot, until a sufficient length of time has transpired for the different elements in it to acquire a common spirit.

3. A. uses the words συνοίκους and ἐποίκους. The first one denotes those who live together, and is usually used for those who participate in the act of foundation of a city-state. The second term denotes those who are later added to the population, after the city has already been established.

Aristotle's emphasis on common descent (ὁμόφυλον) as a preventive factor against war seems strange by present-day norms, especially since he is speaking of the co-existence of different sets of Greeks, rather than the co-existence of different ethnic groups, or even different races.

This is why he does not suggest that the possibility of peaceful cohabitation is inherently impossible, but that it takes a long time, until the constituent elements "acquire a common spirit" (ἕως ἂν συμπνεύσῃ).

It appears that Aristotle did believe in inherent differences between nations (cf. Aristot. Pol. 1.1252b, 7.1327b) which would presumably make the possibility of acquiring a "common spirit" even more remote, if not impossible. States with a Greek and non-Greek citizen body were unheard of at his time, so the issue does not seem to have even crossed his mind.

Injuries and Violence in Iberian Neolithic and Bronze Age

American Journal of Physical Anthropology doi:10.1002/ajpa.21089

Possible relationship of cranial traumatic injuries with violence in the south-east Iberian Peninsula from the Neolithic to the Bronze Age

S.A. Jiménez-Brobeil et al.

Abstract

The main aim of this study was to analyze the presence and distribution of cranial trauma, as possible evidence of violence, in remains from the Neolithic to Bronze Age from the SE Iberian Peninsula. The sample contains skulls, crania, and cranial vaults belonging to 410 prehistoric individuals. We also studied 267 crania from medieval and modern times for comparative purposes. All lesions in the prehistoric crania are healed and none of them can be attributed to a specific weapon. In all studied populations, injuries were more frequent in adults than in subadults and also in males than in females, denoting a sexual division in the risk of suffering accidents or intentional violence. According to the archeological record, the development of societies in the SE Iberian Peninsula during these periods must have entailed an increase in conflict. However, a high frequency of cranial traumatic injuries was observed in the Neolithic series, theoretically a less conflictive time, and the lowest frequency was in crania from the 3rd millennium B.C. (Copper Age), which is characterized by the archeologists as a period of increasing violence. The relatively large size and the high rate of injuries in Neolithic crania and the practice of cannibalism are strongly suggestive of episodes of interpersonal or intergroup conflict. The number and distribution of injuries in Bronze Age is consistent with the increase in violence at that time described by most archeologists.

Link

Huge Greek necropolis from Himera, Sicily

The discovery of such a large number of burials is a rare opportunity for an ancient DNA study of the Greeks of Sicily. The age of the samples, and the fact that they are from freshly excavated graves will make it relatively easy to extract useful DNA from them. Let's hope that we see some results in the next few years.

Ancient Mass Graves of Soldiers, Babies, Found in Italy

More than 10,000 graves containing ancient amphorae, "baby bottles," and the bodies of soldiers who fought the Carthaginians were found near the ancient Greek colony of Himera, in Italy, archaeologists announced recently.

"It's probably the largest Greek necropolis in Sicily," said Stefano Vassallo, the lead archaeologist of the team that made the discoveries, in September.

The ancient burial ground was uncovered during the construction of a railway extension.

"The remains of Himera's buildings had been known and studied for a long time, and we knew there should be some graves. We didn't expect so many graves", said Vassallo, who works for the Italian province of Palermo's government.

"Each [mass grave] contains from 15 to 25 skeletons. They were all young healthy men and they all died a violent death. Some of the skeletons have broken skulls and in some cases we found the tips of the arrows that killed them," Vassallo said.

He thinks the human remains are from soldiers who died fighting the Carthaginians in a famous 480 B.C. battle described by Greek historian Herodotus of Halicarnassus.

Genetic predisposition for fathering sons

A good explanation from BBC News:

Newcastle University researchers found men were more likely to have sons if they had more brothers and vice versa if they had more sisters.

They looked at 927 family trees, with details on 556,387 people from North America and Europe, going back to 1600.

The same link between sibling sex and offspring sex was not found for women.

...

In the years after World War I, there was an upsurge in boy births, and Dr Gellatly said that a genetic shift could explain this.

The odds, he said, would favour fathers with more sons - each carrying the "boy" gene - having a son return from war alive, compared with fathers who had more daughters, who might see their only son killed in action.

However, this would mean that more boys would be fathered in the following generation, he said.

Evolutionary Biology doi:10.1007/s11692-008-9046-3

Trends in Population Sex Ratios May be Explained by Changes in the Frequencies of Polymorphic Alleles of a Sex Ratio Gene

Corry Gellatly

Abstract

A test for heritability of the sex ratio in human genealogical data is reported here, with the finding that there is significant heritability of the parental sex ratio by male, but not female offspring. A population genetic model was used to examine the hypothesis that this is the result of an autosomal gene with polymorphic alleles, which affects the sex ratio of offspring through the male reproductive system. The model simulations show that an equilibrium sex ratio may be maintained by frequency dependent selection acting on the heritable variation provided by the gene. It is also shown that increased mortality of pre-reproductive males causes an increase in male births in following generations, which explains why increases in the sex ratio have been seen after wars, also why higher infant and juvenile mortality of males may be the cause of the male-bias typically seen in the human primary sex ratio. It is concluded that various trends seen in population sex ratios are the result of changes in the relative frequencies of the polymorphic alleles of the proposed gene. It is argued that this occurs by common inheritance and that parental resource expenditure per sex of offspring is not a factor in the heritability of sex ratio variation.

Link

IQ and survival in war (Scottish soldiers of WWII)

Intelligence should be positively correlated with survival in war; on the other hand, intelligence may be correlated with the amount of risk shouldered, as more intelligent men may be preferred to carry out complex high-risk mission. So, it's not clear whether smarter-than-average or not tend to survive wars.

This study shows that among Scottish Army participants of WWII, survivors were less intelligent than non-survivors, but also that non-participants in the Army were more intelligent than participants. Of course, this latter finding may be due to non-Army men being e.g. in the Navy, for which no data exist.

Certainly this data shows some relationship between IQ and military participation/survival, although the effect does not seem to be very pronounced.

The WWII experience was probably one of near-universal participation by the combat-age male population of the countries involved, and it would be interesting to see comparable data from volunteer Armies, such as the current US Army, where IQ data probably exist.


Intelligence doi:10.1016/j.intell.2008.11.003

Childhood IQ and in-service mortality in Scottish Army personnel during World War II

Janie Corley et al.

Abstract

The Scottish Mental Survey of 1932 (SMS1932) provides a record of intelligence test scores for almost a complete year-of-birth group of children born in 1921. By linking UK Army personnel records, the Scottish National War Memorial data, and the SMS1932 dataset it was possible to examine the effect of childhood intelligence scores on wartime military service mortality in males. There were 491 matches between World War II (WWII) Scottish Army fatalities and the SMS1932 database; 470 (96%) had an age 11 mental ability score recorded. The mean (S.D.) age 11 IQ score of those who died on active service in WWII was 100.78 (15.56), compared with 97.42 (14.87) for male Army survivors (p less than 0.0001; Cohen's d = 0.22). Men who took part in the SMS1932 and who were not found in the Army database had a higher mean score (100.45, S.D. =14.97) than those men who had been in the Army, regardless of whether they died or survived (mean IQ = 97.66, S.D. = 14.94; p less than 0.0001; Cohen's d = 0.19). Male soldiers with a higher childhood IQ had a slightly increased risk of dying during active service in WWII. Men who did not join the Army had a higher IQ than men who did. Further research in this area should consider naval and air force personnel records in order to examine more fully the complex relationship between IQ and survival expectancy during active service in WWII.

Link

Warfare and human evolution

The New Scientist has an interesting article on war and its role in human evolution (How warfare shaped human evolution )

Now a new theory is emerging that challenges the prevailing view that warfare is a product of human culture and thus a relatively recent phenomenon. For the first time, anthropologists, archaeologists, primatologists, psychologists and political scientists are approaching a consensus. Not only is war as ancient as humankind, they say, but it has played an integral role in our evolution.

...

These ideas emerged at a conference last month on the evolutionary origins of war at the University of Oregon in Eugene. "The picture that was painted was quite consistent," says Mark Van Vugt, an evolutionary psychologist at the University of Kent, UK. "Warfare has been with us for at least several tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of years."

Here is the website of this conference: Evolutionary Perspectives on War Conference. More from the New Scientist article:

Studies suggest that warfare accounts for 10 per cent or more of all male deaths in present-day hunter-gatherers. ... Primatologists have known for some time that organised, lethal violence is common between groups of chimpanzees, our closest relatives. ... Such raids are possible because humans and chimps, unlike most social mammals, often wander away from the main group to forage singly or in smaller groups, says Wrangham. ... Several participants presented the strongest evidence yet that males - whose larger and more muscular bodies make them better suited for fighting - have evolved a tendency towards aggression outside the group but cooperation within it. ... Aggression in women, she notes, tends to take the form of verbal rather than physical violence, and is mostly one on one.

...

Some of this behaviour could arguably be attributed to conscious mental strategies, but anthropologist Mark Flinn of the University of Missouri at Columbia has found that group-oriented responses occur on the hormonal level, too. He found that cricket players on the Caribbean island of Dominica experience a testosterone surge after winning against another village. But this hormonal surge, and presumably the dominant behaviour it prompts, was absent when the men beat a team from their own village, Flinn told the conference. "You're sort of sending the signal that it's play. You're not asserting dominance over them," he says. Similarly, the testosterone surge a man often has in the presence of a potential mate is muted if the woman is in a relationship with his friend. Again, the effect is to reduce competition within the group, says Flinn. "We really are different from chimpanzees in our relative amount of respect for other males' mating relationships."

...

Though women seem to help broker harmony within groups, says Van Vugt, men may be better at peacekeeping between groups.