Inter-group violence among early Holocene hunter-gatherers of West Turkana, Kenya (original) (raw)
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An exploration of interpersonal violence among Holocene foragers of Southern Africa
International Journal of Paleopathology, 2016
A common assertion that humans are inherently aggressive toward one another is based in part on interpretation of anthropological evidence, including observational reports of Khoesan immediate-return hunter-gatherers of southern Africa. Bioarchaeological evidence from 446 dated South African Cape Holocene skeletons representing Khoesan ancestors provides an opportunity to review approaches to interpersonal conflict over thousands of years. A synthesis of paleodemographic and skeletal information suggests a complex picture. The pattern noted among descendant Khoesan groups of male killings via poison arrows is not discernable in ancestral demography. Published reports of healed cranial trauma are not geographically localized; most are adult men, and some can be parsimoniously explained as the outcomes of accidents. Skeletons with unhealed perimortem lesions are limited to the southwestern region, at dates around 2500 years ago; most are women and children. The perimortem skeletal trauma is contemporaneous with a period during which a transitory decline in adult stature occurs throughout the Cape but not in the region with the apparent violence. This suggests a novel, transient social pattern in that community. In sum, the disparate patterns of antemortem and perimortem trauma among these Holocene foragers support a narrative that emphasizes the situational nature, and the general rarity, of interpersonal violence.
Lahr.MM.etal.2016_Inter-group_violence_among_early_Holocen.pdf
The nature of inter-group relations among prehistoric huntergatherers remains disputed, with arguments in favour and against the existence of warfare before the development of sedentary societies 1,2 . Here we report on a case of inter-group violence towards a group of hunter-gatherers from Nataruk, west of Lake Turkana, which during the late Pleistocene/early Holocene period extended about 30 km beyond its present-day shore 3 . Ten of the twelve articulated skeletons found at Nataruk show evidence of having died violently at the edge of a lagoon, into which some of the bodies fell. The remains from Nataruk are unique, preserved by the particular conditions of the lagoon with no evidence of deliberate burial. They offer a rare glimpse into the life and death of past foraging people, and evidence that warfare was part of the repertoire of inter-group relations among prehistoric hunter-gatherers.
Archaeological and anthropological research into prehistoric warfare and violence was long framed by two competing meta-narratives harking back to the work of political philosophers Hobbes and Rousseau. Whereas for some researchers violence is a key part of what makes us human, for others, it emerges as a result of specific types of socio-political relationships. This contribution explores the ways in which these competing narratives, as well as Europe’s history of 20th century warfare, have influenced the way in which we have approached the subject. The paper argues that a turning point came in the wake of Keeley’s War before Civilization (1996), which has led to the creation of a vibrant field of specialist research on prehistoric warfare and violence. The authors argue that this field of study can be further advanced through interdisciplinary enquiries bringing together state-of-the-art scientific methods of analysis and contemporary theoretical reflections developed in the humanities and social sciences.
War and Violence among Prehistoric Hunter-gatherers
Gefördert durch die VORWORT DER HERAUSGEBER Die Reihe "Universitätsforschungen zur prähistorischen Archäologie" soll einem in der jüngeren Vergangenheit entstandenen Bedürfnis Rechnung tragen, nämlich Examensarbeiten und andere Forschungsleistungen vornehmlich jüngerer Wissenschaftler in die Öffentlichkeit zu tragen. Die etablierten Reihen und Zeitschriften des Faches reichen längst nicht mehr aus, die vorhandenen Manuskripte aufzunehmen. Die Universitäten sind deshalb aufgerufen, Abhilfe zu schaffen. Einige von ihnen haben mit den ihnen zur Verfügung stehenden Mitteln unter zumeist tatkräftigem Handanlegen der Autoren die vorliegende Reihe begründet. Thematisch soll darin die ganze Breite des Faches vom Paläolithikum bis zur Archäologie der Neuzeit ihren Platz finden. Ursprünglich hatten sich fünf Universitätsinstitute in Deutschland zur Herausgabe der Reihe zusammengefunden, der Kreis ist inzwischen größer geworden. Er lädt alle interessierten Professoren und Dozenten ein, als Mitherausgeber tätig zu werden und Arbeiten aus ihrem Bereich der Reihe zukommen zu lassen. Für die einzelnen Bände zeichnen jeweils die Autoren und Institute ihrer Herkunft, die im Titel deutlich gekennzeichnet sind, verantwortlich. Sie erstellen Satz, Umbruch und einen Ausdruck. Bei gleicher Anordnung des Umschlages haben die verschiedenen beteiligten Universitäten jeweils eine spezifische Farbe. Finanzierung und Druck erfolgen entweder durch sie selbst oder durch den Verlag Dr. Rudolf Habelt GmbH, der in jedem Fall den Vertrieb der Bände sichert. Herausgeber sind derzeit:
Abstract: Sadly, aggression is still one of the most common features of human behaviour; it is an instinct to promote and survive our own genes against the genes of others. Human intraspecific aggression has gradually become part of human culture over the last 40,000 years and has been institutionalized in various forms of social activities. Particularly in the post-glacial period, the level of social relations has developed dramatically in the context of population growth and the growth of human communities. In the time of Neolithic and Chalcolithic European agricultural populations, the motive of control over farming land became highly important. Also the control of main means of production and social power was increasingly maintaining the intra-group competition and aggression. Thus, violence was employed within the community in order to obtain and maintain individual or collective social status, but also against other communities in an effort to protect property and territory. Particularly the intra-community aggression was soon transformed into variety of different formal ways of symbolic fighting, which usually did not lead to the unwanted death of a defeated member of the community. The symbolic struggle between members of the community as well as the defence against external aggression were gradually formalized in the form of introduction of specialized weapons designed for combat between people and creation of fortifications. During the Neolithic period a new phenomenon arose in human culture: warfare. Résumé : L’agression est, malheureusement, toujours l’une des caractéristiques les plus courantes du comportement humain ; c’est un instinct visant à favoriser et à faire subsister nos propres gènes face aux gènes d’autrui. L’agressivité intraspécifique chez les hommes a peu à peu fait partie de la culture humaine au cours des dernières 40 000 années et été institutionnalisée dans des formes d’activités sociales diverses. Notamment durant la période postglaciaire, le niveau des relations sociales se sont considérablement développées dans le contexte de la croissance démographique et la croissance des communautés humaines. À l’époque des populations agricoles européennes du néolithique et du chalcolithique, le motif du contrôle des terres agricoles est devenu très important. De plus, le contrôle des principaux moyens de production et du pouvoir social a de plus en plus maintenu la concurrence et l’agression entre les groupes. Ainsi, la violence a été employée au sein de la communauté afin d’obtenir et de maintenir un statut social individuel ou collectif, mais aussi contre d’autres communautés dans le but de protéger les biens et les territoires. En particulier, l’agression intra-communautaire fut bientôt transformée en différentes formes conventionnelles de combats symboliques, qui ne conduisaient généralement pas à la mort non voulue d’un membre vaincu de la communauté. Si la lutte interne, symbolique ou l’agression tournée vers l’extérieur ont été progressivement officialisées sous la forme de l’apparition d’armes spécialisées conçues pour le combat entre l’homme et par la création de fortifications. Au cours de la période néolithique, un phénomène nouveau est apparu dans la culture humaine : la guerre. Extracto: Tristemente, la agresión sigue siendo una de las características más comunes del comportamiento humano; es un instinto de promoción y supervivencia de nuestros genes frente a los genes de otros. La agresión intraespecífica humana se ha convertido gradualmente en parte de la cultura humana a lo largo de los últimos 40.000 años y ha sido institucionalizada en diversas formas de actividades sociales. En particular, en el período post-glacial, el nivel de relaciones sociales se ha desarrollado de manera dramática en el contexto del crecimiento de la población y del crecimiento de las comunidades humanas. En el tiempo de las poblaciones agrícolas neolíticas y calcolíticas europeas, el motivo del control de la tierra cultivable se convirtió en algo sumamente importante. También el control de los principales medios de producción y el poder social estuvo manteniendo cada vez más la competición intragrupo y la agresión. De este modo, se empleó la violencia dentro de la comunidad con el fin de obtener y mantener el estatus social individual o colectivo, pero también contra otras comunidades en un esfuerzo por proteger la propiedad y el territorio. En particular, la agresión intracomunitaria fue transformada muy pronto en una variedad de modos formales diferentes de lucha simbólica, que normalmente no llevó a la muerte no deseada de un miembro derrotado de la comunidad. Aunque la lucha interna simbólica o la agresión que mira hacia fuera han sido formalizadas gradualmente en la forma del surgimiento de armas especializadas diseñadas para combatir entre humanos y mediante la creación de fortificaciones, durante el período neolítico surgió un nuevo fenómeno en la cultura humana: la guerra.
Beyond War: archaeological approaches to violence
The long-standing debate over the origins of violence has resurfaced over the last two decades. There has been a proliferation of studies on violence, from both cross-cultural and ethnographic and prehistoric perspectives, based on a reading of archaeological and bioarchaeological records in a variety of territories and chronologies. The vast body of osteoarchaeological and architectural evidence reflects the presence of interpersonal violence among the first farmer groups throughout Europe, and, even earlier, between hunter-gatherer societies of the Mesolithic. The studies in Beyond War present the necessity of rethinking the concept of “violence” in archaeology. This overcomes the old conception that limits violence to its most evident expressions in war and intra- or extra-group conflict, opening up the debate on violence, which allows the advancement of knowledge of the social life and organization of prehistoric societies. Determining archaeological indicators to identify violent practices and to analyse their origin and causes is fundamental here, and represents the only way to find out when and under what historical conditions prehistoric societies began to organize themselves by exercising structural violence.
Animal movements in the Kenya Rift and evidence for the earliest ambush hunting by hominins
Scientific Reports, 2015
and trace nutrient distribution. These patterns would have been the same in the past when hominins inhabited the area. We use this approach to create a landscape reconstruction of Olorgesailie, a key site in the East African Rift with abundant evidence of large-mammal butchery between ~1.2 and ~0.5 Ma BP. The site location in relation to limited animal routes through the area show that hominins were aware of animal movements and used the location for ambush hunting during the Lower to Middle Pleistocene. These features explain the importance of Olorgesailie as a preferred location of repeated hominin activity through multiple changes in climate and local environmental conditions, and provide insights into the cognitive and hunting abilities of Homo erectus while indicating that their activities at the site were aimed at hunting, rather than scavenging.
Bioarchaeological contributions to the study of violence
American Journal of Physical Anthropology, 2014
The bioarchaeological record has an abundance of scientific evidence based on skeletal indicators of trauma to argue for a long history of internal and external group conflict. However, the findings also suggest variability, nuance, and unevenness in the type, use, and meaning of violence across time and space and therefore defy generalizations or easy quantification. Documenting violence-related behaviors provides an overview of the often unique and sometimes patterned cultural use of violence. Violence (lethal and nonlethal) is often associated with social spheres of influence and power connected to daily life such as subsistence intensification, specialization, competition for scarce resources, climate, population density, territorial protection and presence of immigrants, to name just a few. By using fine-grained biocultural analyses that interrogate trauma data in particular places at particular times in reconstructed archaeological contexts, a more comprehensive view into the histories and experiences of violence emerges. Moreover, identifying culturally specific patterns related to age, sex, and social status provide an increasingly complex picture of early small-scale groups. Some forms of ritual violence also have restorative and regenerative aspects that strengthen community identity. Bioarchaeological data can shed light on the ways that violence becomes part of a given cultural landscape. Viewed in a biocultural context, evidence of osteological trauma provides rich insights into social relationships and the many ways that violence is embedded within those relationships.
Comparing Prehistoric and Historic Hunter-Gatherer Mobility in Southern Kenya
East African Archaeology, 2003
This chapter compares the land-use patterns of prehistoric and historic hunter-gatherers of south-central Kenya. We examine hunter-gatherer mobility patterns during the Later Stone Age (LSA) based on lithic and faunal data from Lukenya Hill. We use similar data to examine mobility patterns of historic hunter-gatherers at Kisio Rock Shelter, Tsavo National Park, south-central Kenya. Tsavo's Iron Age hunter-gatherers coexisted with farmers and herders and possessed iron tools and pottery. A marked decrease in mobility characterizes the land-use patterns of historic hunter-gatherers of south-central Kenya as compared to Paleolithic hunter-gatherers of a similar environment. Such comparisons can increase our understanding of the particular histories of ethnographically and historically known hunter-gatherers and the appropriate uses of hunter-gatherer ethnographic analogy in archaeology. A rchaeologists have long used the ethnographic record of hunter-gather-er societies as a productive source of models of prehistoric hunter-gath-erer cultures. Using information from societies like the !Kung San, Lee and DeVore (1968:11-12) assembled an empirical model of hunter-gatherer societies that emphasized high mobility, flexible social arrangements, and exchange and kinship alliances. This model was abundantly applied to prehistoric situations ranging from East African fossil hominids to late prehistoric groups in the northeastern United States (Shott 1992:846). Over time, however, a revisionist perspective has urged consideration of how local his