Archaeologists unearth the earliest evidence of warfare between hunter-gatherers

[Judi Lynn]

Archaeologists unearth the earliest evidence of warfare between hunter-gatherers


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Photograph of Dr Marta Mirazon Lahr and Justus Edung at the end of the excavation of the skeleton KNM-WT 71259. This skeleton was that of a
woman, found reclining on her left elbow, with fractures on the knees and possibly the left foot. The position of the hands suggests her wrists may
have been bound. She was found surrounded by fish. Image by Robert Foley.

By: Mariëtte Le Roux
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PARIS (AFP).- About 10,000 years ago, a small band of men, women and children were captured by a rival clan before being tied up, shot with arrows and bludgeoned to death.

Their shattered remains fell into a lagoon, and were preserved in sediment for millennia.

On Wednesday, scientists presented them as evidence of the oldest-known human massacre, a finding that adds to the debate about why humans make war.

The bloodshed occurred when our prehistoric ancestors lived as hunter-gatherers, on the cusp of the agricultural revolution that saw early humans settle down to till the land.

More:
http://artdaily.com/news/84524/Archaeologists-unearth-the-earliest-evidence-of-warfare-between-hunter-gatherers-#.VqbZQOT2bDd

[Judi Lynn]

1. 10,000-Year-Old Massacre Does Not Bolster Claim That War Is Innate

10,000-Year-Old Massacre Does Not Bolster Claim That War Is Innate

A new report on a massacre of hunter–gatherers in Africa is consistent with the claim that war, far from being an inborn trait that evolved millions of years ago, is a recent cultural invention

By John Horgan on January 24, 2016

A report in Nature on 10,000-year-old skeletons unearthed in West Turkana, Kenya, is being touted as evidence for the assertion that war has deep evolutionary roots. According to this claim, the tendency for lethal group fighting dates back millions of years to the common ancestor of humans and chimpanzees, who have been observed engaging in deadly raids.

A leading proponent of this view, Harvard anthropologist Richard Wrangham, once said: "Chimpanzee-like violence preceded and paved the way for human war, making modern humans the dazed survivors of a continuous, five-million-year habit of lethal aggression."

The Nature report does not bolster the case for what I call the deep-roots theory of war. Far from it. But it does reveal how eager some scientists and journalists are to accept the theory in spite of a lack of evidence.

The report describes a site containing the remains of 27 individuals--including a pregnant woman and six children—who were apparently massacred near a lagoon. Ten of the skeletons show clear-cut signs of violence, including crushed skulls and broken limbs and embedded obsidian spear points.

More:
http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/cross-check/10-000-year-old-massacre-does-not-bolster-claim-that-war-is-innate/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+sciam%2Fevolution+%28Topic%3A+Evolution%29

[jomin41]

2. You have to respect the science but

I sure feel like a "dazed survivor" after all the war during my lifetime.