The origins of war

[William F. Owen]

How are you defining "war"? Did war start with a single group or in multiple places? What specific indicators in the archaeological and/or oral historic record are you using as indicators of warfare?

Well IF ...and I submit it is.... war is the setting forth of policy with an admixture of other means, then it would seem likely that war begins when humans first organise as groups. "This is my Cave" and/or "Only we, the Tribe of the Black Hamster, may hunt here."

Nothing much has changed.

[marct]

Hi Wilf,

Well IF ...and I submit it is.... war is the setting forth of policy with an admixture of other means, then it would seem likely that war begins when humans first organise as groups. "This is my Cave" and/or "Only we, the Tribe of the Black Hamster, may hunt here."

Well, if we take that as the definition, we only move the problem of definition back a step: What defines "policy"? It further assumes a split between actions we might call "warfare" and actions that we might call "policy". If we take the operational definition of "This is MY cave", then we are de facto defining policy as whim (okay, that might be apropos in some cases....).

From what I have looked at in pre-historic warfare, it doesn't appear as if we have societies that are segmented to the point of "professional" warriors. We have some social types (e.g. pastoralists) where pretty much everyone uses tools that may also be used as weapons (e.g. slings, bows, spears) and others where the tools are agricultural (actually, horticultural, but let's not be too technical ), say the Egyptian Kopesh sword (from a sicle).

We don't really see social segmentation into warrior castes or professions until moderately later on (e.g. the Epic of Gilgamesh, Egyptian middle kingdom [maybe; could be earlier]), the invasions of the 19th century bce by the M'aryanni, etc. At the same time, most of the "political" decision makers were also priesthoods of one form or another (including the so-called God Kings), at least pre-2500 bce or so.

[IntelTrooper]

We have some social types (e.g. pastoralists) where pretty much everyone uses tools that may also be used as weapons (e.g. slings, bows, spears) and others where the tools are agricultural (actually, horticultural, but let's not be too technical ), say the Egyptian Kopesh sword (from a sicle).

Reminds me of something about plowshares and swords...

Beat your plowshares into swords, and your pruning hooks into spears: let the weak say "I am strong."

[marct]

Reminds me of something about plowshares and swords...

Evil little beasties.....

[IntelTrooper]

Evil little beasties.....

Something about those makes my skin crawl...

[marct]

Something about those makes my skin crawl...

Yeah, they're interesting to play with and try to figure out how they were used. Nasty beasts aimed at arms and legs ....

[IntelTrooper]

Yeah, they're interesting to play with and try to figure out how they were used. Nasty beasts aimed at arms and legs ....

Since we're on the topic, I would be remiss if I missed this opportunity to put in a plug for an acquaintance's book:

Warfare in the Ancient Near East to 1600 BC by William J. Hamblin

I haven't read it yet and the current review is pretty lame, so take it for what it's worth.

[Greyhawk]

Something about those makes my skin crawl...

Sickle-like object on red background?

"a woman that complicated things" - procreation, survival of the species the foundation upon which the struggle for resources is based - though some cultures see "woman" as "resource".

"War began from observations" - concur with the statements that follow as post-organizing (or grouping) rationales for behavior. I maintain that unless "the other" was perceived as a threat to survival-level resource acquisition "war" (or "conflict resulting in death") would not result. ("Survival-level resource" changes with time.)

I recognize that pig-stealing McCoys might disagree.

[Greyhawk]

"What can we learn from an unfrozen caveman warrior?"

There's a Saturday Night Live reference in that, but I think it would work.

[jenniferro10]

"a woman that complicated things" - procreation, survival of the species the foundation upon which the struggle for resources is based - though some cultures see "woman" as "resource".

"War began from observations" - concur with the statements that follow as post-organizing (or grouping) rationales for behavior. I maintain that unless "the other" was perceived as a threat to survival-level resource acquisition "war" (or "conflict resulting in death") would not result. ("Survival-level resource" changes with time.)

"a woman that complicated things" - procreation, survival of the species the foundation upon which the struggle for resources is based - though some cultures see "woman" as "resource".

It's easy to consider the beginning of warfare this way. Without a whole lot of support, we've been teaching it like fact for a long time. We all know men are violent and women helpless in these situations, right? There are a lot of things about this idea that work for a lot of very sound reasons.

But...I also urge us to consider the sum of the following factors:
- the simplest explanation is most likely to be correct
- in a crisis, warfare may require more resources and people than a stressed society would have
- our early groups weren't all that big to begin with, and women probably outnumbered men pretty significantly (anyone with numbers support on this? I forgot Anthro101)

Then consider Diamond's theory (my rough paraphrase, so forgive me) as to how isolated societies are absorbed into one another or survive as subgroups:
A starving woman looks over hill and sees another group, and how much fatter they are. A few days later, she's at the fire, thinking about it. She puts down her mixing stick, and says something about going out to get some more berries. She washes her hair in the nearest creek (making herself a "resource"?), goes to pay the guys in fatter tribe a visit, and stays.

I'd never make it through a feminist theory course with this mess, but I'm pretty sure I'm safe in the current company.

So we're back to resources, one way or the other, but I am more likely to consider factors like water, grazing, and arable land as the sort of resources over which groups would go to war. Use of resources for the purposes of the continuation of your group, as Greyhawk suggests, is secondary or tertiary, I think. A better guess: the use of resources for survival now...right now...of myself and people immediately connected to me. I imagine what looks like a gangfight over a rotten carcass, between two starving family groups.

What if the conflict happens between groups of women who discover another group in their blackberry patch- their last reliable food source? Do they go get the men? This just occured to me, thought I throw it out there...

The visceral, id-level reason a soldier gives for fighting (anybody heard "for me and the guy next to me" before?) is probably a better indication of the origin of war as anything else. So we are really probably dealing with a direct, immediately preceeding, insult to survival of a small extended family group...?

Thread-starter, are we helping or hurting?

[Rex Brynen]

"Only we, the Tribe of the Black Hamster, may hunt here." .

I had no idea you were one of those thieving Black Hamster bastards, Wilf!

See if I have coffee with YOU again...

[William F. Owen]

I had no idea you were one of those thieving Black Hamster bastards, Wilf!

See if I have coffee with YOU again...

Hey! The Black Hamsters were here first!
And the Great Hamster in the Sky, gave this land to his chosen Hamster followers...

No coffee? How about Schwarma?