The origins of war

[tequila]

A very tough book to get through, but a very influential and well-researched: Coercion, Capital, and European States 990-1992.

Tilly argues for the centrality of warmaking in the formation of the European nation-state, and for the nation-state's primacy in warmaking as the reason it became the dominant political organization in the world. Economic, geographic, and political factors set the scene in terms of the relative levels of capital and social structure, but warmaking provides the central drive to state formation.

[marct]

I've been trying to remember a reference (I'm on holiday now without my library...). Ah....

Algaze, Guillermo, The Uruk world system : the dynamics of expansion of early Mesopotamian civilization / Guillermo Algaze. Chicago : University of Chicago Press, c1993.

Algaze, along with several others whose names I'm blanking on, argues that there was a major war spanning from southern Iraq into eastern Turkey about 3500 bce or so. On earlier conflicts, there is quite a bit in the archaeological record of Europe: check out references to the Bell Beaker People.

Kadesh, as a battle, is fairly late (Egyptian New Kingdom), but if you are looking for the origins of war, you need to step back and ask yourself about origin points. 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?

[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.

[Backwards Observer]

Just started Azar Gat's, War In Human Civilization. Justin Kelly mentions it in his recent Quandrant article. Gat's scholarly tome is a bit of a challenge thus far, but seems quite thorough.

Azar Gat: War In Human Civilization (Amazon)

This short article by Richard Wrangham may be of interest, but could be seen as unnecessarily provocative:

Wrangham article

[goesh]

I was thinking there was a woman that complicated things, after the pig, in the Hatfield v McCoy dustup - a man can't go wrong with a hillbilly woman but they won't abide any messing around and likely will get quite violent, even kill, if that happens. I think women can be factored in somewhat when it comes to war especially in pre-historic times - a big tribe experiences a shortage of women and the men start getting to violent in the competition for a mate and the only thing can be done is go raiding for some brides.

[Ken White]

I was thinking there was a woman that complicated things, after the pig, in the Hatfield v McCoy dustup - a man can't go wrong with a hillbilly woman but they won't abide any messing around and likely will get quite violent, even kill, if that happens...

Yep, the feud would have likely died after the Pig got settled in Court had it not been for Roseanna McCoy taking up with one a them Hatfields. Went downhill from there.

Still true around the world. Part of the Islamic fundamentalist effort today is fueled to an extent by the defining the desired role and attire of women...

[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...

[Larry Dunbar]

I recall a video of a hyaena pack and a lion pack. There was a dead zebra or gnu on the ground, and the hyaenas were feasting on it.

The lions approached and both packs began to threaten each other with gesture and voices.
The lead female of the lion pack finally attacked and killed a hyaena, and the hyaenas withdrew.


We're a bit more sophisticated, of course.
Not much different, though.

Fuchs is correct. War began from observations.

1. One tribe observed what the other tribe was doing, and observed a weakness within the other tribe. From that point war is one of interest.

2. One tribe observed what the other tribe was doing and grew fearful. The future was not apparent and the weaker tribe attacked the stronger tribe.

3. One tribe observed what the other tribe was doing and revolted out of honor.

Of course these are the three domains (interest, fear, and honor) that war is most-likely to happen in.

One tribe observes the other through brother's or sister's eyes. That includes, uncles, cousins, brother-inlaw, sister-inlaw, ect....

I kind of talk about it here. Of course it is just a thought.

[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.

[jenniferro10]

I would also add a totally different (less arcane?) thread: *Collapse* by Diamond. I know it's about societal collapse, but I think the idea of war over natural resources (water access, etc.) deserves attention directly- as a topic on its own- and not a subtopic under "gettin stuff from other tribes". I know there must be many, many other books on this, that people smarter than me will add below.

[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...

[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.

[marct]

I would also add a totally different (less arcane?) thread: *Collapse* by Diamond.

I always preffered Tainter's original The Collapse of Complex Societies. As an anthropologist / archaeologist, Diamond is an excellent biologist....

[Ken White]

I thought he was a GEE-ologisit. No wonder he confused me...

[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?