Tefft and Reinhardt recently reported that peacemaking mechanisms and periods of stable peace are associated with internal warfare, while peacemaking mechanisms are absent and peace is unstable in societies with external warfare. We suggest an explanation for these findings based on the argument that in pre-state level societies internal and external war are entirely different types of conflict. Internal war (conflict between communities of the same society) is part of a system of population control in pre-state level societies which also involves female infanticide, polygyny, and patrilocal residence. Internal war is thus a regulatory type of warfare requiring several mechanisms to initiate and inhibit it. In contrast, external warfare among pre-state level societies occurs between societies which have recently migrated to their locales and adopted matrilocal residence. External war is thus an intense struggle for survival between two or more societies trying to occupy the same niche in an ecosystem that cannot support all of them. There can be no regulation of this type of warfare–only victory–and hence there can be no peacemaking mechanisms.
Over the past several years, we have seen many attacks on publicly funded and mandated archaeology in the United States. These attacks occur at the state level, where governors and state legislatures try to defund or outright eliminate state archaeological programs and institutions. We have also seen several attacks at the federal level. Some members of Congress showcase archaeology as a waste of public tax dollars, and others propose legislation to move federally funded or permitted projects forward without consideration of impacts on archaeological resources. These attacks continue to occur, and we expect them to increase in the future. In the past, a vigilant network of historic preservation and archaeological organizations was able to thwart such attacks. The public, however, largely remains an untapped ally. As a discipline, we have not built a strong public support network. We have not demonstrated the value of archaeology to the public, beyond a scattering of educational and informational programs. In this article, we—a group of archaeologists whose work has focused on public engagement—provide a number of specific recommendations on how to build a strong public constituency for the preservation of our nation's archaeological heritage.
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