War Before Civilization—15 Years On

Physically strong men are more militant: A test across four countries

“…While different definitions of "war" will return different answers, coalitional aggression in the form of feuding or raiding has been found in almost all known cultures (Pinker 2011, Wrangham & Glowacki 2012, and among humans' earliest civilizations for which we have data (Gat 2015;Keeley 1996Keeley , 1997LeBlanc & Register 2003;Otterbein 2004;van der Dennen 1995). Furthermore, coalitional aggression appears more common in populations whose lifestyles resemble our ancestors', e.g.…”

“…Such evidence comes from multiple sources, including: evidence of coalitional killing among chimpanzees (Wrangham & Glowacki 2012), ethnographic surveys of modern societies showing that war is prevalent in virtually all known cultures (Otterbein & Otterbein 1965;Otterbein 1968Otterbein , 2004, archeological evidence of slaughter and weapon hording (Keeley 1996(Keeley , 1997, and psychological evidence of coalitional thinking (Tooby & Cosmides 2010;Van Vugt, De Cremer & Janssen 2007).…”

The origins and significance of coastal resource use in Africa and Western Eurasia

“…Men do most of the fighting, 1003 and they fight over resources, land, women, and honor, and they do so as individuals but also as 1004 groups (Keeley, 1996;Gat, 1999;Kelly, 2000;Gat, 2000a;Gat, 2000b;Otterbein, 2004). There 1005 have been two trajectories to the literature on hunter-gatherer inter-group conflict and these have 1006 never been well integrated.…”

“…There 1005 have been two trajectories to the literature on hunter-gatherer inter-group conflict and these have 1006 never been well integrated. There is a warfare, or primitive warfare, anthropological literature1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 (Keeley, 1996;Gat, 1999;Kelly, 2000;Gat, 2000aGat, , 2000bOtterbein, 2004) and a territoriality 1008 anthropological literature (Speck and Eiseley, 1939;Heinz, 1972;Petersen, 1975;Dyson-Hudson 1009 andSmith, 1978;Petersen, 1979;Cashdan, 1983). The former has focused on organized fighting 1010 between groups of people and the origins of war by examining hunter-gatherer and mid-level 1011…”

The Conditions Favoring Between-Community Raiding in Chimpanzees, Bonobos, and Human Foragers

“…Finally, although there is much confusion over war among pre-Neolithic human foragers (Diamond 2012), and although warfare may have been less frequent among them (Fry 2007), foragers do engage in warfare of some sort (Gat 2006;Keeley 1996;LeBlanc 2003). Forager warfare is generally in the form of raids that are limited in size and involve low risks to the attackers because they involve surprise, are brief, and are not aimed at occupation (Gat 2006;Wrangham and Glowacki 2012).…”