Warfare and the Evolution of Culture

Jonathan Haas

98-10-088

Warfare is perhaps the ugliest and most repugnant of all human cultural adaptations. It has its roots in the demographic and economic changes of the Neolithic revolution and its blighted branches continue to darken skies across the globe in the contemporary period. The conduct of war has had a profound impact on the trajectory of cultural systems in virtually every corner of the world. Today it has evolved to the point that it stands as the biggest single threat to the survival of humanity on the face of the planet. The importance of warfare in human affairs has made it the focus of intense research in a wide range of disciplines from biology to history, psychology and political science (see Bremer and Cusack 1995; Eibl-Eibesfeldt 1979; Wright 1965). Each discipline adds a different dimension to our understanding of the causes and role of warfare in the past, present and future of the human species. Archaeology makes specific contributions to the study of war in two ways: First, archaeology provides insights into the origins and evolution of war extending thousands of years back into the prehistoric past. Second, archaeology provides a diachronic perspective on the causes and effects of war in many different kinds of societies over very long periods of time. By looking back across long stretches of time, archaeology offers the advantage of being able to examine patterns in the development of warfare in circumstances very different from those found in either the contemporary or historic worlds. If the vision of social science is restricted to historic and contemporary records, then we are led to the almost inevitable conclusion that warfare is ubiquitous and inevitable in the human species. Ethnographically, anthropologists have given accounts of some level of organized warfare in most societies around the world from the simplest to the most complex (Ember and Ember 1992). Warfare is even more prevalent in the written record of history. Indeed warfare often provides the guideposts of history--e.g., the Revolutionary War; War of 1812, Civil War, WWI, WWII, the Vietnam War, the Gulf War, etc.