A cranial trauma bears witness of a violent death.Credit: Joachim Wahl/University of Tübingen
Posted on 10/17/2023 3:26:29 PM PDT by SunkenCiv
The development of the earliest cities in Mesopotamia and the Middle East led to a substantial increase in violence between inhabitants. Laws, centralized administration, trade and culture then caused the ratio of violent deaths to fall back again in the Early and Middle Bronze Age... This is the conclusion of an international team of researchers from the Universities of Tübingen, Barcelona and Warsaw. Their results were published in Nature Human Behaviour.
The researchers examined 3,539 skeletons from the region that today covers Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, Israel and Turkey for bone trauma which could only have occurred through violence. This enabled them to draw a nuanced picture of the development of interpersonal violence in the period 12,000 to 400 BCE. The period was characterized by such fundamental changes in human history as the development of agriculture, leaving behind the nomadic lifestyle, and the building of the first cities and states.
..."With the climate crisis, growing inequality and the collapse of important states in the Late Bronze Age and Early Iron Age (1,500–400 BCE), violence increased once more." The proportion of violent deaths, identifiable by cranial trauma and injuries from weapons (e.g. arrow heads in skeletons), is a common benchmark used to assess interpersonal violence.
Until now, research into this has divided into two camps. One, epitomized by American psychologist Steven Pinker, claims a steady reduction in the use of violence over the millennia from the era of hunter-gatherer societies to today. The other regards the development of cities and a central power as the precondition for wars and massive use of violence, which has continued since then. The study produced by Tübingen, Barcelona and Warsaw now gives a more nuanced picture.
(Excerpt) Read more at phys.org ...
A cranial trauma bears witness of a violent death.Credit: Joachim Wahl/University of Tübingen
Declining yields / climate change / Bronze Age collapse / my ass.
Or Construction accidents.....
Maybe they just dropped block in their head…
Even today the most dangerous jobs in the world are construction jobs and that is with OSHA sticking their noses into every little thing.
I was thinking the same thing. An increase in stone laying would do that.
Modern US urban areas are is a good example of what uncontrolled tribalism creates. The only thing curious is that they think their discovery is groundbreaking. Hobb pointed this out in 1651 when he observed that life during a state of nature as solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.
Could be, but still - humans are not ants, FRiend.
The more things change, the more they stay the same.
5.56mm
You build buildings you are going to be cutting down trees. Cutting down trees was very dangerous. So much so that an axe head flying off and killing one of your fellow tree cutters was the example given in the Books of the Law for an accidental homicide.
And that was just the chopping. You add in hewing, transportation, lifting and people are going to get hurt. And that is building with wood. Building with stone and brick was even more hazardous.
In contrast with the HG life style you are felling saplings at most. Less chopping, less chance for injury.
Friggin union workers.
Agreed on the realities of construction, but also, on the realities of living a life way too close, to other human beings, who drive you nuts, FRiend.
Smiles.
May God bless.
Tatt
“Research finds dramatic increase in cranial traumas as the first cities were being built, suggesting a rise in violence”
A. analogous to experiments of rats packed together in crowded living conditions ...
B. building materials laying about make for impulsively handy cudgels ...
Oddly enough in a city you actually might have a small amount of privacy while in a HG tribe you will have almost no privacy.
Everything will be done in groups as wild animals would be a constant threat. Inside cities you can withdraw to the roof or a storage building or the work area. If nothing else you can be with other people then rather then sitting with the ones who are getting on your last nerve.
Sure.
Blame the Masons...
I agree with you-I live in a remote rural area, where there is plenty of space-you don’t have to be around someone you don’t like if you choose not to. the properties are all acreage, except for a couple of gated enclaves where only 50-75 well off people can afford to live-or care to, for that matter-I find them to be mostly whiny, self-absorbed city expats who can’t seem to mind their OFB and always argue with one another.
Oddly enough, the neighbor-vs-neighbor incidents involving the sheriff being called-everything from harassment to violence happens most in those enclaves. In my college psych classes, we read about numerous experiments done with animals like rats-they were put in crowded living situations-like humans in big cities, and the results were not good-violence, mayhem, killing, etc. If it isn’t good for rats to live like that, it certainly isn’t good for humans-insects like bees and ants do okay in collectives-mammals not so much-it is unnatural. I’ll bet that was just as true 12,000 years ago as it is now...
As a workers comp case manager, I’m fairly knowledgeable when it comes to work-related hazards and injuries-it would not account for an increase in serious injury like what is described here-that is more likely to be a result of stress caused by too many humans living in an area with not enough resources or space for that large a group. Many studies have been done on the subject-people do not do well in hives...
With bronze age tools?
These cities would not have been hives and living in a tribe would not have been the free and solitary existence you seem to imagine.
The people in the cities would have had more food, more resources, more safety and space then the people in the HG tribes. There was a reason people moved into cities and it was not because they couldn't move their couch.
Thanks for posting this reality re violence in ancient tribal areas/cities is/was not something new in our history.
https://scx2.b-cdn.net/gfx/news/hires/2023/research-finds-dramati.jpg
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