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 ...
Ancestry.com has released some new DNA data and possible traits of our ancestors.
I have a little African DNA from 2 distinct tribes.
One tribe was very family oriented:
Family life in Benin and Togo is/was centered around the extended family, which includes grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins. The extended family is highly valued and plays an important role in the upbringing of children.
Children are expected to show respect to their elders and to help with household chores.
In both countries, the father is traditionally the head of the household, and the mother is responsible for the day-to-day care of the children. However, in recent years, there has been a shift towards more gender equality, and women are increasingly taking on leadership roles in the family and in society.
In rural areas, families often live in compounds, which are made up of several houses surrounding a central courtyard. This allows for close-knit family relationships and shared resources.
Religion also plays a significant role in family life, with many families practicing traditional African religions or Christianity. Religious ceremonies and festivals are important occasions for families to come together and celebrate.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1PYZOG8GEAx7ACAOlzR379zZMUPOotSA1ATzX4Cl4RNU/edit
The other tribal ancestors were more likely to capture you and sell you.
The first tribal folk were in my maternal DNA, and we loved our family members.
The other tribal DNA on my Dad’s side probably would have captured us/you and sold us/you.
A totally invalid study. There is no control group study cited. For example, Indian tribes of the west had no big cities; yet they were continually raiding each other`s villages and killing each other off, stealing hostages etc., espcially after they had horses. Comanches especially were very efficient at killing off all their Indian neighbors, leaving sometimes no survivors. They took no prisoners. They had the whole Great Plains to themselves after a few years of death by tomahawk etc. skull cracking etc.
These researchers have to go back and take “Methods of Ancient Anthropological Population Research 101’ .. .My cat is smarter than these morons.
Lol, I knew this was coming.
I bet that American Indian remains are pretty difficult to find. Sparse populations and spread out across the mountains and prairies. Plus, I’m not sure if the Indians were around during climate change, which appears to be the primary factor in these head wounds.
Sorry I don’t speak academic: what does “interpersonal violence” mean?
Thanks Grampa Dave.
My pleasure.
Them Indians wus here 25,000 years ago. Younger-Dryas was 12,000 bc. Yup they were here million each other off..
Ok, that made me laugh. Well played.
Killin each other off
Cities have almost always been schitties. They are necessary for protection (well, they were, not so much now), technological progress, and for large scale education, but I have always brought social problems with them. They are most assuredly a mixed blessing, and they’re not going anywhere.
“Killin each other off”
By the millions.
Josephus wrote two works that are now well organized at:
https://www.biblestudytools.com/history/flavius-josephus/
- “The Antiquities of the Jews”
- “War of the Jews”
In those works, are many details re the waxing and waning of tragedies and violence in ancient times.
A reader might save a lot of time, by beginning at:
Book 5 of the “War of the Jews:”
https://www.biblestudytools.com/history/flavius-josephus/war-of-the-jews/book-5/
There is no reason to take a condescending tone with me, sir-my reply to you was not intended to be anything but a remark in a respectful discussion-however, what you seem to think I “imagine” has been greatly influenced not only by reading those studies I referred to, but by the husband of one of my cousins who was an archaeologist-a Paleo-Indian expert.
He died of MS 30 years ago. Excavating/studying ruins gave him a major interest in the decline and fall of early cities in the Americas and the disappearance of people from those cities in ancient times and he studied them until the last weeks of his life.
He brought my 1st hubby and I on 5 digs that he was conducting on what remains of some of those cities in several parts of Mexico and the Southwestern US. We worked right along with his team, sifting dirt and carefully preserving every little bit of everything-of course, only the archaeologists were allowed to move or otherwise handle any human remains-and always with proper respect-but we could hold a bit of pottery beautifully decorated with painted designs, or a perfectly shaped/knapped arrowhead less than 2 inches long-you just couldn’t keep any of that stuff...
If you think those cities were not “hives”-please visit some of the ruins in Mexico and the Southwestern US that are open to the public-they even look like hives, with their multi-family dwellings that had several stories packed together, the ruins of wall-to-wall shops that look like a modern strip center, etc-you couldn’t cram people in together like that and keep everyone fed and in harmony-you still can’t...
It was an experience I would not have missed for anything. My cousin’s husband believed crowding caused chaos, just like the scientists who did the experiments-he based that belief on what his research had shown, including but not limited to evidence of conflict and violent death in the ruins of those places.
One of the most interesting things archaeologists find when they are able to follow the tracks of those people who got the hell out of Dodge is that those folks went into less inhabited areas and formed smaller settlements among themselves, or with people from other tribes. they didn’t return to a total hunter/gatherer way of life-they did continue to farm, keep animals and have an active trade network, but they did not always expand enough to overwhelm the natural resources, for whatever reason, but the natural climate cycles eventually caused people to move around-no SUVs needed...
“With bronze age tools?” Well-there were probably not any workers comp adjustors/case managers at that time-but a head injury is still a head injury-I seriously doubt that workers back then bashed themselves in the head to cause the kind of injuries shown, so unless almost everyone fell on their head from every ladder or wall-someone else had to do it. I’ve had clients who tried to fake comp injuries-it is not easy to do without getting busted...
Most of my clients have always been injured construction workers-falls from ladders, injuries from tools like hammers, chisels, saws, etc likely haven’t changed much-just that some tools have power now-you would not take a reciprocating saw or a nailgun to your head-an accident is possible, but it would be rare today-and even less likely in an age without power tools...
...
Not well explained by the author.
That is the same camp according to anthropologists. Its not exactly a secret of requiring advanced degrees to understand. We have a society. Society has rules. The rules say I cant hit you in the head with a rock because the rest of you will gang up and hit me in the head with a rock. That doesnt mean that the desire to do violence entirely disappears, its just suppressed. When recognized authority becomes corrupt, weak, or capricious then authority begins to lose control. The first to rise up are young males. Authority must tame them by directing that energy toward "the other". If authority fails to release that pressure then revolution consumes authority in the most violent way available. Violence discharged and satiated, society can reform.
They would not pass inspection now days and had no safety features. In the Books of the Law an axe head flying off was used as the example of accidental homicide for which a person would not be punished legally and later on you find other examples of axe heads flying off and going hither and yonder.
Things dropped and hard hats were not a thing. Ladders were made of scrap wood, ropes were used until they broke and the main way you transported loose rubble was in baskets that were subject to breaking and tipping.
It just was not a safe profession.
Did some of the people with head injuries die from murder? Probably. But to say they all did or even that the majority did is more then a bit over the top.
Flavius Josephus writes extensively about violence - with many examples of why and what leads to violence, particularly way back when and further back in history.
About righteous, or not, causes. About good and bad men; some later becoming the opposite - given time. About people who struggled to maintain peace; and about people who desired power and did not quit until put to the sword, hanged, parted, butchered, etc.
So a skull, cleaved, may be explained by what was written.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.