Research finds dramatic increase in cranial traumas as the first cities were being built, suggesting a rise in violence

Phys dot org ^ | October 10, 2023 | University of Tübingen

[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.

[Texan5]

Still not enough unsafe tools/ladders, baskets to account for more than a fraction of head injuries like that-experienced workers have always learned to work safe and smart to avoid injury or death. Those injuries are not the only evidence of of the high level of violence in ancient cities in any case-from all I’ve read, heard-and the little bit seen when working on those 5 digs, overcrowded cities have been dangerous places from the getgo-apparently a bad neighborhood was a bad neighborhood in any age...