Spears: Creators of Warfare? Spears Spawned Ancient Group Violence?

Discovery News ^ | August 25, 2005 | Jennifer Viegas

[SunkenCiv]

According to Raymond Kelly, who formulated the theory, there at least was a period without a lot of group violence from 1 million to 14,000 years ago, when the overall population was lower and groups were less rigidly structured... Spears empowered defenders because people who initiated violence were more likely to be killed than those they attacked. Kelly suggested it was better to be hiding in a bush or a foxhole with a spear than was to be running toward the foxhole or bush with a spear.

[SunkenCiv]

Another "taxpayer-supported unsubstantiated B.S." topic.

---

FR Lexicon·Posting Guidelines·Excerpt, or Link only?·Ultimate Sidebar Management·Headlines
Donate Here By Secure Server·Eating our own -- Time to make a new start in Free Republic
PDF to HTML translation·Translation page·Wayback Machine·My Links·FreeMail Me
Gods, Graves, Glyphs topic·and group·Books, Magazines, Movies, Music

---

[SunkenCiv]

"Not bloody likely!" -- Jerry Seinfeld

To all -- please ping me to other topics which are appropriate for the GGG list. Thanks.

Please FREEPMAIL me if you want on or off the
"Gods, Graves, Glyphs" PING list or GGG weekly digest
-- Archaeology/Anthropology/Ancient Cultures/Artifacts/Antiquities, etc.
Gods, Graves, Glyphs (alpha order)

[ClearCase_guy]

Imagine there's no spear
It's easy if you try
No pointy sharp thing
No long and wooden pole

[RightWhale]

Kelly ought to reread Xenophon's Persian Expedition. Lots of spears. Defenders with spears don't have much chance against Greeks with a plan.

[mikrofon]

I don't know about ancient group violence, but she
currently generates a lot of disgust in general...

[visualops]

LOL! exactly

[visualops]

I have a joke I play on people at times. Someone will posit a question or muse about something and I advance what I call my "plausible theory" (which is a bunch of baloney). It's pretty easy to mess with people who want to believe something in particular.

[shuckmaster]

1,000,000 years ago, spears we most likely used as defense against predators by pre-human scavengers who followed herds. 150,000 years ago, spears were used by modern beachcomber humans to fish. 50,000 years ago, inland humans were hunting mammoths and other large animals. Organized civilization is a rather late (10,000 years ago), development that was related to cultivation and domestication. In that context, spears would have been first used as defense and much later as attack by organized armies.

I believe this article is mostly right to the degree that in sparsely populated times, there probably wasn't much inter-tribal warfare until cultivation led to civilization and subsequent population growth. After that time the haves and have-nots had a problem.

[SunkenCiv]

Yeah, the scenario by this "researcher" sounds like the product of an agenda, so the "study" appears to be another where the conclusion fits the underlying assumptions.

[SunkenCiv]

---

War Before Civilization by Lawrence H. Keeley

---

[NormB]

What if they attck us with pointed sticks?

[Tallguy]

In that context, spears would have been first used as defense and much later as attack by organized armies.

A single spearman isn't very useful. A mutually-supporting group of spear-carrying men is far more useful in defense or attack.

[SunkenCiv]

Ask the deceased Mister Apricot.

[SunkenCiv]

You and Ray Kelly. ;')

[lOKKI]

Before any of this comes the development of the pack concept - e.g. the understanding of the safety in numbers when fighting, and the value of hunting as as group.

Until that point, there were no groups to fight each other. It was strictly mano-a-mano (or, for the evolutionists here chimpo-a-chimpo).

Before the group concept took hold the size of a group that could live together was limited. A group working together can hunt/grow much more food.

I'd guess that spears were the third or fourth step in the weapons race.

The rock or stick come first, developing into the club.

Next comes the pointy stick, developing into the knife.

Then comes the LONG pointy stick, developing into the long pointy stick with a knife on it.

[RightWhale]

One of the friendly tribes encountered by Xenophon on the return trip used spears with small iron points on one end and a knob on the other end. They also had iron battleaxes hanging on their belts. Not much armor. They fought with more enthusiasm than skill, so the Greeks let them go in first to give the enemy a false sense of security.

[T. Buzzard Trueblood]

Brilliant.

[SunkenCiv]

"Organized civilization is a rather late (10,000 years ago), development that was related to cultivation and domestication." -- shuckmaster

The 14,000 year figure probably (wild guess) came from the multirow barley sample of that RC date, which was dug up in the Middle East somewhere. Multirow barley means irrigation and domestication.

My view is, cultural development isn't either linear or uniform. Some develop stuff in nice, logical, Victorian-model stages, others don't, and still others find "illogical" leaps to be better.

[Vicomte13]

Considering that chimpanzee males roam around in packs, are territorial, and sometimes beat to death and tear to pieces, with fists, nails and teeth, other chimps they encounter on the way (and sometimes they don't), I'd say it's not a safe bet to try and find human agression emerging because of some technology.

I suppose that if you taught one band of chimps down there in Africa to pick up big sticks and beat their opponents when running around out there in packs, they would do so, and their young might learn from them too. This would be considerably worse than teaching kids to smoke.

[Tallguy]

Until that point, there were no groups to fight each other. It was strictly mano-a-mano (or, for the evolutionists here chimpo-a-chimpo).

Ever see how chimps will cooperate to isolate & kill a monkey? Cooperative hunting techniques pre-dated human beings (or is not exclusive to human beings depending on your stance on evolution).

BTW, I agree with all you other points.