Within the last two decades, knowledge of prehistoric warfare has advanced dramatically as a result of renewed anthropological interest in war. Renewed interest has been complemented by development of new methods for identifying and characterizing the practice and prevalence of social violence. A growing body of evidence demonstrates the existence of violence in a variety of environmental and social contexts. The research has had two overall effects for theory building. One, research has focused attention on the general patterns of warfare discernible in various regions and times of prehistory. These comparative analyses have contributed to theoretical considerations about the common conditions that can lead to warfare. The second major effect has been to demonstrate just how culturally varied the manifestations of warfare can be over time and space. The richness of comparative studies has shown that some aspects of war, such as effective principles of fortification design and of battle tactics related to surprise and superior position, are fairly universal across cultures. However, in other aspects of warfare, such as ideas about warrior identities or the rituals that precede and succeed battle, there is considerable diversity across cultures.
Archaeological examination of violence in prehistoric settings is not without its inherent challenges. Some instances of violence and conflict may be archaeologically ‘invisible’ and leave very little to no material remains for recovery. In other cases, the scale, type, and nature of violence may not be altogether clear. Smaller-scale societies engaging in warfare might leave different material signatures than larger-scale counterparts. Varied cultural beliefs, perspectives, and practices around violence, combined with differences in material resources, can result in very divergent forms of weapons and tactics for warfare (see Weapons and Warfare). Given the diversity in forms of social violence and warfare, archaeological visibility and documentation will vary from case to case.
Research pertaining to prehistoric Mesoamerican warfare, for instance, has shown how military practices, weapons, and tactics in the same regional area changed through time. During the early formative setting, the earliest Mesoamericans were hunter-gatherers organized in relatively small extended families and warfare was likely sporadic and limited to raiding. As more stable agricultural resources allowed larger groups to settle permanently in single locations; the first settled communities appeared between 2500 and 1400 BC. This emergence of sedentary lifeways led to economic and social differentiation, increased the importance of territorial control, and encouraged the rise of formal leaders. Occasional raids gave way to more serious conflicts, and settlement defense became increasingly important. With the creation of fixed assets, people could no longer simply flee from conflict situations. The nature, intensity, and frequency of warfare changed from sporadic raiding to increasingly expansionistic conquest warfare.
Several independent lines of evidence are thus necessary because warfare is an activity that involves the behavior of many individuals, and it affects several aspects of social life. As a result, debates hinging on a single question of interpretation, such as the functions of a tool-weapon or wall, are best served through exploration of a variety of evidentiary sources. Archaeologists must marshal an array of techniques and lines of evidence to circumstantially reconstruct past events, and the strength of claims rests upon the amount of circumstantial evidence that is available.
There are two general categories of evidence, direct and indirect, indicating the possible presence of social violence generally, and warfare specifically. The most direct and unequivocal evidence consists of human skeletons with weapons trauma and fortifications. Other forms of direct evidence include arson or deliberate burning of structural features, icono-graphic depictions of organized violence, and surviving weapons or artifacts for killing. Indirect evidence includes the deliberate selection of defensible sites for habitation and buffer zones, as well as sudden disruptions of cultural patterns. While recovery of evidence from any one of these general categories of material data alone does not substantiate claims for warfare, the strength of an argument depends on the amount of data that is available.
Skeletal Remains
There are several challenges to the archaeological visibility of social violence with human remains. First, some unhealed (i. e., fatal) injuries are difficult to distinguish from secondary, post-mortem damage. Second, any sustained injuries to soft body tissue are beyond archaeological recognition. In addition, cremation was a prevalent burial practice for many societies throughout human history, thus leaving little to be recovered. Finally, archaeological sources may not be able to provide evidence of the large number of people lost in warfare battles, and of the other war casualties that could not be buried.
Despite these challenges, osteological data represents a strong form of direct evidence for the presence of violent behavior, whether on an interpersonal scale or a collective scale. Telltale signs involving human remains include embedded projectile points, fractured skulls, scalp or cut marks, cannibalism, parry fractures, and dismemberment or other signs of trophy taking. Additionally, mass graves, exposure burials, and unceremonious burials without grave goods can all be potential indicators, as well as a higher frequency of adult male deaths within a cemetery. Finally, the mutilation of bodies is also a potential indicator of inter-societal violence, since few societies would mutilate their own dead. The act of decapitation and trophy-head taking can thus indicate the possible presence of warfare.
Archaeological evidence from prehistoric and early historic eastern North American sites provides numerous examples of skeletal trauma. Victims of violence consist of skeletons with points embedded in bones, distinctive purposeful trauma such as cranial vault fractures from celts, or signs of mutilation including scalping. Wounds sustained on the sides or backs of victims indicate people were killed in ambushes or attacked when fleeing.
Archaeological evidence for warfare is also exhibited in treatment of bodies after death. One telling characteristic for organized violence is a tendency for victims to have suffered from ‘overkill’, as mutilated skeletons provide compelling evidence of conflict between two politically distinct societies. Several prehistoric cases, such as Gebel Sahaba and burials in the Ukraine, demonstrate how many individuals were attacked repeatedly and continuously while lying on the ground. Such examples of bodily mutilation have been attested to ethnographically, for example where Native Americans have attacked defeated American cavalrymen in similar fashion. In addition to overkill, another form of mutilation involves the taking of war trophies - heads, hands, or other body parts. In some instances, the mutilation is also accompanied by acts of cannibalism. For many societies, a warrior’s prestige or spiritual power could be augmented by the reputation of his defeated foe, and often the head served as a personal manifestation of that foe. Cases from the ethnographic record also attest to this phenomenon, as illustrated by Spanish accounts describing the taking of trophy heads by 16th century war chiefs in the Cauca Valley of Colombia.
Mass graves can also indicate some form of mass killing or possible genocide. The mass grave at Talheim in Neolithic Germany dating to about 5000 BC also shows strong evidence for a mass killing. The communal grave contained the remains of 18 adults and 16 children, all piled on top of one another unceremoniously, with all showing clear signs of violent traumatic death by repeated ax blows to their heads. Evidence of war trophy taking is seen at the Late Mesolithic site of Ofnet Cave (7500 BC) in Germany. Here researchers uncovered two pits containing the remains of 33 individuals. The two caches contained 33 skulls arranged ‘like eggs in a basket’. With the exception of four adult males, all were females (nine) and children (20). Studies indicate the adult males were struck across the back of the head with an axe. Cut marks were visible on skulls and vertebrae, indicating decapitation. At Crow Creek in South Dakota the remains of over 500 men, women, and children dating to AD 1325 were found heaped in the fortification ditch of a large village. Over 90% of these individuals bore scalping marks on their skulls and many showed traumas from axes and ball-headed clubs.
Defensive Structures and Features
Both state and nonstate societies have built defensive features and fortifications, and these structures clearly indicate the presence of conflict. While many ancient fortifications tend to remain visible on the landscape or can be detected in aerial photographs, assessment of dates and construction details requires excavation. Within the range of defensive features are a number of structural types, including palisades, towers, bastions, moats, ditches, ramparts, walls, earthworks, and other structures that require investment of labor and resources for construction and maintenance. In addition to fortifications, another potential indicator for warfare is the use of refuges. In general, fortifications and refuges represent a very strong concern for defense, representing a materialized expression of fears from attack. They are the costliest and largest-scale pieces of pre-industrial technology, and thus demonstrate that threats of attacks were strong enough to warrant such costly constructions.
Defensive features surround a settlement or other desirable locations, inhibiting entry and shielding defenders from the weapons of attackers. Fortifications might also have projecting bastions at intervals that eliminate safe ‘dead zones’ by allowing defenders to direct flanking fire at attackers reaching the wall. Gates, which are the most vulnerable parts of fortifications, often exhibit special features that make them more dangerous to attackers. The most common forms of such entry defenses are ‘baffle gates’. The simplest form involves having the curtain wall overlap at entry points in such a manner that attackers can only enter the interior by passing single-file down a narrow corridor. Often the baffles require attackers to expose their unshielded (i. e., right) side to defenders on the walls.
The diversity in fortification types reflects culturally specific ways of practicing warfare. The level of technology required for adequate defensibility is completely dependent upon the level of offensive capabilities. In other cases, societies practicing offensive warfare may not build fortifications. Also, since most fortifications are permanent and stationary fixtures that only protect a small point in the landscape, their use would have been restricted mostly to sedentary or semi-sedentary societies. Therefore, the absence of fortifications does not necessarily indicate the absence of warfare, as generally nomadic societies would not invest the time and energy into such constructions. Finally, some of the earliest fortifications, such as wooden barriers or shields, probably left no material traces.
Some researchers question the defensive or military function of certain architectural structures because features do not conform to obvious principles of defense. Doubts around military function arise because some sites bear no trace of occupation or are too far removed from a settlement to have guarded houses or crops. However, as demonstrated by certain archaeological and ethnographic cases, such as refuge caves in Hawaii and the pa of the New Zealand Maori, refuges have been used by many different kinds of societies, even if these refuges were located far from settlements and were not occupied continuously. In addition, the existence of refuges instead of fortified settlements can provide some indication about the frequency or expectation of warfare within a region.
In other cases, researchers dismiss possible defensive functions of structures because the buildings in question served some ritual or symbolic function. For example, researchers working on Moche and Inca structures in Andean prehistory have stressed the religious, ritual and nonmilitary functions of buildings. However, other research indicates that various structures with seemingly religious or ritualistic functions probably had defensive value. Fortified sites might acquire additional economic, social, or ritual functions through being a place of safety or gathering. Cultural, ceremonial, and ritual functions are not mutually exclusive with defensive ones, and functions can and do change over time.
Arson and Destruction
While the presence of fortifications can indicate a concern over warfare, deliberate destruction of property and structures provides strong contextual evidence for the occurrence of warfare. The burning of structures is a common consequence of war, and the archaeological evidence of burned structures and settlements can therefore help document actual attacks. Researchers must be careful, however, to separate instances of deliberate burning due to violence from accidental fires and intentional fires for clearing, ritual, or ceremony.
In research on prehistoric warfare in the El Morro Valley of New Mexico, there is considerable evidence of large-scale burning of property dating from the thirteenth century AD. Archaeological data indicate that the Scribe S site was attacked and burned, and that stone was removed from most of the room blocks to build nearby Pueblo de los Muertos. Evidence of burning at the site comes from rooms that had in situ deposits, including bowls, ladles, storage jars and large quantities of burned corn. There is no evidence from any of the rooms of post-burning occupation, and although not all of the rooms were burned, there are multiple cases of burned rooms from discrete room blocks spaced well apart. All room blocks were stone-robbed, and in situ assemblages in both living quarters and storage facilities were present in both burned and unburned rooms. Taken in combination, the data offers a strong signature for warfare. If the burning were accidental then the fire should not have affected separate room blocks simultaneously. Deliberate burning would not have resulted in foodstuffs and other valuables being left in place, and ritual burning would have been confined to select, special rooms.
Iconography
Iconographic depictions in the form of rock art, sculptures, figurines, and pottery decoration can serve as a rudimentary type of historical documentation. Depictions of social violence and warfare-related activities, warriors, and associated paraphernalia offer clues about past lifeways in general, and might even provide glimpses of actual historical events and battles. They can also provide some culturally specific and functional context for the weapons and tactics of different societies. However, a disadvantage of relying on iconographic representations pertains to their scarcity and irregularity of spatiotemporal occurrence. While such art clearly demonstrates that the society is aware of warfare, it does not speak to the frequency or intensity of warfare for that society. For instance, military scenes became less frequent on Classic Greek vases as combat became more prevalent during the Peloponnesian Wars. Another problem with these representations is an uncertainty over whether they represent scenes of real life or fictional and mythological events.
Dating from various points over the past 20 000 years, Palaeolithic rock art has been found in Western European contexts depicting forms of violence. A variety of examples depict scenes in which human or anthropomorphic figures have been struck by projectiles or are possibly being tortured. Although violence is illustrated in these cases, it is difficult to determine whether they represent actual cases of warfare. More definitive examples are contained in a collection of Neolithic rock paintings, known generally as the art of the Levant, which have been discovered in parts of Mediterranean Spain. Dating from approximately 4500 BC, the art consists of battle scenes depicted in greater detail, where separate groups of people are shown fighting using bows and arrows.
An additional benefit of iconographic depictions is that they can sometimes convey some sense of the ideological and social importance carried by warfare and warriors. With chiefdoms and states, warfare was intimately interwoven with the economy and ideology of societies. Moche society in Andean prehistory (c. AD 500), for example, offers depictions of warfare, warrior prestige, and battle paraphernalia in the form of relief murals and ceramic vessels. It is through the rich Moche narrative art style as preserved on fine ceramic vessels that we see rulers wielding weapons that symbolize power and warrior prowess. In another case study, research on the American Southwest indicates how rock art depictions indicate the growing social importance of a warrior class during troubled times in Anasazi contexts in North American prehistory (c. AD 1200). Similarly, scenes depicted on bronze artifacts recovered from Metal Age Southeast Asian prehistoric societies (during the first millennium BC) of the Dian Culture of southern China and the Dongson Culture of northern Vietnam clearly indicate an ideology associated with military power and a warrior class.
Weapons
Depending on context, weapons designed for use against humans can indicate the presence of warfare. The main challenge lies in delineating a military function for various implements, to separate tools from weapons. In many prehistoric contexts weapons were virtually indistinguishable from everyday tools, and in some cases many implements were used for both military and everyday functions. Various researchers have pointed out the long-term process of separation and distinction between everyday tools and specialized weapons. Over time the tools of war began to be distinguished from the general category of tools, leading to the manufacture of objects with a combined use, then others that were predominantly used as weapons, and finally others exclusively for use against people.
Axes and adzes are common archaeological artifacts in many regions and time periods over the past 10 000 years. In most cases, they are interpreted as woodworking tools only. However, some examples of axes and adzes had clearly acquired more violent functions. The stone axes and adzes of the early Neolithic people of northwestern Europe and those of the Late Prehistoric Midwestern US were certainly used to kill people as the skeletal remains at Talheim and Crow Creek attest.
The archaeological record clearly shows the emergence of specialized weapons of warfare as the product of a long evolution in tool technologies. Examples of specialized weapons for warfare include close-range shock weapons such as tomahawks, maces, lances, daggers, and swords, as well as long-range projectiles. Projectile points used primarily for war often have stems and barbs making them difficult to extract, or that increase the likelihood they will cause an infection. Many war points had easily slipped shafts allowing the head to remain embedded when the arrow or spear shaft is removed. In contrast, hunting points were tightly hafted.
Some ancient implements of copper, bronze, and iron, such as swords, halberds, daggers, and broad axes, had no other possible or plausible direct use except as weapons of war. Some researchers interpret these artifacts as only symbols of wealth and status, given the geographic rarity of metal ores and the labor-intensive costs of their reduction to implements. However, the symbolic values for these items only arise from their actual or possible use in fearsome activities of warfare and social violence. It was through their practical application that these implements usually acquired additional symbolic and ritual significance.
In regards to visibility of weapons, various factors can lead to a reduction in the number and quality of weapons found archaeologically. Firstly, many societies made weapons out of perishable, organic materials. Some wooden javelins or spears, maces, clubs, and other items have been recovered within Palaeolithic contexts, indicating the possibility that many more existed. Furthermore, written sources from antiquity and ethnographic accounts demonstrate their use into more recent times. For example, historical documentation indicates that parts of the Persian army under Xerxes that invaded Greece in 480 BC wore armor made of organic materials and used wooden weapons for assault. Without historical documentation, our knowledge of the use of such tools or implements of warfare would have been sorely lacking. Secondly, some morphologically atypical weapons elude archaeological interpretation, as these are only exceptionally retrieved in specific, functional contexts, such as hand-thrown stones or pebbles used as slingshots. Another group of weapons difficult to grasp archaeologically is represented by all-purpose tools (such as knives and axes), animals (such as war dogs), and poisons or objects. Finally, highly specialized weapons, those with social significance, were rarely left in their original archaeological contexts in settlements or on the battlefield.
Along these lines, warrior or elite burials can provide better clues as to both the existence of war weaponry and the social significance of warfare. Evidence from the prehistoric Longshan period in China, during the third millennium BC, demonstrates how elite burials had symbolic weapons and paraphernalia, including prestigious and labor-intensive jade. The presence of these weapons not only documents the possible presence of warfare, but also hints at an emerging ideology linking warfare, relatively high status for males, and ritual. The trend becomes intensified during the early Bronze Age, when the earliest identifiable state emerges in the central Yellow River valley. In this manner, both iconography and specialized weapons can inform discussions around warrior ideologies and the social significance of military activities within societies.
Warfare and its effects on the social fabric of communities can be significantly impacted by the introduction of new and superior weapons technologies. Gunpowder and nuclear weapons clearly illustrate this in a more modern context, and similar patterns are discernible in the distant past. In general, the emergence of a new military technology can exacerbate warfare, where military advantages conferred by new weapons can lead to exploitation by possessors. Research on the introduction of the more powerful sinew-backed bow in the American Southwest indicates how such a new technology can play a role in the onset of violent conflict.
In situations where neighboring, autonomous societies such as chiefdoms did not have clear military advantages, larger political consolidation may have been less likely. The introduction of a considerably superior weapons technology, however, can dramatically impact the social evolution of those societies. For example, the introduction of the sword, lance, and chariot as part of aristocratic warfare throughout Europe from the early second millennium BC and onwards coincides with the rise of a new type of chief-dom structure based upon the institution of warrior aristocracies and retinues. Elsewhere, the potential social impact that a new weapon can have is almost certainly what prompted General Hideyoshi of sixteenth century Japan to collect and confiscate all of the muskets within his domain, merely a few decades after the introduction of firearms by the Portuguese.
Defensible Site Locations and Buffer Zones
The potential presence of warfare can be reflected in how communities choose strategic or defensible sites for settlement. Examples of such locations include canyon rims, prominences, cliff overhangs, and hilltops. Settlement patterns changed dramatically throughout the Pueblo III period (AD 1150-1300) of the Mesa Verde region of North America, when there was an increase in the occupation of defensible locations. This apparent change coincided with harsher ecological conditions that may have exacerbated competition and warfare. Priority clearly shifted from settlement concentrations on productive soils to locations with optimal defensibility.
Another potential indicator for conflict comes in the form of buffer zones or ‘no-man’s-lands’. Active hostilities along a border between two politically autonomous societies can lead to development of a no-man’s-land, as settlements nearest a potential enemy move or disperse to escape the effects of persistent raiding or attack. Such buffer zones have been reported in various contexts from Africa, North America, South America, and Oceania where inhabitants flee war-torn and heavily raided frontiers. This refugee effect is plainly evident in more historic and modern contexts, as attested to by the millions of refugees displaced by warfare in the modern world. Moving frontiers between different cultures may have been especially war-torn. For instance, most fortified Linear Pottery settlements of northwestern Europe (c. 5500-4500 BC) were concentrated on the frontiers of the colonist farmers’ settlement zone.
World History
