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Article
Publication date: 7 October 2014

Douglas P. Fry and Patrik Söderberg

The purpose of this paper is to critique several studies that claim to show that nomadic foragers engage in high levels of inter-group aggression. This is done through exploring…

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to critique several studies that claim to show that nomadic foragers engage in high levels of inter-group aggression. This is done through exploring four myths: nomadic foragers are warlike; there was a high rate of war mortality in the Pleistocene; the nomadic forager data support the “chimpanzee model” of lethal raiding psychology; and contact and state influence inevitably decrease aggression in nomadic forager societies.

Design/methodology/approach

Using exact criteria, a sample of 21 nomadic forager societies is derived from the Standard Cross-Cultural Sample. This sampling method minimizes the chance of sampling bias, a shortcoming that has plagued previous studies. Only the highest quality ethnographic data, those classified as Primary Authority Sources, are used, which results in data on 148 cases of lethal aggression. The specifics of the lethal aggression cases are then discussed vis-à-vis the four myths to demonstrate the disjuncture between the data and the myths.

Findings

All four myths are found to be out of step with actual data on nomadic forager war and peace. Overall, the default interaction pattern of nomadic foragers is to get along with neighbors rather than make war against them. The findings contradict both assertions that there was a high level of war mortality among nomadic foragers of the Pleistocene and the chimpanzee model's proposal that human males have a tendency or predisposition to form coalitions and make lethal attacks on members of neighboring groups.

Research limitations/implications

Consideration of nomadic forager war and peace should be contextualized in terms of social organization, contact history (including ethnocide, displacement, and other factors), and the current situation faced by extant forager populations. As in other contexts, the introduction of alcohol at contact or subsequently has increased nomadic forager aggression.

Practical implications

Propositions as to the aggressiveness of nomadic foragers should be viewed with skepticism because they are contradicted by data and a contextual view of nomadic forager social organization and ethnohistory.

Social implications

The debate over nomadic forager war and peace is connected to larger debates in modern society about the nature of human nature and has real-world implications regarding foreign policy and political approaches toward war and peace.

Originality/value

A critique of sampling, methodology, and theory is provided in this area.

Details

Journal of Aggression, Conflict and Peace Research, vol. 6 no. 4
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1759-6599

Keywords

Content available
Article
Publication date: 7 October 2014

Kirk Endicott

435

Abstract

Details

Journal of Aggression, Conflict and Peace Research, vol. 6 no. 4
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1759-6599

Book part
Publication date: 21 November 2022

Kenneth C. Blanchard

Aristotle's Politics provides an example of what a biopolitical science might look like. Three key elements stand out: (1) an account of political structure as a multilevel…

Abstract

Aristotle's Politics provides an example of what a biopolitical science might look like. Three key elements stand out: (1) an account of political structure as a multilevel society including kin and non-kin relationships; (2) an account of the human species that includes comparison with other social species that are capable of coordinated action; and (3) an emphasis on the human capacity to understand and communicate moral rules. Over the last 50 years, a number of research programs in evolutionary anthropology have provided the basis for a biopolitical science that maps onto the elements above. Schultz, Opie, and Atkinson describe the trajectory of human evolution from solitary to a pair bonded, familial species. Michael Tomasello's two-step account of the evolution of human cooperation shows how the ancestral humans went from merely gregarious to genuinely political animals. Christopher Boehm shows how the human capacity for moral emotions and decision making by consensus developed. Richard Wrangham provides evidence that the suppression of reactive aggression by ancestral human societies resulted in a self-domesticated species, a process that enhanced the human capacity for cooperation and communication. Bernard Chapais argued that the emergence of pair bonding among ancestral humans laid the foundation for both consanguineal and affinal kinship structures. That these bodies of research hold together can best be seen when they are viewed in light of Aristotle's biopolitical science.

Details

Biopolitics at 50 Years
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-80262-108-2

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 7 October 2014

Richard B. Lee

The question of violence in hunter-gatherer society has animated philosophical debates since at least the seventeenth century. Steven Pinker has sought to affirm that…

Abstract

Purpose

The question of violence in hunter-gatherer society has animated philosophical debates since at least the seventeenth century. Steven Pinker has sought to affirm that civilization, is superior to the state of humanity during its long history of hunting and gathering. The purpose of this paper is to draw upon a series of recent studies that assert a baseline of primordial violence by hunters and gatherers. In challenging this position the author draws on four decades of ethnographic and historical research on hunting and gathering peoples.

Design/methodology/approach

At the empirical heart of this question is the evidence pro- and con- for high rates of violent death in pre-farming human populations. The author evaluates the ethnographic and historical evidence for warfare in recorded hunting and gathering societies, and the archaeological evidence for warfare in pre-history prior to the advent of agriculture.

Findings

The view of Steven Pinker and others of high rates of lethal violence in hunters and gatherers is not sustained. In contrast to early farmers, their foraging precursors lived more lightly on the land and had other ways of resolving conflict. With little or no fixed property they could easily disperse to diffuse conflict. The evidence points to markedly lower levels of violence for foragers compared to post-Neolithic societies.

Research limitations/implications

This conclusion raises serious caveats about the grand evolutionary theory asserted by Steven Pinker, Richard Wrangham and others. Instead of being “killer apes” in the Pleistocene and Holocene, the evidence indicates that early humans lived as relatively peaceful hunter-gathers for some 7,000 generations, from the emergence of Homo sapiens up until the invention of agriculture. Therefore there is a major gap between the purported violence of the chimp-like ancestors and the documented violence of post-Neolithic humanity.

Originality/value

This is a critical analysis of published claims by authors who contend that ancient and recent hunter-gatherers typically committed high levels of violent acts. It reveals a number of serious flaws in their arguments and use of data.

Details

Journal of Aggression, Conflict and Peace Research, vol. 6 no. 4
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1759-6599

Keywords

Book part
Publication date: 11 December 2004

Frederic L Pryor

This essay provides evidence that the invention of agriculture was not a dramatic technological advance in the history of humankind and that agriculture was quite consistent with…

Abstract

This essay provides evidence that the invention of agriculture was not a dramatic technological advance in the history of humankind and that agriculture was quite consistent with nomadic hunting and gathering. The available clues also suggest that exact origins of agriculture do not seem important. Rather, the crucial question is why certain societies dramatically increased their dependency on agriculture for subsistence two to ten millennia ago. Unfortunately, most of the major theories purporting to explain the neolithic revolution – either the origins or the spread of agriculture – are either untestable or inconsistent with the available evidence. What is at stake for economic historians is to rethink the process of the adoption of agriculture using a multi-causal approach.

Details

Research in Economic History
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-84950-282-5

Abstract

Details

Architects, Sustainability and the Climate Emergency
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-80382-292-1

Article
Publication date: 16 July 2009

Douglas Fry

Cross‐cultural studies show that most, but not all, human societies engage in warfare. Some non‐warring societies cluster as peace systems. The existence of peace systems, and…

Abstract

Cross‐cultural studies show that most, but not all, human societies engage in warfare. Some non‐warring societies cluster as peace systems. The existence of peace systems, and non‐warring societies more generally, shows that warfare is not an inevitable feature of human social life. This article considers three peace systems in some detail: Brazil's Upper Xingu River basin tribes, Aboriginal Australians, and the European Union. A primary goal is to explore features that contribute to peace in each of the three non‐warring systems. What do these peace systems suggest about how to prevent war? Provisionally, key elements would seem to be the promotion of interdependence among the units of the peace system, creation of cross‐cutting links among them, the existence of conflict resolution procedures, and belief systems (including attitudes and values) that are anti‐war and pro‐peace.

Details

Journal of Aggression, Conflict and Peace Research, vol. 1 no. 2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1759-6599

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 7 October 2014

Ivan Tacey and Diana Riboli

The purpose of this paper is to identify and analyze socio-cultural and political forces which have shaped anti-violent attitudes and strategies of the Batek and Batek Tanum of…

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to identify and analyze socio-cultural and political forces which have shaped anti-violent attitudes and strategies of the Batek and Batek Tanum of Peninsular Malaysia.

Design/methodology/approach

Data collection during the authors’ long-term, multi-sited ethnographic fieldwork among the Batek and Batek Tanum in Peninsular Malaysia. Methodology included participant observation, semi-structured interviews and a literature review of texts on the Orang Asli and anthropological theories on violence.

Findings

Traumatic experiences of past violence and atrocities greatly influence the Batek's and Batek Tanum's present attitudes toward direct and structural forms of violence. A variety of anti-violent strategies are adopted, including the choice to escape when physically threatened. Rather than demonstrating “weakness,” this course of action represents a smart survival strategy. External violence reinforces values of internal cooperation and mutual-aid that foraging societies, even sedentary groups, typically privilege. In recent years, the Batek's increasing political awareness has opened new forms of resistance against the structural violence embedded within Malaysian society.

Originality/value

The study proposes that societies cannot simply be labelled as violent or non-violent on the basis of socio-biological theories. Research into hunter-gatherer social organization and violence needs to be reframed within larger debates about structural violence. The “anti-violence” of certain foraging groups can be understood as a powerful form of resilience to outside pressures and foraging groups’ best possible strategy for survival.

Details

Journal of Aggression, Conflict and Peace Research, vol. 6 no. 4
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1759-6599

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 30 September 2010

Judith Hand

The thesis of this commentary is that the institution of war could be abolished through a combination of constructive programmes and obstructive programmes. Good works alone won't…

Abstract

The thesis of this commentary is that the institution of war could be abolished through a combination of constructive programmes and obstructive programmes. Good works alone won't end war. To transform dominator, warring cultures into egalitarian and nonwarring ones, constructive programmes are needed to prepare the way, to establish the groundwork for a new lifestyle. But, alone, they will not result in a paradigm shift on earth to a Gene Roddenberry‐style Star Trek future in which there is gender and racial equality, poverty has been eliminated and conflicts are resolved by the rule of law instead of through military force. Paradoxically, unless paired with the force of obstructive programmes, constructive programmes can enable dominator cultures to remain firmly in place. Moreover, to bring about a major social transformation, we will need leaders to unite men and women as full partners in shaping a massive cultural shift to a more egalitarian, just and nonwarring future.Can the people of Earth bring an end to the barbaric practice of war? Or is making war ‐ assembling armed groups that go forth to indiscriminately kill members of other groups ‐ something that evolution built into our biology, an inescapable, inevitable curse that at best can only be managed and mitigated?

Details

Journal of Aggression, Conflict and Peace Research, vol. 2 no. 4
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1759-6599

Keywords

Book part
Publication date: 10 August 2017

Serge Svizzero

This chapter is about the theories explaining the transition from foraging to farming. It aims to establish which links exist between the traditional theories – based on push/pull…

Abstract

Purpose

This chapter is about the theories explaining the transition from foraging to farming. It aims to establish which links exist between the traditional theories – based on push/pull models – and the micro-founded approaches developed since the 1980s. More precisely, it asks how the latter may contribute, as the former did, to defining a macro-narrative of the transition to farming.

Methodology/approach

While they were providing a global narrative of the Neolithic revolution, the push and pull models have been progressively dismissed. Recent research is diverse, but it is all based upon human behaviour or micro-founded. We critically examine three of these approaches which focus either on foraging behaviour, or on the initial domestication of plants and animals, or on the evolution of social institutions related to ownership.

Findings

We demonstrate that these recent micro-founded approaches only provide a partial vision of the transition to farming. Despite this limit, they conciliate push and pull explanations in a single framework. Moreover, they confirm a conclusion held by tenants of pull models: the transition to farming is more likely to have occurred in a resource-rich environment such as the one associated with complex hunter-gatherers. Some archaeological evidence from the Levant is provided to support our claim.

Value

This research chapter provides a useful overview of the differing approaches to the behavioural, environmental and economic factors that led to the shift to farming from foraging. Its value lies in the way it presents and evaluates differing positions derived from differing scales of analysis and types of evidence.

Details

Anthropological Considerations of Production, Exchange, Vending and Tourism
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-78743-194-2

Keywords

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