Prehistoric ‘War Grave’ Reveals Bodies From First Ever Human Massacre

[ramonmercado]

Prehistoric ‘war grave’ reveals bodies from first ever human massacre

Fossilised bones of 27 hunter-gatherers murdered 10,000 years ago, discovered at Nataruk near Lake Turkana in Kenya


A chilling prehistoric ‘war grave’ containing the smashed remains of hunter-gatherers is the first evidence of a human massacre and demonstrates the terrifying aggression of early man.

The fossilised bones of a group of 27 hunter-gatherers, who were murdered 10,000 years ago, was discovered at Nataruk near Lake Turkana in Kenya.

Four victims, including one heavily pregnant woman were bound by the hands and feet before they was slaughtered. The others showed signs of extreme violence and some had blades and arrows still buried in their skulls.

“I’ve no doubt it is in our biology to be aggressive and lethal, just as it is to be deeply caring and loving"
Professor Robert Foley, Cambridge University

The origins of human aggression are controversial, with many archaeologists believing that hunter-gatherers were largely peaceful, and did not resort to warfare until after the agricultural revolution, when groups grew jealous of the land and possessions of their rivals. Before the find, the earliest war grave was in Darmstadt, Germany, and dated to around 5000BC. ...

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/ear...ls-bodies-from-first-ever-human-massacre.html

 

[ramonmercado]

On Slates and Tweets: A Reply to David Sloan Wilson on Ancient Warfare and the Blank Slate
by Michael Shermer

On January 21, 2016 I posted a tweet that read:

Sorry blank slaters & Peace & Harmony Mafia: “Evidence of a prehistoric massacre extends the history of warfare.” http://bit.ly/1PpHvv7

The reference is to those who adhere to the blank slate theory of human nature and those rather aggressive anthropologists who insist that war is a recent invention and that our ancestors lived in relative peace and harmony with one another and nature. The link is to a recent archaeological study that uncovered the fossilized remains of 27 prehistoric hunter-gatherers who were massacred around 10,000 years ago at a place called Nataruk near Lake Turkana in Kenya. Most of the skeletons showed signs of a violent death: blunt-force trauma to the head, broken hands (some of which were bound), shattered knees, cracked ribs and, most revealing, arrowhead projectile points in the skull and thorax and arrow lesions in the neck. The research team, headed by Dr. Marta Mirazon Lahr from Cambridge University, concluded that one band of people was most likely attacked by another band, explaining:

The deaths at Nataruk are testimony to the antiquity of inter-group violence and war. These human remains record the intentional killing of a small band of foragers with no deliberate burial, and provide unique evidence that warfare was part of the repertoire of inter-group relations among some prehistoric hunter-gatherers.

It is difficult for archaeologists to interpret motive from fossils, but Lahr suggested:

The Nataruk massacre may have resulted from an attempt to seize resources—territory, women, children, food stored in pots—whose value was similar to those of later food-producing agricultural societies, among whom violent attacks on settlements became part of life. This would extend the history of the same underlying socio-economic conditions that characterise other instances of early warfare: a more settled, materially richer way of life. However, Nataruk may simply be evidence of a standard antagonistic response to an encounter between two social groups at that time.

In response to my tweet, my friend David Sloan Wilson, an evolutionary biologist and anthropologist, tweeted in response:

I have to ask: how does an ancient massacre bear upon any of the assumptions of ‘blank slate’ psychology?

I replied:

Blank slate assumption: war is a modern invention w/no relation to our evolutionary propensity to aggression.

https://evolution-institute.org/blo...ilson-on-ancient-warfare-and-the-blank-slate/