Out of Eden
Before the dawn of agriculture, anthropologists agree, we humans flourished in our varied environments, often moving nomadically from one location to the next following successions of ripening fruit, in season, or the migration patterns of herds of herbivores. We hunted with traps and snares or used spears, arrows, hurled stones or darts. Humans fished using toxic herbs or nets. On land they hunted using strategies with diversions, ambushes, fires, or stampeded their prey off cliffs. As gatherers we understood how to identify virtually all food plants in our habitat, we learned when and where they could be found and how to obtain them from treetops or buried beneath the earth. Like Chimpanzees or other animals have been observed to do, we consumed herbs from nature, when needed, to alleviate symptoms of illness. At some archeological sites in Africa scientists have even found remnants of an ancient human culture that used a beer-like brew cultures with a strain of Streptomyces bacteria that yielded a miraculous potion containing therapeutic levels of the antibiotic tetracycline. Even in deep prehistory we humans lived in much more complex societies than most of us realize today, or may ever know, as the evidence of our language, songs, music, philosophy, religion, customs, and morals have been lost through the ages. DNA tracing of ancient human migration patterns reveal that we were far more mobile than previously realized. Humans tread their way from Africa, into Europe, across Asia and throughout the Americas in wave after wave of migrations. The native inhabitants of Australia, as well, traversed thousands of miles by sea through shark infested waters to settle in a land they had no clear way of knowing was there, not once, but on multiple occasions. It is difficult to conceive of the cultural motivations that must have inspired them. Even North America bears archeological evidence of settlers arriving from both Europe and Asia on multiple occasions. All these events transpired before recorded history, and we therefore have relatively few clues about the type of culture in which they lived, but there is enough evidence to reconstruct key elements of their lifestyle and habits. One current human practice that remains almost absent from the archeological record of these early humans, but that does appear in subsequent eras, is war.
To aid us in determining what is or is not “natural” to the human condition, let’s review the social structure of our non-human cousins. Beginning in the mid 1960’s Dr. Jane Goodall observed and recorded chimpanzee culture in a group of chimps in the Gombie reserve of Tanzania, Africa. Males of the tribes would frequently band together to form organized patrols to scout along the borders of their territories. In 1974 Dr. Goodall observed the large Kasakela group go to war with a splinter group of seven males. In a protracted “war” that spanned four years, the larger parent group systematically murdered all seven of the rival males, while preserving the females. Although this occurred over a long period, if viewed in time-lapse fashion it might bear some resemblance to a human war, or series of mafia style “hits” on members of rival gangs [In the Shadow of Man(1971), and in National Geographicmagazine (1964, 1995)]. In 1975 Goodall also witnessed a female chimp, that she had named Passion, kill and eat the newborn offspring of a rival female, Gilka. Passion shared the kill with her daughter, Pom. The mother-daughter team continued to kill and eat infants of other females for the next two years.
In the book, “A study of War” [Quincy Wright & Louise Leonard Wright, 1983] the authors determine that societies with the greatest degree of social stratification, especially when that stratification is compulsory, are more war-like. The more societies come into contact with many rival tribes, and the greater their rival’s cultural differences, the more they favor war. While with smaller the groups, the closer their familial relationships, and looser the social stratification, in general, the less warlike they are.
Social stratification, the rise of governments, and the development of a war-like culture occurred with the advent of agriculture. Humans, for the first time in their cultural history, had something to fight over other than territory. As agricultural communities flourished, they produced an abundance of non-perishable foodstuffs. Properly stored, a farming society could amass enough grain to feed themselves for years.
Now, stealing coveted items is nothing new to the animal kingdom. Penguins, for example, will readily swipe attractive stones with which to build their nests on rocky Antarctic shores, it is very common, in fact, for most species of birds to compete with their own kind for nest building materials, which, of course, is essential for survival and the perpetuation of the species.
I, myself, kept several of my laboratory rats from Behavioral Psychology class at Oregon State University and observed their interactions in my desktop cage as I wiled away my hours of studying. Once satiated with peanuts or sunflower seeds my lab rats would continue to perform tricks such as bell ringing, turning circles, or sitting on their haunches to beg for more nuts. More dominant rats would often snatch the nuts from their social subordinates’ jaws or paws. Stealing is, I conclude, not only human nature, mammalian nature, but it is the natural state of any animal to attempt to take what it needs, not only for survival but for comfort. That is, at least, when those coveted items are not otherwise abundant.
So, I feel, what it basically boils down to is that any animal will commandeer the resources of another of its species if that effort is significantly less costly that procuring those resources itself. This fundamental concept is readily apparent by observing any species in the animal kingdom in regards to food, shelter or a mate.
So, with the rise of agriculture 12,000 years ago and the hoarding of vast amounts of food, it was almost inevitable that initially stealing and eventually warfare would emerge, and indeed the archaeological record reveals this to be the case. Admittedly, there must have been some competition for scarce resources before agriculture, such as shelter, mating, or hunting territories and there remain some threads of evidence of this fact, but with humans amassing ever larger caches of food as agriculture progressed through time, this set the stage for the emergence of war.
In Italy, where I lived for some time, and throughout Europe, city-states emerged with the rise of agriculture. In time these initially small settlements responded to raids on their resources by small bands by building defensive walls and recruiting their inhabitants to fight back or risk losing their precious resources. As populations, farmland, and food caches expanded over time, the inhabitants were obliged to encircle themselves with successfully more surrounding walls to enclose and protect the citizens.
In the Americas, however, a different pattern of development was seen. Far fewer native cultures depended heavily on agriculture as a primary food source. Hunting and gathering remained a large part of their subsistence and archaeologists find far fewer examples of societies with defensive walls to shield the citizens and their food supply from marauders. Nor did their population become as dense as that of Europeans. For this reason one finds that European, Middle Eastern, and Asian civilizations have city states that were concentric in design as a reflection of their growth over time, while modern North American cities are almost universally designed on a grid system. This was far more rapid and convenient as the populations of European settlers expanded across the landscape after dislodging the native population with superior weapons, and via diseases the natives were immunologically defenseless against, in their genocidal expansionism.
In the 12,000 years since agriculture began, the raiding of resources from other societies has become a staple of civilization. It requires less effort to simply take someone else’s possessions than procure them yourself. Furthermore, an aggressor can take women, livestock, the city itself, in addition to their food. After an opponent’s assets have been taken and added to their own, they become an even more potent military force and can successfully take on larger and larger opponents. If all the rival fighting men are killed in this endeavor, or its aftermath, it cements the aggressors’ position and nullifies the potential for a future reversal of fortunes.
Historically many wars have been genocidal in nature, the victors slaughtering all the losers and taking permanent control of their assets. In many other wars throughout history the victors have offered to spare some defenders and make them into conscripts in their conquering armies.
