War at Least 10,000 Years Old

[LongBlade]

Discovery of an ancient battlefield/massacre.

Skulls smashed by blunt force, bodies pin-cushioned by projectile points and hapless victims—including a pregnant woman—abused with their hands bound before receiving the fatal coup de grâce.

This violent tableau resembles something from the darker side of modern warfare. But it instead describes the grizzly demise of a group of African hunter-gatherers some 10,000 years ago. They are the victims of the earliest scientifically dated evidence for human group conflict—a precursor to what we now know as war.

The battered skeletons at Nataruk, west of Kenya's Lake Turkana, serve as sobering evidence that such brutal behavior occurred among nomadic peoples, long before more settled human societies arose. They also provide poignant clues that could help answer questions that have long plagued humanity: Why do we go to war, and where did our all too common practice of group violence originate?

"The injuries suffered by the people of Nataruk—men and women, pregnant or not, young and old—shock for their mercilessness," says Marta Mirazon Lahr of the University of Cambridge, who co-authored the study published today in the journal Nature. Still, she notes, "what we see at the prehistoric site of Nataruk is no different from the fights, wars and conquests that shaped so much of our history, and indeed sadly continue to shape our lives."

More at the link: http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/ancient-brutal-massacre-may-be-earliest-evidence-war-180957884/?no-ist

[JasonPratt]

Interesting as that is, I don't think we need to look to obscure literally pre-historic massacre sites for clues about why we go to war. It isn't like the topic is a mystery; we've been doing it quite a bit since then, and commenting on it before, during, and afterward. A lot. ;)

[Silent Disapproval Robot]

Did they find any ancient #black lives matter protest signs?

[Sir Slash]

^  O0

[BanzaiCat]

We're pretty much animals at heart. Highly developed and potentially intelligent animals, but animals nonetheless.