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Population pressure and prehistoric violence in the Yayoi period of Japan
Abstract
The causes of prehistoric inter-group violence have been a subject of long-standing debate in archaeology, anthropology, and other disciplines. Although population pressure has been considered as a major factor, due to the lack of available prehistoric data, few studies have directly examined its effect so far. In the present study, we used data on skeletal remains from the middle Yayoi period of the Japanese archipelago, where archaeologists argued that an increase of inter-group violence in this period could be explained by a population-pressure hypothesis. We quantitatively examine the effect of population pressure on the frequency of inter-group violence by compiling an exhaustive data set. We collected demographic information based on burial jars (kamekan) and the frequency of violence based on the ratio of injured individuals. The results are consistent with the hypothesis, i.e., high population density can promote inter-group violence.
... Psychologists have also explored the evolved cognitive 2 KIV, and KV, typically with subtypes from a to c, such as KIa, KIIb, and KIIIc. The typology depends mostly on the shapes of the rims and bodies (e.g., Hashiguchi, 2005;Nakagawa et al., 2021). The present study focused on and investigated the directions of the kamekan jar burials found mainly in the Fukuoka Prefecture, as the excavations in the northern Kyūshū area of the Yayoi period were more thorough than those in other areas, and the kamekan jar burial data could provide a good example of burials in the Yayoi period. ...
... We collected data from 88 sites, which included 2,838 kamekan jar burials. The present study focused on the kamekan jar burials from the Fukuoka Prefecture, i.e., the Sawara, Fukuoka, Mikuni, and Asakura regions (see Nakagawa et al., 2021, for the regional information), because the jar burials were most commonly used in these regions. Detailed information on the data is summarized in Supplementary Material S1. ...
Various disciplines, including evolutionary biology, anthropology, archaeology, and psychology, have studied the evolution of rituals. Archaeologists have typically argued that burial practices are one of the most prominent manifestations of ritual practices in the past and have explored various aspects of burial practices, including burial directions. One of the important hypotheses on the cultural evolution of burial practices in Japan is the kitamakura hypothesis, which claims that burial directions (including Kofuns and current burials) were intended to be oriented toward the north after the Kofun period under the influence of Confucianism or Buddhism. This hypothesis would be more plausible if burial directions were not oriented northward before the Kofun period. This research focused on the burial directions in the northern Kyūshū area of the Yayoi period, i.e., the directions of the kamekan jar burials. The results are almost consistent with the hypothesis, although one notable exception is found, and its possible interpretations and implications are discussed.
... Many have assumed that migrants from the continental East Asia arrived at the northern Kyushu region (e.g., Nakahashi, 2015) and the Yayoi cultural package was formed, which included cultural elements imported from the continental East Asia, ones derived from the preceding Jōmon culture, and newly innovated items (e.g., Kaneda et al., 2022;Morioka, 2018;Noshita et al., 2022aNoshita et al., , 2022bShitara, 2019); and then the package spread across the Kyushu, Honshu, and Shikoku islands, replacing or interbreeding with the indigenous Jōmon inhabitants. This spread has been also assumed to trigger or set the foundation of drastic social changes, including increasing population, higher frequency of intergroup conflicts, more rigid social hierarchies than previous periods, and etc. (e.g., Nakagawa et al., 2021;Nakao et al., 2016;Nakazono, 2004). ...
... Relatedly, the present results suggest the immigrants might tend to segregate though the segregation did not imply they always came into conflicts. Some studies argue that higher rates of injuries are found on human skeletal remains from western sites of the Yayoi period (especially in the northern Kyushu region) and that population increase (and the lack of land by rice farming) is one of the direct causes (Nakagawa et al., 2021). Although both the indigenous people and the immigrants plausibly faced novel adaptive problems caused by their contact, the problems possibly did not lead to conflicts. ...
The present study examines the 3-dimensional data of human crania from the Yayoi period (800 BC to AD 250) of the Japanese archipelago by geometric morphometrics to investigate demic diffusion patterns. This is the first study on the Yayoi crania using their 3D data and geometric morphometrics with a much larger number of skeletal remains outside of the Kyushu regions than previous studies. The comparative results between the Jōmon and Yayoi samples show that the Yayoi people not only in the eastern parts but also in the western parts of the archipelago are significantly different from the final Jōmon people and the Yayoi people were not strongly affected by the Jōmon people. A relatively gradual geological cline is also found among the Yayoi population, suggesting that the immigrants from the continental East Asia moved from the western parts to the eastern parts of the archipelago though the causes of the morphological changes are unclear.
... It is well documented that rapid population growth in sedentary human populations is accompanied by population pressure and poor sanitary conditions that contaminate water sources and increase parasite and pathogen burdens (Goodman et al., 1984;Stuart-Macadam and Kent, 1992). Where in-situ intensification cannot keep pace with per capita resource demands, zero-sum strategies such as intra-group competition and theft or inter-group violent conflict are often favored (Allen et al., 2016;McCool et al., 2022aMcCool et al., , 2022bNakagawa et al., 2021;Oka et al., 2017). These strategies in turn drive resource constraints and further physiological stress (Human Security Centre, 2005;Milner et al., 1991;Steadman, 2008;Walker, 2001). ...
Climate change can adversely affect population health by limiting resource availability. Climate shocks may cause resource shortfalls directly via declining economic productivity, but favorable climate conditions may also create food shortages indirectly by promoting demographic growth that then pressures a resource base. Current population health and capacities for resilience reflect long-term human-environment interactions, highlighting the need for studies on the relationship between climate and population health through time. In this article, we combine theory from population ecology and life history with structural equation models to evaluate archaeological evidence of changing population health in response to climate change in the Nasca highlands of Peru from the terminal Middle Horizon to Late Intermediate period (1250 - 500 cal BP). Specifically, we examine potential causal chains between local precipitation, population growth, agricultural intensification, and two skeletal indicators of childhood physiological stress—cribra orbitalia (CO) and porotic hyperostosis (PH)—in 149 radiocarbon dated individuals. We find that higher precipitation has a positive indirect impact on PH frequency that is entirely mediated by local population pressure and maize agricultural intensification. Precipitation has a negative direct effect on CO, which is most common during intervals of extreme drought, low dietary maize inputs, and in periods of higher fertility. Additionally, we find that PH and CO negatively co-vary over time. These findings add to a growing body of evidence that, though PH and CO have historically been considered manifestations of the same pathological process, these two skeletal lesions likely result from distinct sources of physiological stress in the Prehispanic central Andes.
... To predict likely responses, studies that systematically quantify the relative effect of competing variables among prehistoric populations are necessary, but remain limited. Importantly, both climatic and demographic factors have been shown to influence the frequency and severity of human violence (8)(9)(10)(11)(12)(13). The interaction between climate and demography further amplifies these dynamics, as climate change may structure population growth rates and carrying capacity (14)(15)(16), and both climatic change and population fluctuations influence per capita resource availability (17,18). ...
Significance
Warfare and homicide are pervasive features of the human experience, yet scholars struggle to understand the conditions that promote violence. Climate and conflict research has revealed many linkages between climate change and human violence; however, studies often produce contrary findings, and the driving mechanisms remain difficult to identify. We suggest a solution is to identify conditions producing resource scarcity, which are necessarily a combination of climate and population dynamics. We examine patterns of lethal violence in the Prehispanic Andes and find that favorable climate conditions fostered rapid population growth within a circumscribed landscape, resulting in chronic warfare. Our work suggests that an increasingly unstable climate may promote future violence, where favorable climate regimes incentivize population growth and attendant resource strain.
... Carrying-capacity stress increases the probability of between-group competition and conflict [147][148][149][150][151][152]. First, carrying-capacity stress can bind individuals within groups and promote parochial other-concern (α I in equation (3.1); see [153]). ...
Although uniquely destructive and wasteful, intergroup conflict and warfare are not confined to humans. They are seen across a range of group-living species, from social insects, fishes and birds to mammals, including nonhuman primates. With its unique collection of theory, research and review contributions from biology, anthropology and economics, this theme issue provides novel insights into intergroup conflict across taxa. Here, we introduce and organize this theme issue on the origins and consequences of intergroup conflict. We provide a coherent framework by modelling intergroup conflicts as multi-level games of strategy in which individuals within groups cooperate to compete with (individuals in) other groups for scarce resources, such as territory, food, mating opportunities, power and influence. Within this framework, we identify cross-species mechanisms and consequences of (participating in) intergroup conflict. We conclude by highlighting crosscutting innovations in the study of intergroup conflict set forth by individual contributions. These include, among others, insights on how within-group heterogeneities and leadership relate to group conflict, how intergroup conflict shapes social organization and how climate change and environmental degradation transition intergroup relations from peaceful coexistence to violent conflict.
This article is part of the theme issue ‘Intergroup conflict across taxa’.
The present study collected a larger set of three-dimensional data on human crania from the Kofun period (as well as from previous periods, i.e., the Jomon and Yayoi periods) in the Japanese archipelago (AD 250 to around 700) than previous studies. Three-dimensional geometric morphometrics were employed to investigate human migration patterns in finer-grained phases. These results are consistent with those of previous studies, although some new patterns were discovered. These patterns were interpreted in terms of demic diffusion, archaeological findings, and historical evidence. In particular, the present results suggest the presence of a gradual geological cline throughout the Kofun period, although the middle period did not display such a cline. This discrepancy might reflect social changes in the middle Kofun period, such as the construction of keyhole-shaped mounds in the peripheral regions. The present study implies that a broader investigation with a larger sample of human crania is essential to elucidating macro-level cultural evolutionary processes.
The present research used archaeological data, i.e., the data obtained from kamekan jar burials in the Mikuni Hills of the northern Kyushu area in the Middle Yayoi period, to test the parochial altruism model. This model argued that out-group hate and in-group favor coevolved via prehistoric intergroup conflicts. If this model is accurate, such an out-group hate and in-group favor could be reflected in the archaeological remains, such as pottery making; the more frequent intergroup conflicts are and the more each group is opposed, the more independent and coherent each group will be and more evident cultural identity could be established within each group. We employed an elliptic Fourier analysis for the shapes of kamekan jar burials. We examined whether frequent intergroup conflicts in the period influenced kamekan jar pottery between subareas of the Mikuni Hills. The results suggested that the shapes of kamekan jar burials after the KIIIa type are slightly different between subareas, which is partially consistent with the model. However, the results do not support the model directly.
SfM/MVS photogrammetry has received increasing attention due to its convenience, broadening the range of its applications into archaeology and anthropology. Because the accuracy of SfM/MVS depends on photography, one important issue is that incorrect or low-density point clouds are found in 3D models due to poor overlapping between images. A systematic way of taking photographs solve these problems, though it has not been well established and the accuracy has not been examined either, with some exceptions. The present study aims to (i) develop an efficient method for recording pottery using an automated turntable and (ii) assess its accuracy through a comparison with 3D models made by laser scanning. We recorded relatively simple pottery manufactured by prehistoric farmers in the Japanese archipelago using SfM/MVS photogrammetry and laser scanning. Further, by measuring the Hausdorff distance between 3D models made using these two methods, we show that their difference is negligibly small, suggesting that our method is sufficiently accurate to record pottery.
It has been commonly claimed that prehistoric warfare in Japan began in the Yayoi period. Population increases due to the introduction of agriculture from the Korean Peninsula to Japan resulted in the lack of land for cultivation and resources for the population, eventually triggering competition over land. This hypothesis has been supported by the demographic data inferred from historical changes in Kamekan, a burial system used especially in the Kyushu area in the Yayoi period. The present study aims to examine the previous claim by using an expanded dataset of human skeletal remains and Kamekan. First, in order to quantify the intensity of warfare, we developed a database of injured individuals found in the middle phase of the Yayoi period in two large populations in the northern Kyushu area, the Fukuoka plain and the upper and middle-stream of the Homan River. Second, we collected Kamekan data from site reports published after 1990 and constructed a comprehensive database to infer the demography in these areas. Finally, we compared the frequency of injured individuals and the inferred demography. The results suggest that the frequency of injured individuals and the population increase tended to be higher at the upper- and middle-stream of the Homan River than on the Fukuoka plain.
Different assumptions of the lifetime of each type of Kamekan can produce mixed results on the relationship between demography and the frequency of injured individuals. They were positively correlated under the traditional assumption of constant time intervals, while there was no correlation using time intervals based on carbon dating by the National
Museum of Japanese History. Thus, our results are partially consistent with the previous claim that the population increase and the lack of land and resources due to the introduction of agriculture were causes of warfare in the northern Kyushu area in the middle phase of the Yayoi period.
Significance
Recent views on violence emphasize the decline in proportions of war groups and casualties to populations over time and conclude that past small-scale societies were more violent than contemporary states. In this paper, we argue that these trends are better explained through scaling relationships between population and war group size and between war group size and conflict casualties. We test these relationships and develop measures of conflict investment and lethality that are applicable to societies across space and time. When scaling is accounted for, we find no difference in conflict investment or lethality between small-scale and state societies. Given the lack of population data for past societies, we caution against using archaeological cases of episodic conflicts to measure past violence.
The origins and consequences of warfare or large-scale intergroup violence have been subject of long debate. Based on exhaustive surveys of skeletal remains for prehistoric hunter-gatherers and agriculturists in Japan, the present study examines levels of inferred violence and their implications for two different evolutionary models, i.e., parochial altruism model and subsistence model. The former assumes that frequent warfare played an important role in the evolution of altruism and the latter sees warfare as promoted by social changes induced by
agriculture. Our results are inconsistent with the parochial altruism model but consistent with the subsistence model, although the mortality values attributable to violence between hunter-gatherers and agriculturists were comparable.
Significance
From warfare to homicide, lethal violence is an all too common aspect of the human experience, yet we still do not have a clear explanation of why individuals kill one another. We suggest the search for an answer should begin with an empirical understanding of where and when individuals are more prone to experience violence. Examining patterns of lethal trauma among hunter-gatherer populations in prehistoric central California, this study reveals that violence is explained by resource scarcity and not political organization. This finding provides a clear rationale to understand why violence may be greater in specific times or places through human history, which can help predict where and when it may arise in the future.
Whether man is predisposed to lethal violence, ranging from homicide to warfare, and how that may have impacted human evolution, are among the most controversial topics of debate on human evolution. Although recent studies on the evolution of warfare have been based on various archaeological and ethnographic data, they have reported mixed results: it is unclear whether or not warfare among prehistoric hunter–gatherers was common enough to be a component of human nature and a selective pressure for the evolution of human behaviour. This paper reports the mortality attributable to violence, and the spatio-temporal pattern of violence thus shown among ancient hunter–gatherers using skeletal evidence in prehistoric Japan (the Jomon period: 13 000 cal BC–800 cal BC). Our results suggest that the mortality due to violence was low and spatio-temporally highly restricted in the Jomon period, which implies that violence including warfare in prehistoric Japan was not common.
The nature of inter-group relations among prehistoric hunter-gatherers remains disputed, with arguments in favour and against the existence of warfare before the development of sedentary societies. Here we report on a case of inter-group violence towards a group of hunter-gatherers from Nataruk, west of Lake Turkana, which during the late Pleistocene/early Holocene period extended about 30 km beyond its present-day shore. Ten of the twelve articulated skeletons found at Nataruk show evidence of having died violently at the edge of a lagoon, into which some of the bodies fell. The remains from Nataruk are unique, preserved by the particular conditions of the lagoon with no evidence of deliberate burial. They offer a rare glimpse into the life and death of past foraging people, and evidence that warfare was part of the repertoire of inter-group relations among prehistoric hunter-gatherers.
The central Mesa Verde and the northern Rio Grande regions housed two of the densest populations of prehispanic Pueblo peoples in the North American Southwest. We plot incidence of violent trauma on human bone through time in each region. Such violence peaked in the mid-A.D. 1100s in
the central Mesa Verde, and in general was higher through time there than in the northern Rio Grande region. In the central Mesa Verde, but not in the northern Rio Grande, there is a tendency for violence to be greater in periods of low potential maize production per capita and high variance
in maize production, though these structural tendencies were on occasion overridden by historical factors such as the expansion and demise of the Chacoan polity and the regional depopulation. Violence generally declined through time in the northern Rio Grande until the arrival of the Spanish,
even as populations increased. We propose that this decline was due to the combination of increased social span of polities, the importance of inter-Pueblo sodalities, the nature of religious practice, “gentle commerce,” and increased adherence to a set of nonviolent norms.
The results of this cross-cultural study suggest that war may be caused mostly by a fear of nature and a partially resultant fear of others. A history of unpredictable natural disasters strongly predicts more war, as does socialization for mistrust (but less strongly). It seems that people, particularly in nonstate societies, may try to protect themselves against future disasters by going to war to take resources from enemies.
Human violence is an inescapable aspect of our society and culture. As the archaeological record clearly shows, this has always been true. What is its origin? What role does it play in shaping our behavior? How do ritual acts and cultural sanctions make violence acceptable? These and other questions are addressed by the contributors to The Bioarchaeology of Violence. Organized thematically, the volume opens by laying the groundwork for new theoretical approaches that move beyond interpretation; it then examines case studies from small-scale conflict to warfare to ritualized violence. Experts on a wide range of ancient societies highlight the meaning and motivation of past uses of violence, revealing how violence often plays an important role in maintaining and suppressing the challenges to the status quo, and how it is frequently a performance meant to be witnessed by others. The interesting and nuanced insights offered in this volume explore both the costs and the benefits of violence throughout human prehistory. © 2012 by Debra L. Martin, Ryan P. Harrod, and Ventura R. Pérez. All rights reserved.
Current debates over the relation between climate change and conflict originate in a lack of data, as well as the complexity
of pathways connecting the two phenomena.
The hypothesis that population pressure causes increased warfare has been recently criticized on the empirical grounds. Both studies focusing on specific historical societies and analyses of cross-cultural data fail to find positive correlation between population density and incidence of warfare. In this paper we argue that such negative results do not falsify the population-warfare hypothesis. Population and warfare are dynamical variables, and if their interaction causes sustained oscillations, then we do not in general expect to find strong correlation between the two variables measured at the same time (that is, unlagged). We explore mathematically what the dynamical patterns of interaction between population and warfare (focusing on internal warfare) might be in both stateless and state societies. Next, we test the model predictions in several empirical case studies: early modern England, Han and Tang China, and the Roman Empire. Our empirical results support the population-warfare theory: we find that there is a tendency for population numbers and internal warfare intensity to oscillate with the same period but shifted in phase (with warfare peaks following population peaks). Furthermore, the rates of change of the two variables behave precisely as predicted by the theory: population rate of change is negatively affected by warfare intensity, while warfare rate of change is positively affected by population density
It has been proposed that changes in global climate have been responsible for episodes of widespread violence and even the collapse of civilizations. Yet previous studies have not shown that violence can be attributed to the global climate, only that random weather events might be correlated with conflict in some cases. Here we directly associate planetary-scale climate changes with global patterns of civil conflict by examining the dominant interannual mode of the modern climate, the El Niño/Southern Oscillation (ENSO). Historians have argued that ENSO may have driven global patterns of civil conflict in the distant past, a hypothesis that we extend to the modern era and test quantitatively. Using data from 1950 to 2004, we show that the probability of new civil conflicts arising throughout the tropics doubles during El Niño years relative to La Niña years. This result, which indicates that ENSO may have had a role in 21% of all civil conflicts since 1950, is the first demonstration that the stability of modern societies relates strongly to the global climate.
War and Peace?
Modern behavior, including the development of advanced tools, musical instruments, and art, seems to have arisen in humans in stages. The earliest hints are seen in Africa about 70 to 90,000 years ago, but later in Europe about 45,000 years ago. An ongoing discussion centers on the origins and significance of human prosociality. During early human development, could the benefits of altruistic behavior have outweighed its costs (see the Perspective by Mace )? Bowles (p. 1293 ) constructed a model of conflict between groups of humans and extracted estimates of the critical parameters from archaeological and ethnographic data sets. Provocatively, it appears that warfare might have enhanced the emergence and persistence of altruistic behavior. Powell et al. (p. 1298 ) present a population model that shows that the development of modern behaviors may rely on the attainment of critical population densities and migratory patterns required for stable cultural transmission. The model is consistent with genetic inferences of population dynamics in Africa and Europe and suggests that these cultural changes may not solely reflect increased cognitive evolution.
The term “stress” remains poorly defined, often misused, and has clearly lost its meaning in the study of archaeological human remains. In this special issue we reconsider the use of this term in human remains research, to untangle what we actually mean when we say “stress” in archaeology. To this aim, we looked at this topic from two broad perspectives: dental anthropology and paleopathology. Based on revision of the previous work on this topic, the new contributions of this issue, and in the light of the rapid advancement in other medical disciplines, we conclude that the term “stress” is not suitable for the study of archaeological skeletal remains unless it is precisely defined (e.g. mechanical stress).
The remains of past people are a testament to their lived experiences and of the environment in which they lived. Synthesising the latest research, this book critically examines the sources of evidence used to understand and interpret violence in bioarchaeology, exploring the significant light such evidence can shed on past hierarchies, gender roles and life courses. The text draws on a diverse range of social and clinical science research to investigate violence and trauma in the archaeological record, focussing on human remains. It examines injury patterns in different groups as well as the biological, psychological and cultural factors that make us behave violently, how our living environment influences injury and violence, the models used to identify and interpret violence in the past, and how violence is used as a social tool. Drawing on a range of case studies, Redfern explores new research directions that will contribute to nuanced interpretations of past lives.
Evolutionary anthropologists seek to understand the evolution of warfare across multiple timescales, from the roots of warfare in the intergroup aggression of our primate ancestors, to the causes of warfare among contemporary societies today. While warfare remains a contentious subject, considerable evidence supports the view that warfare is a strategy by which coalitions of males cooperate to acquire and defend resources necessary for reproduction. This strategy is not the result of a single "instinct" for war, but is instead an emergent property resulting from evolved psychological mechanisms (such as xenophobia and parochial altruism). These mechanisms are sensitive to ecological and social conditions, such that the prevalence and patterns of warfare vary according to subsistence strategies, military technology, cultural institutions, and political and economic relations. When economic conditions enable intergroup relations to change from zero-sum to positive-sum games, peaceful intergroup relations can emerge.
Stretching across continents and centuries, The Origins of War: Violence in Prehistory provides a fascinating examination of executions, torture, ritual sacrifices, and other acts of violence committed in the prehistoric world. Written as an accessible guide to the nature of life in prehistory and to the underpinnings of human violence. Combines symbolic interpretations of archaeological remains with a medical understanding of violent acts. Written by an eminent prehistorian and a respected medical doctor.
When humans wage war, it is not unusual for battlefields to be strewn with dead warriors. These warriors typically were men in their reproductive prime who, had they not died in battle, might have gone on to father more children. Typically, they are also genetically unrelated to one another. We know of no other animal species in which reproductively capable, genetically unrelated individuals risk their lives in this manner. Because the immense private costs borne by individual warriors create benefits that are shared widely by others in their group, warfare is a stark evolutionary puzzle that is difficult to explain. Although several scholars have posited models of the evolution of human warfare, these models do not adequately explain how humans solve the problem of collective action in warfare at the evolutionarily novel scale of hundreds of genetically unrelated individuals. We propose that group-structured cultural selection explains this phenomenon.
© 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
The bioarchaeological record has an abundance of scientific evidence based on skeletal indicators of trauma to argue for a long history of internal and external group conflict. However, the findings also suggest variability, nuance, and unevenness in the type, use, and meaning of violence across time and space and therefore defy generalizations or easy quantification. Documenting violence-related behaviors provides an overview of the often unique and sometimes patterned cultural use of violence. Violence (lethal and nonlethal) is often associated with social spheres of influence and power connected to daily life such as subsistence intensification, specialization, competition for scarce resources, climate, population density, territorial protection and presence of immigrants, to name just a few. By using fine-grained biocultural analyses that interrogate trauma data in particular places at particular times in reconstructed archaeological contexts, a more comprehensive view into the histories and experiences of violence emerges. Moreover, identifying culturally specific patterns related to age, sex, and social status provide an increasingly complex picture of early small-scale groups. Some forms of ritual violence also have restorative and regenerative aspects that strengthen community identity. Bioarchaeological data can shed light on the ways that violence becomes part of a given cultural landscape. Viewed in a biocultural context, evidence of osteological trauma provides rich insights into social relationships and the many ways that violence is embedded within those relationships. Yrbk Phys Anthropol, 2014. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
© 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
西南日本出土の縄文時代から現代に至る頭蓋骨682個についてクリブラ·オルビタリアを, また626個体の歯列についてエナメル質減形成を肉眼観察し, それぞれの出現頻度を調査した。両ストレスマーカーは共に小児期から思春期頃にかけて最高頻度に達し, 以後は年齢と共に減少する傾向が見られた。クリブラ·オルビタリアは現代人の35.4%が最高で, 最低は博多の天福寺近世人の2.4%であった。また, エナメル質減形成は原田近世人で87.0%の最高値を示し, 最低は北部九州弥生人の15.2%であった。このストレスマーカーには西日本各地の弥生集団間でかなりの違いが見られたが, 縄文人に較べて特に北部九州弥生人で低下傾向が認められた。以上の各時代, 地域集団において, ハリス線を含めた3種のストレスマーカー間の相関を調べたところ, クリブラ·オルビタリアとエナメル質減形成の間に弱いながらも有意の関連性が認められた。
Prompted by the lack of attention by sociologists and the challenge of materialist explanations of warfare in “precivilized” societies posed by Keeley (1996), this paper tests and finds support for two materialist hypotheses concerning the likelihood of warfare in preindustrial societies: specifically, that, as argued by ecological–evolutionary theory, dominant mode of subsistence is systematically related to rates of warfare; and that, within some levels of technological development, higher levels of “population pressure” are associated with a greater likelihood of warfare. Using warfare measures developed by Ember and Ember (1995), measures of subsistence technology originally developed by Lenski (1966, 1970), and the standard sample of societies developed by Murdock and White (1969), this study finds evidence that warfare is more likely in advanced horticultural and agrarian societies than it is in hunting–and–gathering and simple horticultural societies, and that it is also more likely in hunting–and–gathering and agrarian societies that have above–average population densities. These findings offer substantial support for ecological–evolutionary theory and qualified but intriguing support for “population pressure” as explanations of cross–cultural variation in the likelihood of warfare.
Chimpanzee and hunter-gatherer intergroup aggression differ in important ways, including humans having the ability to form peaceful relationships and alliances among groups. This paper nevertheless evaluates the hypothesis that intergroup aggression evolved according to the same functional principles in the two species-selection favoring a tendency to kill members of neighboring groups when killing could be carried out safely. According to this idea chimpanzees and humans are equally risk-averse when fighting. When self-sacrificial war practices are found in humans, therefore, they result from cultural systems of reward, punishment, and coercion rather than evolved adaptations to greater risk-taking. To test this "chimpanzee model," we review intergroup fighting in chimpanzees and nomadic hunter-gatherers living with other nomadic hunter-gatherers as neighbors. Whether humans have evolved specific psychological adaptations for war is unknown, but current evidence suggests that the chimpanzee model is an appropriate starting point for analyzing the biological and cultural evolution of warfare.
Historians don't generally like the idea of "human nature". We tend to believe that people are intrinsically malleable, that they have no innate "drives," "instincts," or "motivations." The reason we hew to the "blank slate” notion perhaps has to do with the fact—and it is a fact—that we see remarkable diversity in the historical record. The past, we say, is a foreign country; they do things differently there. But there are also political reasons to hold to the idea that we have no essence, that everything is “socially constructed.” Where, for example, would modern liberalism be without this concept? If our natures are fixed in some way, then what should we do to improve our lot? Given the strength and utility of the “blank slate” doctrine, anyone hoping to question it successfully must possess considerable political savvy and, more importantly, an overwhelming mass of evidence. When the first modern challenge was issued—by the Sociobiologists of the 1970s—they had the latter (I would say), but not the former. Happily, their successors—principally the practitioners of “evolutionary psychology”—have both (again, in my opinion). Azar Gat is a good example. In his pathbreaking War in Human Civilization (Oxford UP, 2006), he explains in politically palatable and empirically convincing terms just why, evolutionarily speaking, our evolved natures guided the way we have fought over the past 200,000 years. He rejects the notion that we have anything like a “violence instinct.” Rather, we have a kind of “violence tool,” given to us by natural selection. In certain circumstances, we are psychologically inclined to use it; in others, not. In this way we are no different than many of our fellow species, the primates in particular. Of course, unlike them, our use of collective violence has an (extra-genetic) history. Azar does a masterful job of describing and explaining how, even while our nature has remained the same, the way we fight has changed. And here the news is good: believe it or not, we—humanity as a whole—have been becoming more peaceful over the past 10,000 years, and radically more peaceful (at least in the developed world) over the past 200 years. Azar can explain this too, and does in the interview. I cannot emphasis enough how important this book is, both as a model of what I would call “scientifically-informed” history and a sort of guide to those of us who, despite having abandoned the “blank slate,” believe that we have the capacity to create a better world.
Warless Societies and the Origin of War employs a comparative ethnographic analysis of warless and warlike hunting and gathering societies to isolate distinctive features of peaceful preagricultural people and to develop a theoretical model of the origin of war and the early coevolution of war and society. Examining key Upper Paleolithic cave paintings and burials that document lethal violence, Raymond Kelly's illumination of the transition from warlessness to warfare in several specific locales in Europe and the Middle East confounds understandings of the origin of war prevalent today. Kelly addresses fundamental questions concerning the trinity of interrelationship between human nature, war, and the constitution of society: Is war a primordial and pervasive feature of human existence or a set of practices that arose at a certain time in our recent prehistoric past? Are there peaceful societies in which war is absent and, if so, what are they like and how do they differ from warlike societies? Do the critical differentiating features pertain to child-rearing practices, to modes of conflict resolution, to social and economic inequality, to resource competition, or to the constitution of social groups? As the conclusions of such an inquiry are central to our conceptions of human nature, the book will interest a wide range of readers, from those curious about the origins of collective violence to those studying the roles social institutions play in society. Raymond C. Kelly is Professor of Anthropology, University of Michigan.
New 14C dates from archaeological sites in Oaxaca, Mexico, support R. C. Kelly's observation that intervillage raiding may begin as soon as a region has segmentary societies. The oldest defensive palisade dates to 3260-3160 B.P. in conventional radiocarbon years, only a few centuries after village life was established. Over the next millennium raiding evolved into war, with residences and temples burned, captives killed, and populations moving to defensible hills. 14C dates are now available for the first use of hieroglyphic writing to record a captive's name, military victories leading to the consolidation of the Zapotec state, the first skull rack, and the building of a fortress in conquered territory.
In summary, then, the circumscription theory in its elaborated form goes far toward accounting for the origin of the state. It explains why states arose where they did, and why they failed to arise elsewhere. It shows the state to be a predictable response to certain specific cultural, demographic, and ecological conditions. Thus, it helps to elucidate what was undoubtedly the most important single step ever taken in the political evolution of mankind.
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