How War Began (review)

For more than forty years, Otterbein's published work has been seminal for students of warfare. This book represents his latest survey of, and conclusions about, this dismal but, alas, still important topic.

The information and analyses mustered in this work exemplify the broad database—the general scholarship and "controlled comparison" approach that characterize anthropology, compared to the narrower, more ethnocentrically oriented studies of the self-proclaimed "human sciences." Anthropologists have long argued that generalizations about humans are impossible without a realistic and logical consideration of humankind in all times, all places, and all "cultures." In this work, the author carefully marshals anthropological data on deadly violence between hominid social groups, including that documented by primatologists of human's closest living relatives (chimpanzees), by archaeologists of hominid prehistory, by ethnographers and historians of human ethnology, by historians of literate societies, and data via his special forte, cross-cultural statistical comparisons of modern humans.

In summary, How War Began argues that hominid warfare had two different origins and thus produced two different military organizations, greatly separated in time, basic economy, and sociopolitical context. It argues that warfare first began well over 1 million years ago as a consequence of hominid hunting of big game in small bands and tribes. As big game became rare, and humans began to rely more on small game and plants for food as "settled gatherers," warfare reached a peak of intensity. Intersocial violence gradually waned, becoming rarer and less important as these sedentary gatherers became village agriculturalists. Several thousand years later, as agricultural chiefdoms and states began to consolidate (often by violent force), professional military organizations (armies) began warfare anew. Otterbein's graph (12, Fig. 1.2) of his theses (note the plural) indicates a universal peace among "agricultural villagers" beginning just after 10000 b.c. with the "extinction of large animals," lasting until after 3000 b.c. and the first appearance of agricultural "maximal chiefdom/inchoate early state." He also argues that after this second advent of warfare, "despotic" states have been most responsible for fostering warfare.

This book's dual theses violate Occam's Razor. More importantly, the key data for them is almost entirely prehistoric; that is, it occurs before writing and written records first appeared, c. 3300 B.C. in southwest Asia/Egypt, 2800 B.C. in China, and 300 B.C. in Mesoamerica. It is knowable only via archaeology. As an archaeologist, I will note only that Otterbein's dual-origin hypothesis is contrary to the known facts of world prehistory. To give just one example, fortifications, war weapons, depictions of battles, weapons traumas on human skeletons, and even horrific mass graves of war victims have been commonly documented among early prehistoric agricultural villagers worldwide. ¹ Also, hominids were hunters of large game hundreds of thousands, possibly 2 million, years before any unambiguous evidence of homicide, let alone group homicides or warfare. However, this disagreement regarding details between anthropologists should not, and cannot, eclipse this work's virtues and usefulness to social scientists.

This well-written and clear-minded book considers the most relevant data about warfare among ancient and modern humanity. As was said long ago, "Truth emerges more from error than confusion." This book is definitely not confused. As a well-informed and plausible view of one of humankind's oldest predicaments, it deserves a respectful reading by all scholars concerned with the roots and nature of war.