The Archaeology of Violence: Interdisciplinary Approaches

Chapter Two: War Without Warriors?: The Nature of Interpersonal Conflict before the Emergence of Formalized Warrior Elites

19 Rick J. Schulting Abstract Despite the apparent absence of formal and specialized weaponry, there is considerable skeletal evidence for interpersonal violence in the European Neolithic (ca. 5500–2500 cal B.C.). The nature and contexts of these episodes of violence can be shown to vary, and seem to have much in common with conflict as seen in smallscale societies ethnographically, in which most or all adult males act as “warriors” as and when the situation requires. This observation, together with Raymond Kelly’s notion of social substitution and the central role of revenge, provides a useful way of understanding some aspects of intergroup conflict, linking violence to wider social identities. These ideas are developed here, and extended to the changing roles and nature of conflict in the Late Neolithic, and more particularly in the Bronze Age, marked by the first appearance of specialized weaponry and an ideology centered around the image of a male warrior élite. Introduction The European Neolithic provides a rich resource for the study of interpersonal violence in prehistory. The lack of written records means that the only surviving evidence comes from material culture (including architecture), settlement patterns, rare iconography, and, as emphasized here, skeletal remains. In contrast to other lines of evidence, which are often more ambiguous (fortifications and weapons may be as much about status as conflict; representations may be symbolic, etc.), trauma recorded on the human skeleton is, when properly identified, the indisputable result of real incidents, though understanding the contexts in which they occurred is often less straightforward. Chapter Two War Without Warriors? The Nature of Interpersonal Conflict before the Emergence of Formalized Warrior Elites 20 The Contexts of Violence Much discussion on prehistoric violence has focused on the question of the point at which it becomes legitimate to speak of “warfare” (e.g., Beyneix 2007). In some respects, this overly restricts the use of the evidence, which can inform on a variety of contexts for interpersonal violence, including those occurring within the household or the community. At the same time, identifying and distinguishing between these contexts is often a very difficult, if not impossible, task. “Warfare” here refers to armed conflict of lethal intent between two or more autonomous sociopolitical groups. This is distinct from feud, which occurs within a single group, or homicide, which can occur between individuals either within or between sociopolitical groups (though more often the former, through simple physical proximity; the latter situation, unless quickly resolved, almost invariably escalates into feud or warfare). The definition of “warrior identity” in its fully developed form, can be seen as a specialized identity, often, though not always, associated with young/middle adult males, and carrying with it the expectation that these are the individuals primarily responsible for a group’s defense and offense directed against other groups. This status will often be accompanied by a distinct material culture, including first and foremost specialized weaponry, which may not be generally available to other members of the group; it may also include other insignia. But warfare appears long before formal weaponry. The earliest known example with evidence for multiple injuries that can be reasonably attributed to large-scale, intergroup conflict comes from the oft-cited Epipalaeolithic cemetery 117 at Jebel Sahaba in Sudan, dating from ca. 13,000 years ago (Judd 2006; Wendorf 1968). A sufficient number of Mesolithic skeletons are found across Europe with embedded projectile points, and blows to the head, to strongly suggest more than occasional violence (Bennike 1985; Grünberg 1996; Orschiedt 1998; Roksandic 2006; Vencl 1984). For much of Europe, the frequency and scale of conflict may increase further with the appearance of the Neolithic, though the comparison is not a straightforward one, and is greatly hampered by the relative paucity and uneven distribution of Mesolithic human remains. But, with the exception of the late Neolithic, in neither period is there unequivocal evidence for the emergence of a specialized warrior identity: there are few indications of formal weapons that could not equally serve other purposes (Chapman 1999), iconographic portrayals are rare, and there are few if any contenders for distinct warrior graves. This paper addresses the nature of “war without warriors” from the perspective of Neolithic Europe. Ethnographic cases of band and tribal conflict are drawn upon to help elucidate the nature of warfare in these small-scale societies. Discussion ends with a consideration of the appearance of formal weaponry in the Bronze Age, and how this might affect the nature and scale of interpersonal violence. Evidence...