This piece in the LA Times describes the excavation of the site of Tell Hamoukar in Syria, that has uncovered evidence that 5500 years ago the city there was sacked by an invasion from Mesopotamia. It is one of the earliest examples of large-scale warfare, and as the article says, "The discovery of the devastated remains of the ancient trading center suggests that the urge to attack and conquer cities is as old and basic as the need to build them..." It has also presented the archaeologists with one of those moments "frozen in time" in the archaeological record, as I posted about here.
It would be impossible to deny that the specter of aggression has been with us always. Constant Battles: Why We Fight, a book by archaeologist Steven LeBlanc shows that many of the earliest human fossils we have show evidence of violence. He demonstrates that the archaeological record all over the world is replete with examples. It is so pervasive, it seems woven into us.
In a comment to a post here a few days ago I said, "More than we want to admit, physically and mentally we are still curious and manipulative Pleistocene apes and it shows in all we do and say." I think I should amend that to "...curious, manipulative, and aggressive Pleistocene apes..."
1 comment:
My book this evening is "Nature Via Nurture" by Matt Ridley, which is a masterful sorting out of what is "instinct," or hormonal, or learned. The genome is barely the beginning of the molecular ruckus that gives rise to us all and then gets tangled in war and love. (Maybe in the future we can put all the leaders on oxytocin, the "nurturing gene.") But the historical evidence is also compelling. The stories go together.
Prairie Mary
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