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from the turning-ploughshares-into-swords dept.
Violence and warfare were widespread in many Neolithic communities across Northwest Europe:
Of the skeletal remains of more than 2300 early farmers from 180 sites dating from around 8000 – 4000 years ago to, more than one in ten displayed weapon injuries, bioarchaeologists found.
Contrary to the view that the Neolithic era was marked by peaceful cooperation, the team of international researchers say that in some regions the period from 6000BC to 2000BC may be a high point in conflict and violence with the destruction of entire communities.
The findings also suggest the rise of growing crops and herding animals as a way of life, replacing hunting and gathering, may have laid the foundations for formalised warfare.
[...] More than ten per cent showed damage potentially caused by frequent blows to the head by blunt instruments or stone axes. Several examples of penetrative injuries, thought to be from arrows, were also found.
Some of the injuries were linked to mass burials, which could suggest the destruction of entire communities, the researchers say.
Journal Reference:
Linda Fibiger, Torbjörn Ahlström, Christian Meyer, and Martin Smith, Conflict, violence, and warfare among early farmers in Northwestern Europe [open], PNAS, 2022. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2209481119
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 16 2023, @04:20PM (4 children)
Wherever there are men working peacefully to feed their family, there are other men who want to rule them and take some or all of their stuff for themselves and the "greater good".
Now that we've "evolved" we call those farmers "white supremacists", and the gang of thugs "government" the theft "taxes", and the "greater good" is socialism.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 16 2023, @05:11PM (1 child)
You're correct, to some extent. I'm not sure where you are in the world, but you'd do yourself more good by looking around you and counting up all the benefits you receive and use as a result of organized society. Drive? Did you pave the roads? You'd rather have mud trails? Traffic lights, stop signs, etc? You'd rather have chaos and collisions? Ambulance? How about electricity? You'd rather have corporate monopoly supply your electricity? How much do you think they'd charge without govt. regulation? Ever study the Great Depression? Any concept of what food would cost if govt. didn't partially control food prices and production? No system is perfect, but you'd do yourself a great service if you'd shut your mouth and fingers, open your eyes and ears, and actually think a bit rather than react and spew verbal vomit.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 17 2023, @01:08PM
It's the same low-intelligence argument everywhere.
*derp*You don't use roads?!?!? What about schools?!?!?!
As if the only way of driving on a road is by having the government *force* you to pay for it through fuel taxes, then squander the taxes through mismanagement, government retirement programs, and hiring the contractors that donate the most money to their campaigns.
It's not like someone other than government could build a road and charge for it. You know...voluntarily. Not by threatening to lock people in cages like dogs.
And no, I don't use public schools. Lots of people don't. There are childless people. There are people that home-school. And what does public school get you anyways? Morons who can't think for themselves. Education targeting the lowest common denominator. Most of my extended family are school teachers. They can tell you stories of stupid kids and dumb parents that cost the taxpayers insane amounts of money and teacher time....because dumb people think everyone is entitled to a taxpayer-funded education.
As for electricity, it's already run by a corporate monopoly. I'm not in Texas where the grid is owned by the government and every utility connects to it to provide service to customers that choose them. In my area, you either build your old solar system (not enough sunlight) or you pay the one monopoly provider for service.
I worked for an ambulance service. Every year they'd whine and bitch about money. Not because they needed it, but because (and I quote) "If we don't ask for more, we'll never get it, and if we don't get it, we can't spend it".
The average income for a family in my area was about $36,000. But if you worked for the government monopoly ambulance service, you earned around $70,000/year plus benefits, plus retirement, plus working two 24-hour shifts per week, plus tons of vacation. It was great. Nearly $3,000,000 per year to pay for 8 dudes to live a lavish lifestyle, play with all sorts of fancy gear, new uniforms every few months, "admin" vehicles we didn't need so admins could sleep at home every night while having flashing lights in case they *decided* they wanted to go "supervise" a call. Oh, and let's not forget the best part of the retirement plan....when you decide you've had enough of driving real fast, being in the local parade, free drinks for heroes at the local bar, etc....you just "torque your back" on some call, go on leave, and find a doctor to say you are disabled. Then you get slightly-reduced pay and government disability for life.
Most of the EMTs/Paramedics I knew worked two days every week and then had a "side business".
One guy started a tow company. He didn't follow regulations because he was friends with all the cops through the ambulance service. They would give him the "easy" tows, and he would bill the county/vehicle owner extortionate amounts.
Another guy was kinda creepy. Whenever we would run calls on old people who would die, he would swoop in a few days later and low-ball the family with cash to help with expenses...for their departed loved one's home. He would flip it using low-paid illegal immigrant labor and sell it for twice was it was worth.
A third guy would buy bulk medical supplies from the cheapest vendor he could find, store it in his shed, and then sell it to the ambulance service at a healthy mark-up. I don't know why they went with him. His prices weren't the cheapest. He made thousands per month off the shady deal.
Another guy stole morphine for years and re-sold it before he was finally "caught". Slap on the wrist because he was a "hero" who just had a problem. Back to work 3 months later.
Another guy would drink and drive regularly. Fortunately never while on duty. One night he plowed into a house. Thankfully no one was injured, but the first-arriving deputy was his friend, and he was told to "run" so they couldn't sobriety-test him. His brand-new model-year pick-up truck that cost ~$50,000 was totaled and covered completely by insurance. The deputy said a "tire blew" and he lost control on wet roads. He joked (semi-privately) that he was drunk as a skunk when it happened.
Fuck government. It forces you to pay for lowlifes and losers. And if you don't, you'll be caged like a dog or shot.
Mafia.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Opportunist on Thursday March 16 2023, @07:17PM (1 child)
C'mon, if you want to be racist, at least go all the way and call the farmers the white master race and the bandits who want to steal their produce some N-word.
It's not like you're fooling anyone.
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Thursday March 16 2023, @09:32PM
In historic times agricultural societies were often invaded by less settled groups. But the less settled groups were also often exported from their home agricultural society. (Not always, read about the Medes and the Persians.)
The Hittite conquest of Egypt was carried out between two largely agricultural societies, but the Hittites were less settled and more militaristic. They also had better knowledge of iron working and horse handling. Or consider the invasion of Greece by the Danos (as in "timeo danaos et dona ferentes". Previously Greece had been held bye the Pelops (hence Peloponnesia) (i.e. the Mycenae). This WAS an unsettled tribe advancing to conquer an agricultural civilization.
Well, OK. The problem is that we don't know that patterns during historic eras match those from earlier times. But agricultural lifestyles tend to support higher populations than hunter-gatherer or pastoral lifestyles. (I'm avoiding the word "civilization" here, as that means the art of living in cities.) But there is inherent conflict, because farms like to use the best hunting grounds.
Were I to guess, I'd guess that the farmers kept moving onto the best hunting ground, until in desperation the hunters staged a "big hunt" against the farmers. Look into the interactions between the hunter-gathers or the pastorialists in recent time with the farmers moving onto their turf. Now imagine the weaponry on both sides was about equal, but the hunters were more proficient in the use.
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