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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: 5, Insightful) by bradley13 on Thursday March 16 2023, @05:04PM (4 children)
It is inherently easier to destroy than to create. It is easier to take from another than to produce something yourself.
Today, we have governments, laws and police forces to keep these problems in check. Before? A small, agricultural community must have been a tempting target for raiders, or for communities whose crops had failed.
Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
(Score: 0, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 16 2023, @06:26PM (1 child)
Unfortunately we are letting the thugs run the government/police. Majority rule is deteriorating into mob rule
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 16 2023, @11:26PM
Flamebait
Of course the collaborators in denial would mod me down, "The Sorrow and The Pity" is a documentary, after all. Maybe it should be required viewing
Humans are savages, it takes an iron fist to keep the peace
(Score: 0, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 16 2023, @07:48PM
And
The purpose of (modern) government is to take from another.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 17 2023, @02:28AM
Today you have governments taking your money to spend part of it to destroy stuff and kill people thousands of miles a way and and spending another part of it to convince you that it's to defend you.
And police who are so cowardly, unfit and lazy that they regularly murder people- "Got to shoot that guy in the back because I might get a heart attack running after him - he's putting my life at risk!"