Sarah Peacey, The Conversation: Have humans always gone to war?
The question of whether warfare is encoded in our genes, or appeared as a result of civilisation, has long fascinated anyone trying to get to grips with human society. Might a willingness to fight neighbouring groups have provided our ancestors with an evolutionary advantage? With conflicts raging across the globe, these questions have implications for understanding our past, and perhaps our future as well.
The Enlightenment philosophers Thomas Hobbes and Jean-Jacques Rousseau had different visions of prehistory. Hobbes saw humanity’s earliest days as dominated by fear and warfare, whereas Rousseau thought that, without the influence of civilisation, humans would be at peace and in harmony with nature.
The debate continues to this day. Without a time machine, researchers examining warfare in prehistory largely rely on archaeology, primatology and anthropology.
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WNU Editor: We have been conducting war for a very long time. Some previous posts ....
Mankind's First Genocide?
Oldest Evidence Of Violence Between Humans Unearthed In China
Warfare Started With The Creation Of Man's First Nation States
2 comments:
Ultimately we are nothing but cavemen with extremely fancy tools.
Put bacteria in a petri dish. Observe.
Then there are there reasons such as "because we can" (See Riverworld)
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