War before civilization
by Lawrence H. Keeley · first published 1996
53% recommend40% neutral7% critical
Why HN recommends it
Evidence-driven survey of prehistoric and tribal warfare that rebuts the peaceful noble savage idea using archaeological data; widely cited as an accessible introduction for readers interested in war before states.
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
The myth of the peace-loving "noble savage" is persistent and pernicious. Indeed, for the last fifty years, most popular and scholarly works have agreed that prehistoric warfare was rare, harmless, unimportant, and, like smallpox, a disease of civilized societies alone. Prehistoric warfare, according to this view, was little more than a ritualized game, where casualties were limited and the effects of aggression relatively mild. Lawrence Keeley's groundbreaking War Before Civilization offers a devastating rebuttal to such comfortable myths and debunks the notion that warfare was introduced to
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I took a poli-sci class covering war a(n increasingly long) while back. The professor devoted a huge amount of time[1] to disproving the notion of the peaceful "noble savage" and assigned Keeley's War Before Civilization[2], which is, I gather, still one of the best accessible texts about war in prehistory. May be of interest to anyone wanting to read a book-length exploration of the topic. TL;DR: it corroborates tjradcliffe's…
on “Did The Harappan Civilization Avoid War for 2,000 Years?” ↗…years, most popular and scholarly works have agreed that prehistoric warfare was rare, harmless, unimportant, and, like smallpox, a disease of civilized societies alone. Lawrence Keeley's groundbreaking War Before Civilization offers a devastating rebuttal to such comfortable myths and debunks the notion that warfare was introduced to primitive societies through contact with civilization (an idea he denounces as "the pacification…
on “Fire use: The first signal of widespread cultural diffusion in human evolution” ↗…it's large numbers of braves with obsidian arrowheads or muskets. A good read for some perspective on what we can piece together about what pre-colonial America was like: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_Before_Civilization > "According to Keeley, among the indigenous peoples of the Americas, only 13% did not engage in wars with their neighbors at least once per year. The natives' pre-Columbian ancient practice of using…
on “DHS Quits Granting Green Cards–Almost” ↗Much has been written on the topic. Here's a fairly decent book. http://www.amazon.com/War-Before-Civilization-Peaceful-Savag...
on “The Worst Mistake in the History of the Human Race (1987)” ↗But tribes fight better than civilizations (less concern for social status, less internal dissention; read War Before Civilization for an interesting discussion of this) -- so over-civilization is self-correcting in a way. Turchin sees his ideas as an elaboration on ibn Khaldun...
on “Computer Simulations Suggest War Drove the Rise of Civilisations (2013)” ↗This reminds me of the book War before Civilization, about the archeological evidence for pre-historical war and the many attempts to dismiss it, to declare walls merely symbolical (symbols of what?), weapons as means of exchange (valuable why?). A water…
on “China's ancient water pipe networks” ↗Also Lawrence Keeley, War Before Civilization
on “Evidence that Neanderthal and Homo sapiens engaged in cultural exchange” ↗War Before Civilization is a terrific book. One of the things I recall from it is a debunking of the "ceremonial" nature of war in stone age cultures. It may seem ceremonial that two groups meet, fight, and disengage without…
on “Did The Harappan Civilization Avoid War for 2,000 Years?” ↗I am not aware of any theory that would suggest humans in forcible future will eradicate violent conflicts, regarding past there is great book; War Before Civilization: The Myth of the Peaceful Savage
on “Geoffrey Hinton leaves Google and can now speak freely about his AI concern” ↗> War Before Civilization: the Myth of the Peaceful Savage (Oxford University Press, 1996) is a book by Lawrence H. Keeley, a professor of archaeology at the University of Illinois at Chicago who specializes in prehistoric Europe.…
on “New species of ancient human discovered in the Philippines: Homo luzonensis” ↗It's true enough that in the early 2000s one of my poli-sci professors devoted most of a course to the book War Before Civilization and kept hammering on the idea of prehistoric war being widespread and common as some kind of huge revelation and surprise. I found such intense and sustained focus baffling, since the point seemed obvious…
on “Slaughter at the bridge: Uncovering a colossal Bronze Age battle (2016)” ↗…(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NNnIGh9g6fA&list=PL848F2368C...). The same researcher has also a book called Behave: The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst, which focus a fair bit on aggression and violence. There is War Before Civilization: The Myth of the Peaceful Savage, which also has a counter-argument book which name is currently evading me.
on ““Women are wonderful” effect” ↗…appears to be true not only of historical foraging cultures, but also prehistoric and primeval ones."[1][8][9][10] [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Original_affluent_society [8] Keeley, Lawrence. War Before Civilization [9] http://johnhawks.net/weblog/reviews/life_history/aging_evolu... [10] https://condensedscience.wordpress.com/2011/06/28/life-expec...
on ““Eurocentric modernist” thinking is exploding” ↗https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_Before_Civilization Keeley says peaceful societies are an exception. About 90-95% of known societies engage in war. Those that did not are almost universally either isolated nomadic groups (for whom flight is an option),…
on “Productive on six hours of sleep? You’re deluding yourself, expert says” ↗I gather it was a trendy view in certain sectors of academia for some time, and possibly in parts of pop culture. In about '04 or '05 one of my poli sci classes assigned War Before Civilization: the Myth of the Peaceful Savage (OUP, 1996, Keeley) and the professor spent much time debunking the notion of the peaceful savage or a time before war, but already then, almost two decades ago, it seemed…
on “Oldest Fortresses in the World Discovered” ↗