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An Ancient, Brutal Massacre May Be the Earliest Evidence of War
- drewblaisdell 11y ago> Even nomadic hunter-gatherers engaged in deliberate mass killings 10,000 years ago This may be our earliest evidence of it, but I would bet that even pre-sapien hominids engaged in deliberate mass killings for tens of thousands of years. 10kYBP is still very recent in the history of our species.
- greenyoda 11y ago"I would bet that even pre-sapien hominids engaged in deliberate mass killings for tens of thousands of years..." I think that's very likely. The article notes that chimpanzees "deliberately stalk and kill members of other groups". So humans may have inherited these nasty traits from our primate ancestors ages ago.
- i_feel_great 11y agoThe Gombe Chimpanzee War: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gombe_Chimpanzee_War https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gombe_Chimpanzee_War
- nefitty 11y agoAmazing. Thanks for sharing this. Next time someone appeals to nature, I'll drop this little tidbit to remind them that life out there isn't all roses and butterflies.
- rorykoehler 11y agoUnlike their gentle Bonobo cousins, Chimps are notoriously aggressive. Humans are said to be 50% Chimp and 50% Bonobo in behaviour.
- i_feel_great 11y agoThis article has been edited since I first looked at it around 2013. At that time, there were other explicit descriptions of the violence - chimps killing and eating infants from the other group, and beatings and rape of females. This New Scientist article has more details: https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg22229682.600-only-known-chimp-war-reveals-how-societies-splinter https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg22229682.600-only-kno...
- gus_massa 11y agoThe newscientific's article has more information. But I think the documented case of eating chimps children is from another place. And this is the revision that did that remove the rape part: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Gombe_Chimpanzee_War&type=revision&diff=649596805&oldid=633464265 https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Gombe_Chimpanzee_... The comment is: > The war: Second paragraph. Chimps were not raped. No where does this reference occur in Goodall's articles or any other Gombe researcher. The source seems to be the Morris reference. I don't know where they got that.
- scottlocklin 11y agoWhile the article is interesting, the title of this article is kind of rubbish; there is vast evidence of pre-8000bc mesolithic warfare in Europe and North Africa. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prehistoric_warfare https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prehistoric_warfare https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cemetery_117 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cemetery_117
- Rodeoclash 11y agoReminds me of the Cormac McCarthy quote: "War was always here. Before man was, war waited for him. The ultimate trade awaiting its ultimate practitioner"
- WJW 11y agoThat seems a bit pretentious. Surely there can be a species better suited for war?
- talmand 11y agoFrom the videos I've seen ants and wasps are pretty good at it.
- paulddraper 11y agoSo far, humans are the only ones to build a fusion bomb.
- Claudus 11y agoI wonder how accurate the millennium approximations are, it would put this event about 2000 years before the 1 in 17 males reproducing for every female at the dawn of agriculture. https://www.reddit.com/r/history/comments/2zkgq5/8000_years_ago_17_women_reproduced_for_every_one/ https://www.reddit.com/r/history/comments/2zkgq5/8000_years_...
- TurboHaskal 11y agoThe article is hilarious. Not only they seem reluctant to coming to terms with our nature, but they had to clarify that, in a great exercise of our anthropocentrism, that we and only us humans are also capable of showing acts of altruism. Just in case somebody gets upset at the idea that violence and warfare might not be social constructs.
- arjn 11y agoI find it strange the author of the article seems to imply this is a surprising find. Humans have been slaughtering each other for all sorts of reasons since the beginning of known history. This merely is another confirmation.