4 ms·

I don't buy that. Even chimps go to war between different bands, so we've likely got that in common going back at least 6-7 million years when we shared a commo

• peisistratos 8y ago
  There is evidence of war in the past 10,000 years, little before. Prior to 500 years ago there was little modern contact with the Americas, Australia, parts of sub-Saharan Africa etc., so observation of lack of conflict in hunter-gatherer bands there is more evidence. Obviously I mean hunter-gatherers, not the Aztec warriors. I don't see what chimpanzees have to do with humans, unless chimpanzees are sculpting Venus Madonnas and drawing buffalo on caves.
  • iguy 8y ago
    But there is no such "observation of lack of conflict in hunter-gatherer bands". At least if you use sensible units, like the proportion of deaths which are due to deliberate violence, on which such bands tend to score way above modern society. I think this myth comes from early studies, who wanted to see this, and observed no warfare during the 6 months they spent around 20 people. Later studies asked these 20 to reconstruct their family trees & tabulate how each great-uncle died, etc. (The other possibility is definitional. If we define war as involving thousands of soldiers, then obviously this never happened until societies which could co-ordinate thousands of people arose. May as well define it as involving uniforms & automatic rifles, too.)