> How can you be an archaeologist and not think war has been a major part of human history? Archaeologists are not arguing that warfare hasn't been a major par

> How can you be an archaeologist and not think war has been a major part of human history? Archaeologists are not arguing that warfare hasn't been a major part of human history, rather they don't implied idea that warfare benefited humanity. However this isn't what the study is saying, the study is saying that "the introduction of mounted warfare and the emergence of iron weapons" resulted in an increase in social complexity. * An increase in social complexity may or may not be a good thing for humanity overall. For instance the indicators of social complexity used here were among other things: size of bureaucracy and size of empire. The fall of the Russian empire likely resulted in a decrease in social complexity for Poland: Poland no longer part of a larger state. Many Polish people will tell you that gaining their freedom was an improvement. * There can be different types of increases in social complexity. One might be beneficial to humanity and one might be terrible for humanity. These are not distinguished. * The study is upfront about social complexity not being the same as cultural complexity. You can have an increase in social complexity while seeing a decrease in cultural complexity. * They are looking at one specific innovation, iron weapons and mounted warfare. This doesn't generalize to all warfare. The war between Carthage and Rome resulted in Carthage's total destruction, this did not benefit Carthage and reduced the social complexity of Carthage to null. It's a very big leap from, societies that gain a set specific of weapons improvements gain in social complexity as they build bigger empires --> warfare offers more benefit to humanity than it costs.