Can't put a premium on head protection. It's not just brain injury - it's where all your sense organs are, as well. Stuff flying into your eyes and ears will ma

Can't put a premium on head protection. It's not just brain injury - it's where all your sense organs are, as well. Stuff flying into your eyes and ears will make you combat ineffective even if you're not concussed. It tends to be the first thing to get hit when something falls (or is dropped!) on you, not an uncommon thing to have happen in premodern war. Or even in modern war. Furthermore, it's where most of your environmental heat loss occurs, so you'll want something on your dome no matter what. Might as well add some leather/horn/wood/metal. Head protection probably naturally flowed from protective headgear worn against the environment, which can be seen in decorative ceramics as far back as 25,000 BC. It might very well cross Hominid species boundaries, as the spread and success of H. Erectus was based at least partly on fire usage. Today, many species of Pongines use large leaves and other material as semi-wearable rain shelters; it's a habit the locals have picked up, as well. Soft armor, who knows? Textiles don't age well, unfortunately. The first signs of military helmets (and shields!) very nearly precede the earliest dates for domestic agriculture, lending weight to the growing view that coercion led to centralized agricultural statism, rather than the reverse, which is the more standard, traditional view. The "Meskalamdug Helmet" is a a highly-ornamented example of an early helm, stylized in such a way that suggests the form of the infantry helm was a recognizable semiotic to contemporaries. You don't build a statue of a cell phone in 1880s London, so they made it look that way for a reason. And again we come to morale. A helmet de-humanizes the soldier, both to the enemy and to allies, which keeps combatants from engaging in normal nonverbal communication. Restrict empathy, and you increase the chance of violence and the strength of the violence when it does happen. So you wear a mask when you do it, a scary one, like a lion head or an angry fire being. It's pretty common-sense stuff - I mean, look at the plumes on the Spartan's helm - but it's cross-cultural as well, which hints at a deeper principle. Helmets from the Neolithic far east seem to have developed this aspect first, as they start out from ceremonial pottery, then the same design reinforced with basketry, and then you have the same design as a lacquer mask on a more dedicated military helmet. We do have to be very careful here, because the pattern of civilization building is just very, very different in China, and probably all over. It's deceptive, you're tempted to think of it the same, but look at the details of the timeline and you realize whoa, hold up a second, they did this waaaayyyy before this other thing.