There're much more recent assessments of the incidence of human-to-human violence in hunter-gatherer days, and it looks like things didn't really get that messy at all until a bit after agriculture got off the ground (conceptual pun not intended). Look at Figure 2 of the paper found here to see what I mean: https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/9mjnl0ou7s3ee3krty25z/Violence-trends-in-the-ancient-Middle-East-between-12-000-and-400-BCE.pdf?rlkey=yw52gwmzbk7bihm4eixvbet9n&dl=0. Interestingly, there's quite a bit of evidence that suggests increased carb eating, like that started by the first Agricultural Revolution, causes a higher proportion of people to become mentally ill (schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, anxiety disorder, depression, etc.), and the proportion of violent people is about 4xs higher in the mentally ill than it is in those who are mentally healthy. For discussions of the mental illness - high carb connection, see Georgia Ede's "Change Your Diet, Change Your Mind" and Christopher Palmer's "Brain Energy". Finally, if you go scavenging among the archeological papers describing Neolithic Revolution burial sites, you'll see there are some indications that the newly-created carb-eating farmers were the more violent ones -- mostly either killing each other, or attacking the hunter-gatherers. Sort of an archeological Cain and Abel story.
The paper you dropped is great. From the data/ethnographic studies I've seen, and this paper seems to hint that the data is still valid, violence rates were high for pre-state hunter-gatherers (exponentially higher than violence in, say, 2023), then even higher than that for pre-state agriculturalists, only to drop with the introduction of larger "states" with laws and societal organization.
I had not heard the carbohydrate theory... that is fascinating.
In that Figure 2 I referred you to, note that the "pre-state hunter-gatherers" you are referring to are the dominant Mesolithic/Neolithic people with the lowest violence rate on the far, far left hand side of the graph. Violence picks up greatly in the Chalcolithic period, which is still pre-state, and follows the Neolithic's (after Mesolithic) early introduction of farming, but that's ONLY after farmers were operating more widely and started mixing more (and competing) with the original pre-Chalcolithic/post-Mesolithic hunter-gatherers.
As I listened, I could not help but to think of all the times leaders would yell “complacency kills” during drills when they felt like our performance could’ve been better. Besides our efforts, I Velcro this also had something to do with the fact that my peers and I were serving during “peace time” and as leaders, they wanted to ensure we do not get complacent and we’re prepared to react any time in any place.
This mentality, I feel like ties In directly with our day to day outside of the military. Your post is a great reminder that every day can bring a battle we must be prepared for, it may be in the form of using public transportation, attending a movie theater, or simply crossing the street.
There're much more recent assessments of the incidence of human-to-human violence in hunter-gatherer days, and it looks like things didn't really get that messy at all until a bit after agriculture got off the ground (conceptual pun not intended). Look at Figure 2 of the paper found here to see what I mean: https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/9mjnl0ou7s3ee3krty25z/Violence-trends-in-the-ancient-Middle-East-between-12-000-and-400-BCE.pdf?rlkey=yw52gwmzbk7bihm4eixvbet9n&dl=0. Interestingly, there's quite a bit of evidence that suggests increased carb eating, like that started by the first Agricultural Revolution, causes a higher proportion of people to become mentally ill (schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, anxiety disorder, depression, etc.), and the proportion of violent people is about 4xs higher in the mentally ill than it is in those who are mentally healthy. For discussions of the mental illness - high carb connection, see Georgia Ede's "Change Your Diet, Change Your Mind" and Christopher Palmer's "Brain Energy". Finally, if you go scavenging among the archeological papers describing Neolithic Revolution burial sites, you'll see there are some indications that the newly-created carb-eating farmers were the more violent ones -- mostly either killing each other, or attacking the hunter-gatherers. Sort of an archeological Cain and Abel story.
Thank you for the comment.
The paper you dropped is great. From the data/ethnographic studies I've seen, and this paper seems to hint that the data is still valid, violence rates were high for pre-state hunter-gatherers (exponentially higher than violence in, say, 2023), then even higher than that for pre-state agriculturalists, only to drop with the introduction of larger "states" with laws and societal organization.
I had not heard the carbohydrate theory... that is fascinating.
In that Figure 2 I referred you to, note that the "pre-state hunter-gatherers" you are referring to are the dominant Mesolithic/Neolithic people with the lowest violence rate on the far, far left hand side of the graph. Violence picks up greatly in the Chalcolithic period, which is still pre-state, and follows the Neolithic's (after Mesolithic) early introduction of farming, but that's ONLY after farmers were operating more widely and started mixing more (and competing) with the original pre-Chalcolithic/post-Mesolithic hunter-gatherers.
Sam, thank you for sharing.
As I listened, I could not help but to think of all the times leaders would yell “complacency kills” during drills when they felt like our performance could’ve been better. Besides our efforts, I Velcro this also had something to do with the fact that my peers and I were serving during “peace time” and as leaders, they wanted to ensure we do not get complacent and we’re prepared to react any time in any place.
This mentality, I feel like ties In directly with our day to day outside of the military. Your post is a great reminder that every day can bring a battle we must be prepared for, it may be in the form of using public transportation, attending a movie theater, or simply crossing the street.
As always, thank you for your unique perspective!
This is great Erik - spot on.