Inter-group violence among early Holocene hunter-gatherers..

[Ish Gebor]

Hunter-gatherers weren’t as peaceful as we thought

www.youtube.com/watch?v=UckMvAadRRo

The nature of inter-group relations among prehistoric hunter-gatherers remains disputed, with arguments in favour and against the existence of warfare before the development of sedentary societies1, 2. Here we report on a case of inter-group violence towards a group of hunter-gatherers from Nataruk, west of Lake Turkana, which during the late Pleistocene/early Holocene period extended about 30 km beyond its present-day shore3. Ten of the twelve articulated skeletons found at Nataruk show evidence of having died violently at the edge of a lagoon, into which some of the bodies fell. The remains from Nataruk are unique, preserved by the particular conditions of the lagoon with no evidence of deliberate burial. They offer a rare glimpse into the life and death of past foraging people, and evidence that warfare was part of the repertoire of inter-group relations among prehistoric hunter-gatherers.


www.nature.com/nature/journal/v529/n7586/fig_tab/nature16477_F1.html

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--M. Mirazón Lahr et al.

Inter-group violence among early Holocene hunter-gatherers of West Turkana, Kenya


Nature 529, 394–398 (21 January 2016) doi:10.1038/nature16477
Received 31 July 2015 Accepted 23 November 2015 Published online 20 January 2016

www.nature.com/nature/journal/v529/n7586/full/nature16477.html