Increasing acceptance of ancient American warfare

[Dave Beatty]

There is increasing acceptance of warfare throughout pre-contact North America. From mass graves in California containing the bodies of men far from home who died violently to new evidence showing the destruction of cliff dwellings in Arizona the myth of the "noble savage" is being dispelled.

"Chronicling 16,820 burials from 329 sites among 13 different ethnographic groups, the data reveal that the most common type of violence over the millennia was so-called sharp-force trauma, caused by projectiles like arrows or atlatl darts, which appeared in 7.2% of the burials studied.

Another 4.3% of the hunter-gatherers suffered apparent blunt-force trauma to the head, while just under 1% showed evidence of dismemberment, with limbs, scalps, or heads having been removed after death."

So death from projectiles was not quite twice as likely as death from clubs. This poses an interesting challenge for war game designers - maybe ranged weapons really are more deadly than close combat.

Perhaps the myth of peaceful inhabitants of pre-Vedic India who built massive walls to "keep back the flooding rivers" is next....

http://westerndigs.org/new-evidence-reveals-violent-final-days-at-arizonas-montezuma-castle/?utm_source=The+Latest+News+From+Western+Digs&utm_campaign=34ba57a25f-Western_Digs_email_subscription6_2_2015&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_d6a6246710-34ba57a25f-252402941&mc_cid=34ba57a25f&mc_eid=eacc95b173

http://westerndigs.org/mass-grave-found-in-california-reveals-prehistoric-violence-against-outsiders/?utm_source=The+Latest+News+From+Western+Digs&utm_campaign=34ba57a25f-Western_Digs_email_subscription6_2_2015&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_d6a6246710-34ba57a25f-252402941&mc_cid=34ba57a25f&mc_eid=eacc95b173

http://westerndigs.org/from-stone-darts-to-dismembered-bodies-new-study-reveals-5000-years-of-violence-in-central-california/

[aligern]

A bit like the archaeologists who think hill forts are there to express group unity and prestige when the said forts have complex defended entrances dehsigned as a protection and force multiplier for the defenders which would have taken vast amounts of labour. Not that there is  no prestige element to fortifications.
In N America it was a revelation to read that in actuality  Plains Indians slaghtered far more buffalo than they needed, because it was fun and a test of skill to kill them.

[Duncan Head]

A bit like the archaeologists who think hill forts are there to express group unity and prestige when the said forts have complex defended entrances dehsigned as a protection and force multiplier for the defenders which would have taken vast amounts of labour. Not that there is  no prestige element to fortifications.

The recent Sling Warfare book that I mentioned in the Currently Reading thread makes an interesting distinction between the purpose of the site, and the purpose of the fortification. The defences clearly have a military function, but that does not by itself say much about whether the "fort" was or was not built for military reasons in the first place.

[Erpingham]

Good point from Duncan.  The idea that hillforts were just fortifications seems simplistic.  The idea that they were just prestige sites seems naive.  The idea that they were multifunctional defensive sites that made a statement about the communities that made them and acted as nodes in economic and social networks seems much more plausible to me.

[aligern]

Most forts or castles pre the 19th century are multi functional. Sticking up something massive with defended gateways and white facing stones says ...look at us, we are powerful and rich, there are a lot of us and this pkace will take longer to take than your food will last.' I think we all agree on that. We will also agree that  'hillforts' is a generic term that might include enclosures that are for religious or gathering events, rather like building a wall around the Glastonbury site. However, we might also agree that the ones with steep sides, multiple walls and compkex entrance structures are for a military purpose , even if a non exclusive one .
Roy

[gavindbm]

Azar Gat, in War in Human Civilisation, spends a lot of pages demolishing the peaceful savage in the state of nature arguments (though I don't think he addresses the Vedic culture)

[Patrick Waterson]

So death from projectiles was not quite twice as likely as death from clubs. This poses an interesting challenge for war game designers - maybe ranged weapons really are more deadly than close combat.

I think this is generally true in Amerindian warfare; it was certainly true among the Plains Indians in the 19th century on account of their style of warfare: principally raiding and skirmishing, with minimal close combat, much of which was anyway just counting coup.  The question is really whether missile weapons are usually more deadly than close combat or whether this is true only of certain styles of warfare (and levels of protection).