Lethal Aggression in Mobile Forager Bands and Implications for the Origins of War

Abstract

Ancient Warriors or Murderers? Some have suggested that the human predilection for war is ancient, perhaps dating back to the emergence of our species, while others maintain that evidence for such early warring is scant. Past studies that looked at nomadic foraging bands as models of early humans and their potential for conflict concluded that war is in our blood. Fry and Söderberg (p. 270 ), however, reexamined the standard cross-cultural sample, the main repository for behavioral data on forage bands, and found little evidence for large-scale conflicts or wars. Instead, the majority of incidences of lethal aggression in these societies were homicides driven by a variety of factors relevant at the individual or family scale.