Archaeological studies of war and violence

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Joukowsky Institute for Archaeology & the Ancient World
Brown University
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In the readings we have looked at from Ancient Warfare and Material Harm, the authors have introduced us to various ideas about war and violence as a scholarly topic as well as an approach to studying the past. What themes repeatedly appear in these chapters? What approaches and evidence do the authors point out or emphasize? What are the limitations and benefits of particular types of evidence or particular approaches?

Posted at Feb 15/2010 05:18PM:Carrie:

Is violence inherent to humans or inevitable for human societies? Why or why not?
What are the social and cultural dimensions of violent acts?
Why is context so important?
What are some of the classes/sources of evidence of warfare available to archaeologists? Are the same classes/sources available for all periods/societies under study? What might be some factors for any difference?

Posted at Feb 16/2010 12:38PM:
Carrie: For a more recent archaeological survey of the topic/study of warfare, check out the 2003 edition of World Archaeology (vol. 35), "The Social Commemoration of Warfare." The link via the library and JSTOR is http://www.jstor.org/stable/i369636, where you can find PDFs of the articles; I've attached two of these (Gilchrist: "Towards a Social Archaeology of War" and Thorpe "Anthropology, Archaeology, and the Origin of Warfare") in the readings section of the wiki if anyone is interested; although the World Archaeology articles touch on more recent wars and focus on social memory, they still may be relevant for our purposes.

Posted at Feb 18/2010 07:19PM:
vicki wilson: I don't think violence is inevitable but conflict is. It's up to society and the individuals themselves to deal with it whatever they deem necessary. Many (especially in ancient times...so it seems) think that the only way to resolve conflict such as religion, land, nationality, beliefs etc it through violence or the physical act of war. Violence, some can argue is a natural tendency for the human race and has been since the Pleistocene period and most likely beyond. Violence is inherent due to our primal instincts but is not in any means inevitable.