Anthropology Exam 3

Muhammad Ali

boxer; wanted to change world sacrificed his boxing career joined nation of Islam-don't believe in killing people -went to jail

Bursting the Warriors-Have-More-Kids Bubble

-Yanomamo of South American Amazon. -Tribal horticulturalists, not nomadic h/g. -Live in sedentary villages -Patrilineal descent system -Sometimes raid other villages -Cultural ethos that values physical aggression and bravery -Studied by Napoleon Chagnon, who dubbed them "The Fierce People"

Jackie Robinson James Baldwin Labor James Micheal Jordan Smith & Carlos

AA baseball player AA novelist AA basketball player Nike Ambassador AA's expelled from Olympics

Jack Johnson

African American heavyweight champion--defeated the white -caused angry white mobs -threat to white male power

Fry's definition of "war"

"A group activity, carried on by members of one community against members of another community, in which it is the primary purpose to inflict serious injury or death on multiple non-specified members . . .

Francis Bacon

"For what a man more likes to be true, he more readily believes." "Confirmation bias."

Of supposed claims of evidence for cannibalism

"In specimen after specimen for which the claim of violence has been made, they reviewed the evidence and found alternative explanations equally or more persuasive."

Jeffrey Dahmer

"The scientific record shows hundreds of coprolites from a prehistoric society that display no evidence of cannibalism - and one that does. Does proclaiming the Ancestral Pueblo people to have been cannibals on the basis of one piece of evidence make sense? Such a conclusion is akin to calling Wisconsin residents cannibals on the basis of what was found in Jeffrey Dahmer's freezer."

Rights to respond to violence

"The tendency is to shift the privilege rights of prosecution and imposition of legal sanctions from the individual [as in self-redress] and his kin-group [as in feuding] over to clearly defined public officials representing the society as such [as in courts of law]. . . . Well-developed chiefdoms and state usurp from individuals and kin groups the right to administer justice. . . . States claim the right and duty to administer justice."

Evolution of weaponry

"This period [the Bronze Age, following the Neolithic] saw the development of many new weapons -- the penetrating axe, armor, helmet, composite bow, the wheel and chariot -- and gave birth to a number of tactical innovations -- phalanx formations, increased mobility, pursuit, emergent staffs and rank structures."

Unokais

-1988 -- Chagnon claimed that unokais, men who had killed someone, had more wives (2.5 X as many) and more children (> 3X as many) than non-unokais of the same age. -This one article fueled a media frenzy, and has been cited over and over as evidence that human males have evolved a propensity to kill other males through natural selection, since aggressive males were more reproductively successful. -"Contrary to Chagnon's assertions, the samples of unokais and nonunokais are NOT the same age." Unokais as a group are at least 10.4 years older than non-unokais. The older a man gets, the more likely he is to have: killed someone else, more than one wife, be a father, many children via multiple wives. Also, headmen more likely to be older, to be unokais, to have more wives, and more children. Probably no reproductive advantage to being a unokai, other things being equal.

State-level societies

-Arose only 5-6,000 years ago -Political power is centralized at the top of a social hierarchy -Ranks and social classes -Economy based on agriculture -Rulers have even more power than chiefs -Military organization with permanent armies, led by military specialists, operating within hierarchical command structures -Writing, mathematics, urbanization, large-scale irrigation of crops, development of bureaucracy -Professional policemen, soldiers, courts, jails/prisons

Evolution of warfare

-As weapons systems and strategies "improve" the capacity for killing grows exponentially -We have now reached the point where we can kill people from a great distance, using many different techniques (nuclear weapons, chemical and biological weapons) and methods of delivery - including drones, where the person doing the killing is in one country, thousands and thousands of miles away from the people being killed -The ultimate in impersonal warfare.

"War" Language

-Conflicts in band societies [and tribal societies] are regularly presented as "warfare" - due to misperceptions, projects, poetic license, or deliberately to make some point of the author. -Use of "warrior" language, the vocabularies of war - warfare, battle, enemy, declarations of war, war parties, war paint, war dance, and so on - are used deliberately even when they don't apply. -"Descriptions of this kind help to re-create the "savage" in our own preconceived warlike image, as the Western concept of war is projected onto indigenous activities that are not really war at all."

Roman

-Evidence of massive fires followed by a change in artifact types and styles (reflecting occupation by the victors) -A reduced number of male burials in cemeteries - perhaps reflecting deaths elsewhere in battle -Repetitions of the same patterns in several archeological sites in the same region at the same time -Placement of living sites for defensive purposes

PIHM - assumptions

-Fighting/competition over scarce resources, including women -Being competitive is universal, part of "human nature" -Leadership and warrior-like behavior rewarded by more women, more children - thus natural selection works to increase aggression -View all killing as "war"

Australia before European invasion

-Island continent of Australia, before arrival of Europeans, 750,000 people speaking over 200 distinct languages. All simple hunters and gatherers - Ishmael would describe them as "Leavers." -. . . warfare was the rarest of anomalies. They did have murder, vengeance killings, limited feud, juridical fights, duels, and punishment or execution of wrongdoers. -"However, lethal intergroup violence that could be considered warfare was truly the exception to the well-established peace system of the Australian Aborigines." They "employed a rich set of social and legal mechanisms to resolve disputes within and among social groups . . . and developed creative ways to limit and minimize the seriousness of fighting and to keep revenge killings and feuding in check." -"The Australian Aborigine case illustrates the human capacities for creative conflict resolution and for coexisting without war." -An entire continent of simple, nomadic h/g, with elaborate legal systems for resolving disputes and delivering justice with a minimal amount of violence.

Selection against violent individuals

-Killed by others in retaliation or revenge for their aggressive behavior (self-redress system) -Killed by their own relatives who perceive them as dangerous to the other members of the group (feud system)

Fry's Perspective

-NONE of these assumptions are supported by the ethnographic data on simple/nomadic hunting & gathering societies -Groups are NOT stable - ever changing and flexible -Groups don't necessarily include related men

Warfare and Feuding from a Cross-Cultural Perspective

-Numerous cross-cultural studies have shown that not all societies throughout time and across the world have engaged in true "warfare." -Warfare is NOT a cultural universal. It is NOT ubiquitous. It is NOT inevitable. It is NOT necessary. -Some societies have gone for hundreds of years without ever engaging in warfare.

Nation-state

-Originated in AD 1648 with the signing of the -Treaty of Westphalia -Based on commercial agriculture, manufacturing and service industries, and informatics -Many modern nation-states have "artificial" borders imposed by outsiders, like Iraq, created by -Gertrude Bell at the Cairo conference in 1921, and most African countries -Nation-state borders don't necessarily coincide with ethnic groups, or common languages, or shared religious/cultural beliefs

Actual hunter-gatherers

-Resources are NOT scarce -No evidence that humans are "naturally" competitive - this is a cultural phenomenon -There are no "leaders" - these societies are truly egalitarian -Warrior-like behavior is ridiculed and punished; boastful or greedy or violent individuals or competitive individuals are ostracized

Chiefdoms

-Social hierarchy, socially ranked societies with rulers and commoners, sometimes slaves as well -Chiefs vary from little power/authority to much power/authority -Often based on farming or fishing -Chiefs get special privileges; commoners pay tribute to chiefs, who may redistribute it back to their subjects -The level of chiefdoms includes complex sedentary hunter-gatherers - most emerged within the last 13,000 years or so (just prior to Neolithic), very rare; most subsisted on marine resources, had highly developed arts, rituals, and economics based on redistribution of goods, and engaged in warfare -Along Northwest Coast, archeological evidence of warfare for at least 3,000 years; attacks often carried out by sea, as raiders paddled scores or even hundreds of miles carrying their provisions with them. Tactics tailored to maximize enemy casualties and captives (women and children, slaves), gain territory, access to salmon runs, etc.

Unambiguous archeological evidence for state-level warfare

-Specialized weapons not used for hunting -"A Short History of War: The Evolution of Warfare and Weapons" by the U.S. Army War College -"The invention and spread of agriculture coupled with the domestication of animals in the fifth millennium B.C. are acknowledged as the developments that set the stage for the emergence of the first large-scale, complex urban societies. These societies, which appeared almost simultaneously around 4000 B.C. in both Egypt and Mesopotamia, used stone tools, but within 500 years stone tools and weapons gave way to bronze. With bronze manufacture came a revolution in warfare."

Walls of Jericho

-The "Walls of Jericho" have generally been accepted as the first clear evidence of warfare, dating from 9,000 to 9,500 years ago. -In the Book of Joshua, the Israelites destroy the wall of Jericho by walking around it with the Ark of the Covenant for seven days, on the last of which they blew trumpets of rams' horns and shouted to make the walls fall down (Joshua 6:20). The events of the account are suggested to be dated at around 1400 BC.[2] Speculations about the existence of fortifications dating to this period persisted in biblical archaeology until Kathleen Kenyon's comprehensive excavations in the 1950s.

Flood protection, or defense?

-The wall is thought to have been built in order to prevent floods and the tower used for ceremonial purposes. -Archaeologists Ran Barkai and Roy Liran used computers to reconstruct sunsets and recently found that when the Tower of Jericho was built, nearby mountains cast a shadow on it as the sun set on the longest day of the year. The shadow fell exactly on the structure and then spread out to cover the entire village of Jericho.

Warfare

-True warfare: "War entails relatively impersonal lethal aggression between communities." -General revenge for general harm (or no harm at all).

Kathy Switzer (1967)

1st woman to run the Boston Marathon -ppl tried to forcibly remove her but men running with her fought them off

Simon James

A researcher from the University of Leicester, anthropologist Simon James, has identified the oldest archaeological evidence for chemical warfare--from Roman times. . . about twenty Roman soldiers, found in a siege-mine at the city of Dura-Europos, Syria, met their deaths not as a result of sword or spear, but through asphyxiation. Dura-Europos on the Euphrates was conquered by the Romans who installed a large garrison. Around AD 256, the city was subjected to a ferocious siege by an army from the powerful new Sasanian Persian empire.

Battle of Himera

Archaeologists uncovered the remains of dozens of soldiers who fought in the Battle of Himera. "After a fierce struggle in 480 B.C. on a coastal plain outside the Sicilian city of Himera, with heavy losses on both sides, the Greeks eventually won the day."

Archeological & cross-cultural evidence

Archeological evidence contradicts the proposed scenario of five million years of warfare among human ancestors. Simple nomadic h/g are nonwarring - this fact poses a major problem for the assertion of a psychological predisposition for rampant raiding over millions of years.

Pervasive Intergroup Hostility Model ("Man the Warrior")

Assumptions about human nature: Stable groups of related males bond together against other stable groups of related males "Us" versus "Them" approach

Relationship between level of social organization and typical level of violence/justice seeking

Band - self-redress killings Tribes - feuding Chiefdoms and state - warfare Nation-states - industrial warfare

Modern warfare - WW II 60 million deaths total

Battle of France, May-June 1940: 469,000 casualties Battle of Moscow, October 1941-January 1942: 1,000,000 casualties Battle of Stalingrad, August 1942-February 1943: 1,250,000-1,798,619 casualties Battle of Narva, February-August 1944: 550,000 casualties Battle of Berlin, April-May 1945: 1,298,745 casualties Atomic bombing of Japan, August 1945: Within the first two to four months of the bombings, the acute effects killed 90,000-166,000 people in Hiroshima and 60,000-80,000 in Nagasaki, with roughly half of the deaths in each city occurring on the first day.

Fry's Conclusions

Distinguishing adaptations from fortuitous effects. Only adaptations if structures or behaviors are designed (via natural selection) to produce the predicted consequences. Just because war is widespread does not demonstrate its evolutionary function or adaptiveness. Use of Goodall's work among the chimpanzees also doubtful because of existence of Bonobos, who are just as closely related to modern humans as chimpanzees are, but who have very different behaviors.

Cultural Bias of Researcher

Fry: "It seems likely to me, partly based on reading numerous ethnographies, that some or all of these proposed psychological mechanisms, rather than being universal traits, more likely represent attitudes and ideas circulating within the culture of the theorist."

Modern warfare: WW I 35 million deaths total

Gallipoli Campaign 503,000-552,000 dead Battle of the Somme 1,120,000-1,215,000 dead Third Battle of Ypres Over 585,000 Spring Offensive 900,000 dead

Sports/Military

In the modern US military, recruits are deliberately enculturated into an attitude of dehumanizing the enemy. Why is this necessary if humans are naturally war-like? In reality, most young men in the military must be taught to kill.

Not all killing is "war"

Individual homicide -One person kills another randomly -Victim of perceived/real harm kills perpetrator in retaliation (victim gets revenge) - self-redress homicide -Close relative of dead victim kills perpetrator in retaliation (relative gets revenge on behalf of victim) Feuding -- All members of a group are considered fungible; Corporate responsibility -Member(s) of one group kill member(s) of another group randomly -Member(s) of one group kill member(s) of another group in retaliation for some perceived/real harm (victim's group gets revenge)

Examples: Homicide

Individual homicide Self-redress revenge homicide

Early evidence of warfare: Jebel Sahaba

Jebel Sahaba, in Sudanese Nubia near the Nile, cemetery dating 12-14,000 ya, 24 out of 59 skeletons showed evidence of violence

Fair Fun Positive Soccer

Katy, Texas 1. No screaming at kids 2. Anyone can play 3. Teams are reshuffled for each game--so can't have Us vs. Them attitude 4. Everyone gets to play every position 5. Everybody goes out for pizza

Prehistoric evidence for violence and warfare?

Killer Apes & Cannibals Tim White and Nicholas Toth have reexamined many supposed cases of murder/cannibalism/ritualistic human sacrifice "The Man-Eating Myth"

Kelley

Lawrence Keeley, who includes homicide and violent death by any means as evidence of warfare, as well as mass burials from Europe, which may represent people who died of starvation, disease, or over the course of a long winter; still, Keeley finds NO evidence of warfare anywhere in the world older than 10,000 bp.

Pat Tilman (2001)

NFL player for Cardinals joined army Rangers after 9/11 The Patriot/ American hero -was killed 22 months after enlisting (died in Afghanistan)--shot accidentally by friendly fires (truth was hidden) -he told everyone he thought war was illegal -he began reading Noam Chomsky --thought war was criminal

Northwest Coast/Near East

Northwest Coast, starting at 5,000 years ago, "skeletal evidence of aggression consists almost exclusively of nonlethal injuries - and there are not many of these." Large-scale warfare only in the last 1,800 to 1,500 years bp. Near East, betw. 10-12,000 years ago, plant and animal domestication; no evidence of war at 12,000 bp, sparse war by 9,500 bp, spreading and intensifying warfare in more recent times.

Lead up to the hijacking of the Achille Lauro

October 1, 1985: A terrorist attack by Israelis on a neighborhood in Tunisia where some Palestinians were reported to be living. October 7, 1985: The Italian cruise liner "Achille Lauro" was hijacked by four men representing the Palestine Liberation Front (PLF) off the coast of Egypt. The hijacking was masterminded by Muhammad Zaidan, leader of the PLF. One elderly Jewish man in a wheelchair, Leon Klinghoffer, was murdered by the hijackers and thrown overboard.

Aftermath of the Achille Lauro hijacking

October 11, 1985: A bomb demolished the Santa Ana offices of the Arab-American Anti-Discrimination Committee, killing Alex Odeh (Palestinian-American Christian) and the organization's regional executive director, injuring seven others. Several members of the Jewish Defense League were implicated, but never captured/charged. Muhammad Zaidan, leader of the hijacking, was allowed to go free by the Italians and ended up in Iraq. There, in 2003, he was captured by American forces while attempting to flee from Baghdad to Syria. Italy subsequently requested his extradition. The Pentagon reported on March 9, 2004 that Zaidan had died the previous day, of natural causes, while in U.S. custody.

Cowboy Wash coprolite

One coprolite studied by others said to have digested human flesh in it. From Cowboy Wash, supposed to belong to Anasazi culture of SW US, 1200 BC onward. Mixed H/G and agriculturalists, most coprolites full of plant and animal remains. Deer vertebra, 1" in diameter - what Karl would describe as a "screamer." Cowboy Wash coprolite announced as evidence of 'cannibalism' and it made all the national news, papers, science magazines, radio, TV, etc. It was big news.

Defining "warfare"

Part of the problem with studies that promote the "Man the Warrior" view is that they don't use a clear definition of warfare; they view all killing as "war."

Complex, sedentary hunter-gatherers: beginnings of true warfare

Shortly before the Neolithic Revolution, you get a shift to complex, sedentary hunter-gatherers in some areas, see warfare beginning. As social organization becomes more and more complex, it becomes stratified, leadership is centralized, warfare begins and becomes more frequent. Signs of more social complexity include: higher population densities, larger settlement size, permanent houses and other structures, ceremonial areas, differences in status reflected in how people are buried.

Archeological signs of warfare

Stage I - occupation sites out in open, no defensive structures, only a few isolated instances of skeletal damage Stage II - more sites with walls and ditches, some clearly defensive, increasing evidence of violence on skeletal remains Stage III - from 7,000 years bp, clear large-scale defensive structures at sites along major trade routes; clear evidence of village massacres Stage 4 - When you have evidence of a military garrison, you know you are dealing with organized warfare.

Modern warfare: Civil War

The Battle of Antietam in 1862, in Maryland, was the bloodiest single-day battle on American soil, with 22,717 dead, wounded and missing on both sides combined.

North Korea & Trump

Trump said aircraft carrier was off coast of NK but instead it was near Australia

How WEIRD societies teach and encourage violence

WEIRD - Western, educated, industrialized, rich, and democratic ("Takers"??) This is cultural, not human nature. In modern Western societies, we teach children (especially boys) through team sports to be competitive, to be thrilled with victory, and devastated by defeat, to dehumanize the other team, to form blind loyalty to our team. Same done in virtual reality with video games, movies, etc.

Conflict

a perceived divergence of interests, where interests are broadly conceptualized to include values, needs, goals, and wishes, between two or more parties, often accompanied by feelings of anger or hostility. Not the same as aggression.

Title 9

allowing girls to play sports -woman's sports now get 20% less airtime on ESPN than 20 years ago

Mike Webster

football player who died

Examples: feuding

gangs of NY (clans of Albania) Achille Laura hijacking - Israel/JDL/Jewish vs. Palestinian Liberation Front/Arab

Billie Jean King

greatest woman's athletes of all time -put feminism at center of all sports -Battle of the sexes tennis match (1973) --she beat Bobby -first pres of woman's sport union -was homosexual

Violence

severe forms of physical aggression, including war and feud; violence entails forceful attacks, usually with weapons, that can result in serious injury or death

Aggression

the infliction of harm, pain, or injury on other individuals; can be divided into verbal and physical aggression. Not the same as conflict.

Tribes

• Sedentary horticulturalists or herders • 100+ people • Headmen, big men, other leadership roles, but authority is weak; as Yanomamo • Use persuasion and leading by example, rather than coercion • Acephalous (headless) tribes • Social organization still largely egalitarian • Segmented politically into lineages based on descent from a common ancestor (kinship-based lineages) • Recent form of human social organization, just since Neolithic

Bands (h/g)

• Small in size, 25-50 people • Politically egalitarian, lacking leadership • Nomadic or semi-nomadic hunters and gatherers • Band composition flexible, bilateral kinship