In The Better Angels of Our Nature, Steven Pinker argues that human violence has declined across history. One part of this argument is that life in a state of nature – before civilization – was solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short. Amongst other things, Pinker argues that hunter-gatherers, tribal societies, were – and are - much more violent than later more civilized societies. Both Pinker and Thomas Hobbes argue that the state and its monopolisation on force and authority have pacified our darker human nature.

This is a common trope:

In the 1996 book War Before Civilization, for example, archaeologist Lawrence Keeley argues that prehistoric violent deaths probably ranged from around 7-40% of all deaths. He says: ‘there is nothing inherently peaceful about hunting-gathering or band society’.

In 2003, Steve LeBlanc and Katherine Register claimed in their book Constant Battles that ‘everyone had warfare in all time periods’
Biologist Edward Wilson ‘Are human beings innately aggressive?’ Yes. Coalitional warfare is ‘pervasive across cultures worldwide’

John Tooby and Leda Cosmides declare that ‘Wherever in the archaeological record there is sufficient evidence to make a judgment, there traces of war are to be found. It is found across all forms of social organization—in bands, chiefdoms, and states.’

The book Demonic Males argues that ‘"neither in history nor around the globe today is there evidence of a truly peaceful society’.

Pinker has written that ‘Hobbes was right, Rousseau was wrong.’

Are – and were – hunter-gatherers really that violent? Brian Ferguson and Douglas Fry argue no. Looking at chimpanzees, bonobos, Otzi – the iceman – and a range of much more insightful ethnographical and archaeological evidence is the best way to find out.

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Sources:

https://journals.plos.org/plosone/art...
Douglas Fry, Introduction, ‘War Peace, and Human Nature: The Convergence of Evolutionary and Cultural Views’

Jonathan Hass and Matthew Piscitelli, The Prehistory of Warfare, Misled by Ethnography in ‘War Peace, and Human Nature: The Convergence of Evolutionary and Cultural Views’

Douglas Fry, Beyond War: The Human Potential for Peace

Brian Ferguson, Pinker’s List in War Peace and Human Nature

Brian Ferguson, The Prehistory of War and Peace in Europe and the Near East.

Rutger Bregman, Humankind

Steven Pinker, the Better Angels of Our Nature

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/arti...

https://royalsocietypublishing.org/do...

https://www.scientificamerican.com/ar...

Stephen Corry, The Case of the Brutal Savage, https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/case...

Credits:

Otzi - Melotzi, CC BY-SA 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/..., via Wikimedia Commons (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi...)

Ache image: Kimhill2 at English Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/..., via Wikimedia Commons

Yaoro Image: Ajiimai, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/..., via Wikimedia Commons

Australopithecus Image: Neanderthal-Museum, Mettmann, CC BY-SA 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/..., via Wikimedia Commons

Homo habilis & Homo Erectus Image: Cicero Moraes, CC BY-SA 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/..., via Wikimedia Commons (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi...)
(https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fichier...)

Neanderthal Image: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi... , CC BY 4.0, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/..., via Wikimedia Commons

Homo Sapien Image: MUSE, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/..., via Wikimedia Commons (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi...)

Steven Pinker Image: Rose Lincoln/Harvard University, CC BY 3.0, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/..., via Wikimedia Commons (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi...