ArticleProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America2023
Conflict, violence, and warfare among early farmers in Northwestern Europe.
Article in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 16 papers.
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16 citing papers in PubMed, 45 citations in OpenAlex.
- How inequality became durable before states: Evidence from 6000 years in the Central Plain of China.Science advances · 2026Article
- A large mass grave from the Early Iron Age indicates selective violence towards women and children in the Carpathian Basin.Nature human behaviour · 2026Article
- Bioengineering approaches to dynamic impact analysis for cranial fracture interpretation in arcaheology.Scientific reports · 2026Article
- Social complexity is not strongly predictive of indiscriminate killing of wartime enemies in a cross-cultural sample.Evolutionary human sciences · 2026Article
- Modeling the European Neolithic expansion suggests predominant within-group mating and limited cultural transmission.Nature communications · 2025Article
- Multi-isotope biographies and identities of victims of martial victory celebrations in Neolithic Europe.Science advances · 2025Article
- Evidence of neolithic cannibalism among farming communities at El Mirador cave, Sierra de Atapuerca, Spain.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- The cost of language: functionally over-dominant language circuits in the human brain may limit cognitive abilities and non-verbal executive functions.Frontiers in human neuroscience · 2025Article
- Multicentennial cycles in continental demography synchronous with solar activity and climate stability.Nature communications · 2024Article
- Landscape of fear: indirect effects of conflict can account for large-scale population declines in non-state societies.Journal of the Royal Society, Interface · 2024Article
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- Violence trends in the ancient Middle East between 12,000 and 400 BCE.Nature human behaviour · 2023Article
- Large-scale violence in Late Neolithic Western Europe based on expanded skeletal evidence from San Juan ante Portam Latinam.Scientific reports · 2023Article
- Unearthing the origins of agriculture.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2023Article
- The past 12,000 years of behavior, adaptation, population, and evolution shaped who we are today.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2023Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
4 authors at 4 institutions in 3 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Bioarchaeological evidence of interpersonal violence and early warfare presents important insights into conflict in past societies. This evidence is critical for understanding the motivations for violence and its effects on opposing and competing individuals and groups across time and space. Selecting the Neolithic of northwestern Europe as an area for study, the present paper examines the variation and societal context for the violence recorded in the human skeletal remains from this region as one of the most important elements of human welfare. Compiling data from various sources, it becomes apparent that violence was endemic in Neolithic Europe, sometimes reaching levels of intergroup hostilities that ended in the utter destruction of entire communities. While the precise comparative quantification of healed and unhealed trauma remains a fundamental problem, patterns emerge that see conflict likely fostered by increasing competition between settled and growing communities, e.g., for access to arable land for food production. The further development of contextual information is paramount in order to address hypotheses on the motivations, origins, and evolution of violence as based on the study of human remains, the most direct indicator for actual small- and large-scale violence.
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