Anatomy of a prehistoric atrocity
A Neolithic grave pit in FranceWe don’t necessarily see the world of Europe before written history as uniform darkness, despite the lack of texts. Rather, we see some elements of prehistory with crystal clarity, while others remain entirely opaque to u…
The Insight show notes: episode 28, Violence & Warfare
Scottish cavalry charging during the Battle of WaterlooThis week Razib and Spencer discussed violence and warfare on The Insight (iTunes, Stitcher and Google Play).Spencer’s book, Pandora’s Seed, was mentioned. As was John Horgan’s The End of War and S…
Violence in Science
The special “Human Conflict” issue of Science seems free if you register. No time to read it now, but there’s a lot of interesting looking articles. (via Dienekes)
War in Pre-Columbian Sumeria
For most of my life I have had an implicit directional view of Holocene human culture. And that direction was toward more social complexity and cultural proteanism. Ancient Egypt traversed ~2,000 years between the Old Kingdom and the fall of the New Ki…