Conflict and War, Archaeology of
much conflict overwhelms mechanisms for coping
with it.
3.1 Future Directions
Most research on the significance of interpersonal
conflict has focused on its potential for adverse
consequences. Few studies have addressed the possi-
bility that conflict promotes socioemotional devel-
opment. Strong evidence supports the assertion that
children who experience high rates of angry conflict
suffer from low self-esteem, poor social skills, inter-
personal rejection, and adjustment problems. Yet the
nature of this research is such that it is impossible to
determine whether maladaptation is the cause or the
consequence of interpersonal conflict. Neither can it
be determined whether there are sensitive periods
during which conflict exerts a particularly strong
influence on development, although a few studies
suggest that conflict mediates difficult transitions
through precocious puberty, marital reconfiguration,
and school entry. Of particular importance to this field
of inquiry is research that makes a full and nuanced
account of the dynamic interplay between conflict and
developmental outcomes. Studies of change over time
are needed to specify the paradoxical influence of
conflict on concurrent individual adjustment and on
long-term developmental trajectories.
See also: Adulthood: Emotional Development; Con-
flict\Consensus; Infancy and Childhood: Emotional
Development; Social Learning, Cognition, and
Personality Development
Bibliography
Deutsch M 1973 The Resolution of Conflict: Constructi
e and
Destructi
e Processes. Yale University Press, New Haven, CT
Festinger L 1957 A Theory of Cogniti
e Dissonance. Stanford
University Press, Stanford, CA
Freud S 1965 The Problem of Anxiety. Norton, New York
(Original work published 1936)
Gottman J M 1994 What Predicts Di
orce? The Relationship
Between Marital Processes and Marital Outcomes. Erlbaum,
Hillsdale, NJ
Hinde R A 1997 Relationships: a Dialectical Perspecti
e. Psycho-
logy Press, Hove, UK
Laursen B, Collins W A 1994 Interpersonal conflict during
adolescence. Psychological Bulletin 115: 197–209
Patterson G R 1982 Coerci
e Family Process. Castalia, Eugene,
OR
Piaget J 1985 The Equilibration of Cogniti
e Structures. Uni-
versity of Chicago Press, Chicago (Original work published
1975)
Selman R 1980 The Growth of Interpersonal Understanding:
De
elopmental and Clinical Analyses. Academic Press, New
York
Shantz C U, Hartup W W 1992 Conflict in Child and Adolescent
De
elopment. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK
Sherif M, Harvey O J, White F J, Hood W R, Sherif C W 1961
Intergroup Conflict and Cooperation: the Robbers’ Ca
e
Experiment. University of Oklahoma, Norman, OK
B. Laursen
Conflict and War, Archaeology of
Archaeology is the study of patterns of effects;
repetitions of human behavior that leave an enduring
mark on the physical world. War, the armed conflict
between social units, is such a pattern and leaves very
enduring effects. Such effects include the remains of
victims of homicide and warfare, fortifications,
specialized weapons, destroyed settlements, and de-
pictions of combat. Ancient violent conflicts also
had important consequences, correlates, and causes
involving human ecology, the distribution of settle-
ments, production and exchange, social organization,
ideology, and symbolism.
The definitions of ‘war’ used by social scientists and
historians can be grouped into two extreme categories:
broad and narrow. Broad definitions, like that used in
the introductory paragraph, classify violent and lethal
conflicts between all social or political units as war.
Broad definitions allow the survey and analysis of the
widest range of deadly conflicts between human
groups. They permit anthropologists studying pre-
historic and recent small-scale societies to contribute
to scholarly and popular debates about warfare.
Narrow definitions restrict the term ‘war’ just to
societies organized as states. States being political
organizations that are hierarchically organized,
centrally directed, class-stratified with a high degree of
occupational specialization (especially, full-time mili-
tary specialists) and which maintain a monopoly of
deadly force. Narrow definitions restrict analysis of
warfare only to societies roughly similar in scale and
complexity to modern nations. They excuse ignorance
about violent conflicts between nonstate societies.
Broad definitions imply that warfare is a human
universal while narrow definitions claim that collective
violence is a scourge peculiar to states.
Until the development of scientific dating methods
around 1950, the primary concern of archaeologists
was establishing sequences of cultural changes for
their respective regions. Their interpretations of social
phenomenon, such as warfare, when they made any at
all, tended to be off-hand with little basis in analysis or
argument. Their attitudes toward prehistoric warfare
were also affected by the Social Darwinist attitudes
that characterized the heyday of Western Imperialism.
Many kinds of implements and constructions were
2537
Conflict and War, Archaeology of
blithely assumed to be weapons of war or fortifi-
cations. Many cultural changes were declared to be the
result of prehistoric conquests. The shocks of World
War II’s savagery, postwar decolonization, and the
‘atomic fear’ of the Cold War fostered a severe
aversion to war and conquest in the Western in-
tellectual and popular cultures. Q. Wright (A Study of
War, 1942, University of Chicago Press) and H.
Turney-High (Primiti
e War, 1949, University of
South Carolina Press) persuaded most postwar social
scientists and historians that the fighting of prestate
societies was ritualized, undangerous, and ineffective,
a game or sport rather than a serious business. Both
argued that fighting only became dangerous, terrible,
and effective when societies became politically
centralized and socially complex, especially as civilized
states. ‘Ethnographic analogy’ based on these
generalizations implied that prehistoric ‘combat,’ like
games or sports, was politically, economically, and
ecologically ineffective, unimportant, and frivolous.
While archaeologists continued to record evidence of
prehistoric conflicts, analysis or discussion of these
traces became less and less common in the post-War
era.
The development of radiometric dating after the
war freed archaeologists to focus upon the actual
functioning of the societies they studied as well as how
and why they changed. For any number of reasons,
since around 1950, the many theoretical currents
among archaeologists have eschewed war and con-
quests as interpretations or explanations in favor of
ecological, economic, and indigenous social evolution-
ary processes. Increasingly, fortifications were re-
interpreted as ritual enclosures, and many obvious
weapons were seen as merely symbols of wealth and
status. Post-War archaeologists, through disregard or
reinterpretation, pacified the past.
However, since around 1985 archaeologists around
the world have uncovered some obvious, even shock-
ing, remains left by ancient armed conflicts (see Sect.
1). These have led to a revival of interest by many
archaeologists in ancient warfare. The relatively small-
scale but horrific conflicts between ethnic groups and
small nations that have appeared in many places after
the end of the Cold War may also have encouraged
this change. Discussions of methodologies for docu-
menting prehistoric warfare as well as war’s possible
significance in prehistory have begun appearing in
major archaeological journals and books.
1. Human Remains
The most unequivocal evidence of ancient homicides
are human remains bearing traumas caused by
weapons, for example, sword cuts, dents made by
axes, and depressed fractures made by maces, etc.
2538
However, the most commonly noted weapons trau-
mas, worldwide, involve projectile points of bone or
stone embedded in the skeletons of victims. The
absence of any healing or inflammation around such
traumas indicates that the victim did not long survive
them. The bones of early hominids do show healed
and unhealed traumas (e.g., Neanderthals seemed to
have been particularly accident-prone). But before the
widespread use of stone and bone projectile tips
(around 40 000 BP), it is impossible to determine
whether these traumas were effected by human vio-
lence or by other more prosaic causes. Evidence of
homicide (not necessarily warfare) appears as soon as
modern humans appear on the scene. At Grimaldi,
Italy, (around 32 000 BP), the skeleton of a child was
found with a bone projectile point embedded in its
spine. In the Nile Valley, Egypt, a male skeleton
(around 20 000 BP) had several projectile points in his
abdomen and a partially healed one embedded in his
arm. The earliest clear evidence for warfare also comes
from the Nile Valley from the Late Paleolithic (around
13 000 BP) cemetery at Gebel Sahaba. Over 40 percent
of the 59 people buried there had clearly died from
arrow wounds, often multiple. The victims included
men, women, and children and were sometimes buried
in small groups indicating that several were killed
simultaneously. This gruesome evidence as well as
many other examples from around the world (for
example, Kennewick Man, around 9600 BP, from
Washington State and the frequent homicide victims
found in Late Mesolithic cemeteries in Europe) in-
dicate that hunter-gatherers, even early ones, were
anything but pacific. Homicide, then, is at least as old
as modern humanity (i.e., Homo sapiens sapiens) while
warfare appears in the archaeological record as soon
as there are sufficiently large burial populations,
concentrated in cemeteries, which allow its detection.
Such weapons traumas are sometimes accompanied
by other traumas from perimortem (i.e., at the time of
death) mutilations and\or trophy taking. One of the
most common mutilations was ‘overkill’ with the
victim struck several times with blows or projectiles,
any one of which would have been sufficient to have
caused death. Some of the men buried at Gebel Sahaba
had been struck by over a dozen arrows. Decapitated
corpses and disembodied heads, the result of heads
being taken as war trophies, have been found in sites as
diverse in time and space as the late prehistoric (around
AD 1300) Norris Farm cemetery in Illinois and
Mesolithic (5500 BC) skull caches found in Ofnet
Cave, Germany. In North America, the practice of
scalping was evidenced by characteristic cut-marks left
on the skull by the scalping knife. Such cut-marks have
been noted on many skulls of several thousand years
old. The most complete mutilations suffered by war
victims results from cannibalism. However, the
thoroughgoing destruction of human remains as-
sociated with cannibalism usually removes or obscures
any traces of the causes of death, including violence.

Very often corpses bearing weapons and mutilation
traumas were interred ‘unceremoniously,’ that is, with-
out grave goods or in a manner uncharacteristic of
their respective archaeological cultures. For example,
the people of the Linear Pottery Culture (around 5000
BC) of central and northwestern Europe usually
buried their dead individually in a flexed position in
oval plan graves, with the adults often accompanied
by grave offerings that included pots, stone adze\axes
and awls. At Talhiem, Germany, a large pit from this
period contained the sprawled skeletons of 34 men,
women, and children unaccompanied by any grave
goods. They had all been struck on the head, the men
always several times (i.e., over-kill), with axes and
adzes of characteristically Linear Pottery shape. From
the size and shape of the traumas, it was inferred that
the wounds were inflicted by at least seven attackers.
At Crow Creek in South Dakota the remains of over
500 men, women, and children dating to AD 1325
were found heaped in the fortification ditch of a large
village of that period. Over 90 percent of these
unceremoniously buried individuals bore scalping
marks on their skulls and many showed traumas from
axes and ball-headed clubs. The houses (50j) and the
palisade of this village had been burned into the
ground and the site was never reoccupied. Oc-
casionally, the remains of war victims were acci-
dentally buried by the collapse of burned housed or
fortification walls (see Sect. 2). The large number of
simultaneous deaths caused by warfare overwhelmed
their compatriots capacity to give the victims a
‘proper’ burial, while enemies seldom give their dead
foes even the most cursory burial, if any at all.
It is not always easy from weapon traumas alone, to
distinguish between the victims of simple murder and
the collective homicide of war. The co-occurrence of
weapon traumas with evidence of mutilation, trophy
taking, and unceremonious burial (especially in
groups), however, distinguish war from simple mur-
der. When such gruesome human remains are re-
covered from areas and time periods that yield other
indications of warfare, their interpretation as war
casualties is more certain. For example, the Early
Neolithic (around 5000 BC) village of Herxheim,
Germany, was surrounded by two concentric ditches
into which had been placed the disembodied skullcaps
of at least 300 individuals, some children’s. Given their
regular placement in the already excavated portion
(about 30 percent) of the ditches, the excavators
estimate that the complete ditches contain about 1,000
skulls. The only one of these skullcaps completely
studied so far bore two traumas from blows by blunt
instruments and one trauma from the blow of an axe.
Cut marks on this cranium also indicated that the
scalp had been removed. One complete body had been
simply thrown into one of the ditches and abandoned.
Inside the village seven graves of the usual kind for this
culture (Linear Pottery), some with grave offerings,
were uncovered, as were the traces of five long-houses.
Conflict and War, Archaeology of
Like Crow Creek, Herxheim produced evidence of
weapons traumas, postmortem mutilation, trophy
taking, and uncharacteristic or unceremonious treat-
ment of the dead.
Interestingly there were time periods in some regions
where, despite large burial populations, we find little
or no evidence of weapon traumas, mutilation, or any
other evidence of warfare. For example, In the Near
East just as the people were becoming farmers during
the final Epi-Paleolithic and Early Neolithic (around
11 000 to 7000 BC), life seemed to have been unusually
nonviolent. This case and a parallel one involving the
Hopewell-Adena period (around 300 BC to AD 500)
in the eastern US directly contradict the very popular
idea that the origin of warfare is tied to that of
agriculture. The corollary that hunter-gatherers were
inherently peaceful is belied by the many very homi-
cidal, war ridden foraging societies known to ar-
chaeology, ethnography, and history. Indeed, over the
ages, the bodies of homicide and war victims show no
evidence that foragers, farmers, peasants, or city
dwellers, the subjects of bands, chiefdoms or states,
Europeans, Africans, Asians, Amerindians, or Ocean-
ians were always, or even generally, more peaceful or
warlike than anyone else.
2. Fortifications
The remains of fortifications are obvious traces of
warfare. Since they must be collectively constructed by
groups and defend a group’s persons and property,
fortifications are a symptom of war rather than
murder. Such defenses often feature ditches, palisades,
ramparts, and walls surrounding a settlement or other
desirable locations. These barriers inhibit entry, shield
the defenders from the weapons of the attackers, and
screen the formers’ numbers and movements from the
latter’s sight. Fortifications may also show projecting
bastions at intervals which eliminate safe ‘dead zones’
by allowing defenders to direct flanking fire at at-
tackers reaching the wall. Since the gates are the most
vulnerable parts of fortifications, they often show
special features that make them more dangerous to
attackers. The oldest and most common of such entry
defenses are ‘baffle gates.’ The simplest form involves
having the curtain wall\palisades overlap at entry
points in such a fashion that attackers can only enter
the interior by passing one-by-one down a narrow
passage. Often these baffles required attackers to
expose their unshielded (i.e., right) side to defenders
on the walls. Other gate defenses include towers,
deadfall pits with removable bridges, narrow chutes
projecting into the interior, etc. Even very ancient
fortifications remain visible on the landscape or can be
detected in aerial photographs. Nevertheless, exca-
vation is required to assess their date, the details of
their construction, and the plan of their gates.
2539
Conflict and War, Archaeology of
However, fortifications are stationary fixtures and
only protect a very small point on the landscape. Even
a simple log palisade around a small settlement
requires a large amount of labor and time to construct.
Thus, peoples with mobile lifestyles, portable pos-
sessions, or small social groupings seldom construct
fortifications. Because of their high labor demands,
even sedentary peoples may only build them when the
attacks are very frequent and\or costly. Probably for
all these reasons, no examples of fortifications have
been found dating to the Paleolithic when even the
most sedentary hunter-gatherers were mobile during
part of the year. Only settled farmers and, later, very
sedentary hunter-gatherers have constructed fortifi-
cations. The earliest possible fortifications (around
8000 BC), consisting of a mud brick wall and tower,
were found at Jericho in the Near East. However,
some archaeologists interpret the wall as for flood
control and the tower as a temple. During the Early
Neolithic period (around 5000 BC) in northwest
Europe many villages of early farmers were defended
by ditches backed by palisades (which apparently were
wattle-and-daubed) and had complicated (often
‘baffled’) gates. Somewhat later (around 4000 BC)
exactly similar features in England, UK, were in at
least two instances attacked by archers, stormed, and
burned. In one instance, the body of a young man was
found sprawled in the ditch under the debris of the
collapsed burned palisade. He had been struck in the
back by an arrow and had crushed the infant under
him when he fell. Similar fortifications have been
found surrounding late prehistoric settlements in the
Eastern US and were observed by the first European
explorers and invaders (e.g. De Soto’s men in
the Southeast). During the Bronze and Iron Ages in
Asia, Europe, and Africa, walls of stone or brick, often
with very elaborate gates, defended towns and chiefly
residences.
3. Weaponry
Weapons of war have often been indistinguishable
from those used for hunting or, in the case of axes,
from more prosaic implements. Indeed, many imple-
ments were used for both military and everyday
functions. Weapons specialized for warfare do appear
in the archaeological record. Such implements have
features that make them less suited for nonhomicidal
activities and\or are only found in contexts that
indicate that their functions were usually, or only,
military. Because of their use in the most terrible and
frightening of human activities, weapons of war
usually acquire symbolic significance and roles in
ritual. Projectile points used primarily for war often
have stems and barbs that make them difficult to
extract, or increase the likelihood that they will cause
an infection. For example, many war points had easily
2540
slipped hafts so that when the arrow or spear shaft is
pulled out, the head stayed in the body whereas
hunting points were tightly hafted. For example, one
type of Late Archaic (around 3000 BC) spear point
from the US Southeast was found almost exclusively
associated with homicide victims’ skeletons. Unlike
the more common other Late Archaic point types, this
one had a short stem that would have easily slipped its
haft. Judging from their food remains, the Early
Neolithic (around 5000 BC) farmers of northwest
Europe almost never hunted, yet a common find on
their sites is a distinctive triangular arrowhead that
would have easily slipped from its haft. A few human
remains from this period have been recovered bearing
traumas from points of this type. There is no profit in
killing a prey animal days or weeks later by infection
but, alas, the opposite is true regarding an enemy.
There is archaeological evidence that some prehistoric
people designed their weaponry with this point in
mind.
Axes and adzes are common archaeological finds in
many regions and time periods over the past 10 000
years. They are always interpreted as woodworking
tools even though there is rarely any independent or
direct evidence for this assumption except their form.
But some prehistoric axes and adzes obviously also
had more violent functions. The stone axes and adzes
of the early Neolithic people of northwestern Europe
and those of the Late Prehistoric Midwestern US were
certainly used to kill people as the holes knocked into
the heads of the victims at Talheim and Crow Creek
(see Sect. 1) attest. More problematic are instances,
such as those of the Late Prehistoric (after AD 1000)
Great Plains and desert Southwest of North America,
where trees were rare and wood-working a necessarily
unusual activity yet labor-costly ground-stone axes of
‘expensive’ imported raw materials were nonetheless
common. There are many ethnographic instances of
such axes and adzes simultaneously serving as wood-
working tools, media of exchange, items of wealth,
symbols of (adult male) status, and weapons of war.
Just because an implement was used as a tool does not
preclude it being used as a weapon of war.
Some ancient implements of copper, bronze, and
iron, such as swords, halberds, daggers, and broad
axes, had no other possible or plausible direct use
except as weapons of war. Increasingly since 1950 it
has become fashionable to interpret these artifacts as
nothing more than symbols of wealth (i.e., primitive
monies) or (adult male) socio-political status. The
geographic rarity of metal ores and the high labor
costs of their reduction to implements would enhance
the prehistoric economic and social value of any metal
artifacts, even prosaic tools. Metal weapons of war
could only be more valuable than the latter because
war and warriors were known and valued by the
general populace or the ruling elites. Similarly, their
symbolic values only arise from their use or possible
use in the most fearsome of human activities.

4. Representational Art
Artistic representations of homicide and warfare have
been found on rock art, painted pottery, and carved
into stone, bone, or ivory. The scenes may represent
dreams, myths, or hoped for events rather than real
fights. The frequency of depictions of combat in the
corpus of a culture’s artwork may bear little re-
lationship with the contemporary frequency of con-
flict. For example, military scenes became less frequent
on Classic Greek vases as combat became more
common during the Peloponnesian Wars. However,
representations of combat do indicate that the artists
were at least familiar with warfare.
Human representations of any kind are extremely
rare in the famous Upper Paleolithic (around 15 000
BP) cave paintings of Western Europe. A couple of
these paintings depict a man apparently skewered by
several spears but whether these represent victims of
warfare or murder is unclear. By the Neolithic (around
4500 BC), some cave paintings from Spain clearly
show military scenes. The most celebrated is a painting
of combat between two small groups, numbering four
and three, respectively, fighting with bows. It also
depicts ‘tactics’ by showing a simultaneous center
advance and flank attack by the larger group. In the
prehistoric (so-called ‘Bushman’) rock art of Southern
Africa (date unclear) depictions of combat and cattle
raiding are not uncommon. Some of these show
smaller unshielded, bow-wielding San battling larger
Bantu armed with shields, spears, and throwing clubs.
In Peru, decorations on Moche (around AD 500) pots
show warriors armed with maces carrying trophy
heads. The Classic Mayan (around AD 800) wall
paintings at Bonampak, Mexico, show a battle be-
tween Mayan warriors in one panel, the torture and
beheading of prisoners in another, and a victory dance
in a third. While rare, many different prehistoric
peoples from many different regions of the world have
left depictions of warfare and its aftermath. Some of
these representations were created by hunter-
gatherers, some by farmers, some by tribesmen, and
some by subjects of chiefs and kings. Whatever their
social and economic circumstances, these ancient
artists were familiar enough with warfare that they
depicted it so accurately that, even today, we can see
that war was hell even when fought with wooden
spears or bows.
5. Contexts for Warfare
It has often been argued that only farmers, with their
fields and sedentary villages, had territories and
resources worth fighting over. However, water-holes,
fishing stations, plant gathering patches, hunting
territories, and the like were equally essential to hunter-
gatherers, as were pasture lands and their herds to
nomadic pastoralists. The arguments propounding a
Conflict and War, Archaeology of
close, if not causal, relationship between states and
warfare are more complex. The general idea seems to
be that political organizations that can concentrate
such physical force and economic resources as states,
devoted to death and taxes, should be more bellicose
than societies in which power and resources are more
diffused. Both archaeological and ethnographic data
completely contradict both these claims—neither the
frequency nor the viciousness of warfare can be
correlated with any general type of economy or form
of political organization.
Another popular claim is that warfare is somehow
part of our genetic code. This idea implies that warfare
is a constant feature of all human life. Archaeology,
ethnography, and history indicate that warfare has
long been a variable condition. Some places and
periods show little or no warfare while deadly fighting
was frequent and intense in other cases among people
of the same genetic stocks. For example, in the eastern
part of the central Mississippi drainage basin, warfare
was rife just before 1000 BC, almost disappeared by
300 BC, began increasing after AD 500, and peaked
between AD 1100 and 1400. The socio-biological
argument also implies that the bravest, most regular,
and ruthless warriors should have enjoyed a higher
status and left behind more descendents (thus, ‘war’
genes) than less bellicose men. Also, it implies that the
fiercest warriors should attract or rape more women
rather than wealthier, more politically adept or hand-
some but less militant men. However, worldwide,
prehistoric societies’ most elaborately buried, higher
status dead almost never died violently nor bore healed
weapon traumas. Conversely, most skeletons with
both healed and unhealed weapons traumas have been
those of young men. This evidence implies that, for
many thousands of years, war’s usual casualties were
warriors who had had no or little chance to pass on
their genes. Instead, the persons accorded the highest
status and having had the longest reproductive careers
usually gave little or no evidence of having been
warriors. Indeed, ethnography and history indicate
that the men and women who have left the most
descendents were not warriors but those versed in the
arts of peace—craftsman(woman)ship, trade, child-
rearing, diplomacy, oratory, generosity, and the like.
With the archaeology of warfare in the early stages
of a revival, cases for comparative analysis remain
rare. Some archaeologists have observed that periods
of intense warfare were correlated with climatic and
ecological deteriorations. Such ‘hard times’ include a
period of frequent droughts in the American South-
west, declining precipitation on the US Great Plains,
and a marine die-off along the coast of Southern
California. Human remains from these regions and
periods often show pathologies caused by inadequate
nutrition. For example, the bones of victims of the
Crow Creek massacre (see Sect. 1 showed signs of
chronic undernourishment, while in the Santa Barbara
region signs of anemia were common during the period
2541
Conflict and War, Archaeology of
of frequent warfare. Moving frontiers between dif-
ferent cultures may have been especially war torn. For
example, most fortified Linear Pottery settlements
were concentrated on the frontiers of the colonist
farmers’ settlement zone. Other archaeologists have
noted that warfare increases during periods of political
consolidation, for example, when tribes were coalesc-
ing or being incorporated into chiefdoms, chiefdoms
into states, or small states into empires. Conversely,
warfare seems to have increased during the dissolution
of larger political units, especially states and empires.
Which, if any, of these interpretations apply to
particular prehistoric situations demands much more
excavation and analysis. The question of why some
periods in some places were so peaceful has hardly
been addressed. However, with the revival of arch-
aeological interest in warfare, the necessary work has
begun.
See also: Ceramics in Archaeology; Conflict: Anthro-
pological Aspects; History of Technology; Military
Geography; Military History; War: Anthropological
Aspects; War: Causes and Patterns; War, Sociology
of; Warfare in History
Bibliography
Keeley L 1996 War Before Ci
ilization. Oxford University Press,
New York
Martin D, Frayer D 1997 Troubled Times. Gordon and Breach,
Amsterdam
Milner G et al. 1991 Warfare in late prehistoric Illinois. American
Antiquity 56: 583–603
Vencl S 1984 War and warfare in archaeology. Journal of
Anthropological Archaeology 3: 116–32
Vencl S 1991 Interpretation des Blessures Causee par les Armes
au Mesolithique. L’Anthropologie 95: 219–28
L. Keeley
Copyright # 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd.
All rights reserved.
Conflict: Anthropological Aspects
Conflict is an action based upon the perception of
partially incompatible interests or intentions between
two or more persons. This perception need not be
shared by both sides. What should be considered as an
interest or intention requires interpretation in respect
of the context. For analytical purposes these concepts
often remain projections; they should, however, be
grounded in observations of statements or of chains of
action which are open to operationalization and
falsification. They are necessarily culture-bound and
may even be a matter of debate within a given culture.
Furthermore, the perception of conflict does not need
real intentions or real persons in order to generate
2542
International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences
action. The assumption of witchcraft, e.g., may gen-
erate virtual feuds.
1. Goals of an Anthropological Theory of Conflict
An anthropological theory of conflict can
(a) Contribute to the explanation of violence.
Conflict is, however, not the only element which will
contribute to an explanation of violence. Violence
may, for example, be needed as a strong symbolic
marker for ritual purposes. And it has to be underlined
against a popular perception of ‘conflict’ that not
every conflict is violent.
(b) It can contribute to a theory of the attraction or
displacement of emotions. The hatred against foes, for
example, is not something natural but is an outcome of
specific constructions of conflict.
(c) The theory of conflict competes with culturalist
approaches as an explanation of social cohesion.
Forms of conflict regulation can reduce the relative
conflict intensity between persons and, thus, create
their allegiance to the system or organization which
provides for this conflict regulation.
(d) It contributes essentially to a theory of social
evolution. The ways by which a society regulates
conflict operate also as means for the selection of
alternatives for its future.
2. The History of Anthropological Research on
Conflict
Anthropological research on conflict is a history of
many hopes lost and few results kept. It was a classic
conviction (going back to Thomas Hobbes) that a
‘primitive’ or ‘natural’ state of society would be
characterized by omnipresent violence. Konrad
Lorenz (1966) proposed a biological paradigm insist-
ing on a genetic programme for violence which Ashley
Montagu (1968) convincingly opposed. We find a
broad variance of behavior toward potentially con-
flictuous situations in all different forms of human
social organization. If something is encoded, it is both
a potential for aggression on the one hand, and a
potential for flight and conflict avoidance on the other.
Sahlins’ (1961) study of the Nigerian Tiv, of
‘lineages of predatory expansion,’ suggested to some
that genealogical closeness generally made violent
conflict less probable. Barth’s (1959) study on Swat
Pathans has shown, however, that this pattern cannot
be generalized, not even to lineage societies. Con-
frontation may follow from alliances against one’s
closest competitors, even if they are close relatives.
Types of violent conflict had been associated with
different ‘cultural levels’ even by Malinowski (1941). It
was argued that on the first levels there would be less
violence. Other authors (e.g., Chagnon 1968) assumed
ISBN: 0-08-043076-7