Hum Nat

https://doi.org/10.1007/s12110-018-9319-1

Coalitional Play Fighting and the Evolution of Coalitional

Intergroup Aggression

Michelle Scalise Sugiyama 1 & Marcela Mendoza 1 & Frances White 1 &
Lawrence Sugiyama 1

# Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2018

Abstract Dyadic play fighting occurs in many species, but only humans are known to
engage in coalitional play fighting. Dyadic play fighting is hypothesized to build motor
skills involved in actual dyadic fighting; thus, coalitional play fighting may build skills
involved in actual coalitional fighting, operationalized as forager lethal raiding. If
human psychology includes a motivational component that encourages engagement
in this type of play, evidence of this play in forager societies is necessary to determine
that it is not an artifact of agricultural or industrial conditions. We examine whether
coalitional play fighting appears in the hunter-gatherer record and includes motor skills
used in lethal raiding. Using the ethnographic record, we generated a list of motor
patterns regularly used in forager warfare. Then, using Murdock’s Ethnographic Atlas,
we identified 100 culture clusters containing forager societies and searched the ethno-
graphic records of these societies for descriptions of coalitional play fighting, opera-
tionalized as contact games played in teams. Resulting games were coded for the
presence of eight motor patterns regularly used in forager lethal raiding. Although play
does not tend to be systematically documented in the hunter-gatherer literature, suffi-
ciently detailed descriptions of coalitional play were found for 46 of the 100 culture
clusters: all 46 exhibited coalitional play using at least one of the predicted motor
patterns; 39 exhibited coalitional play using four or more of the eight predicted motor
patterns. These results provide evidence that coalitional play fighting (a) occurs across
a diverse range of hunter-gatherer cultures and habitats, (b) regularly recruits motor
patterns used in lethal raiding, and (c) is not an artifact of agricultural or industrial life.
This is a first step in a new line of research on whether human male psychology

Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (https://doi.org/10.1007/s12110-018-

9319-1) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

* Michelle Scalise Sugiyama

mscalise@uoregon.edu

1
Anthropology Department, University of Oregon, Eugene, OR, USA
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includes motivations to engage in play that develops the deployment of coordinated

coalitional action involving key motor patterns used in lethal raiding.

Key Words Coalitional play fighting . Team sports . Lethal raiding . Warfare . Play .
Hunter-gatherers

Play as Adaptation Assembly

Play behavior in humans and other animals is widely regarded as an adaptation, the
function of which is to develop, rehearse, and/or refine skills critical to the organism’s
survival and/or reproduction later in life (e.g., Dolhinow and Bishop 1970; Fagen 1974,
1981; Lancaster 1971; Symons 1974; Van Lawick-Goodall 1967). For example, chase
play may build the stamina and speed demanded by sustained, rapid locomotion, which
is integral to avoiding predation (Boulton and Smith 1992; Symons 1978). It can also
develop, rehearse, and test different interception and avoidance tactics at speed against
an opponent, all under relatively safe conditions. The motor training hypothesis is
supported by research showing that, in early development, two important effects of
exercise on motor performance in mammals are modification of cerebellar synaptogen-
esis and modification of skeletal muscle fiber type differentiation (Byers and Walker
1995). Even spectating appears to confer training benefits: mental rehearsal, visualiza-
tion, and/or watching skilled performances can enhance physical performance (e.g.,
Calvo-Merino et al. 2004; Cumming and Ramsey 2008; Cumming and Williams 2012;
Moran et al. 2012). Similar mental training, visualization, and computer simulations
appear to be useful in combat training as well (Kaufman 2004; Oskarsson et al. 2010).
Play thus appears to provide an alternate means of acquiring and testing skill/
knowledge sets when there are constraints on doing so through direct experience
(Bock and Johnson 2004). The most obvious of these constraints is risk of injury or
death. It is much safer to practice predator evasion with a playmate, for example, than
with a predator. Another constraint is opportunity: the necessary learning experience
might not be encountered by the time it is needed, or it might not be encountered with
sufficient frequency to allow adequate development of the skill or knowledge set(s) in
question. Play circumvents this problem by enabling organisms to simulate critical
features of the real-world experience under less-costly learning conditions (Tooby and
Cosmides 2001). In so doing, play also provides a means of skill assessment and
display, enabling individuals to gage and advertise their proficiency relative to that of
their playmates (e.g., Apostolou 2015).
In humans, much play behavior can be productively understood in terms of the
prolonged juvenile period, which is believed to have evolved to support acquisition of
the extensive skill and knowledge sets demanded by the human ecological niche, and
development of the biological structures that scaffold this task (e.g., Bjorklund and
Blasi 2005; Bock 2005; Kaplan et al. 2007; Walker et al. 2002; cf. Bird and Bliege Bird
2005). Development is a broad term encompassing the growth, organization, and/or
calibration of anatomical, physiological, and cognitive structures. According to this
view, many adaptations are expected to have two modes, a functional mode and an
organizational mode. In the functional mode, the adaptation performs its evolved func-
tion; in the organizational mode, the adaptation is assembled (Tooby and Cosmides 2001).
Hum Nat

During assembly, the adaptation acquires information inputs requisite to performance of

its evolved function.
Some information relevant to assembly cannot be stored in the genome and must be
acquired via the organism’s environment, in which case the organizational mode must
be designed to acquire needed information inputs through experience. To this end, the
organizational mode is expected to have a motivational component that guides the
organism to interact with its environment in ways that advance development of the
adaptation. These motivational mechanisms generate affective states that reward the
organism with pleasure or excitement when it interacts with relevant aspects of the
environment in ways (e.g., wrestling with a buddy, throwing rocks at targets) that
provide the requisite information (Tooby and Cosmides 2001). In other words, these
motivational mechanisms encourage the organism to play, to play in particular ways,
and to enjoy that play. Much of what we perceive as play behavior may be the product
of adaptations operating in their organizational mode.
One developmental task that likely faced our ancestors was the acquisition of skills
related to coalitional intergroup aggression (CIA), or warfare, defined as an interaction
in which members of one social group cooperate to pursue, capture, assault, kill or
otherwise harm at least one member of another social group (Manson and Wrangham
1991). Based on the weaponry and tactics of historically documented small-scale
societies, early warfare is believed to have consisted largely of lethal raiding, although
pitched and running battles may also have occurred (Gat 1999). Raiding characteristi-
cally involves a group of allied males who collectively attempt to invade an outgroup
territory, seek out vulnerable outgroup members, assess the probability of success,
conduct a quick surprise attack, and then return to their home territory without being
drawn into a battle (Wrangham 1999). Prior to the acquisition of firearms, lethal raiding
among foragers would have been characterized by the use of short-range weapons (e.g.,
spears, clubs, slings, knives) and hand-to-hand combat.
Multiple lines of evidence suggest that warfare, largely in the form of raiding, may
be an ancient feature of H. sapiens life. The archaeological record indicates that
foraging peoples engaged in warfare well before contact with non-foraging peoples
(e.g., Lambert 2002; Maschner and Reedy-Maschner 1998; Moss and Erlandson 1992),
and thus that the emergence of warfare was not contingent on the emergence of
agriculture and state societies. Further evidence comes from massacre sites such as
Ofnet (~7500 BP; Frayer 1997) and Nataruk (9500–10,500 BP; Lahr et al. 2016), as well
as Mesolithic cave art in Spain depicting a pitched battle (LeBlanc and Register 2003)
and Australian rock paintings dating to 10,000 BP depicting humans fighting each other
with spears, clubs, knives, and shields (Taçon and Chippendale 1994). Although it is
impossible to determine ancient frequencies, a systematic survey found that 64% of
foraging societies in the ethnographic record had combat between communities or
larger groups at least every two years (Ember 1978), a likely underestimate since
pacification by external powers was not taken into account (Ember and Ember 1997).
Our nearest living relatives, chimpanzees, also engage in lethal raiding (Wrangham
1999). Like humans, chimpanzees live in territorial groups characterized by a fission-
fusion pattern of social organization, which enables the development of intergroup
hostilities and imbalances of power, the conditions hypothesized to be necessary and
sufficient for warfare to evolve (Wrangham 1999). Although chimpanzees are not
straightforward models for early hominids, chimpanzee raiding suggests that human
 Hum Nat

warfare could date back to when our ancestors began engaging in central place
foraging, the earliest evidence for which dates to approximately 2 mya (Isaac 1978).
Hominids living around this time had average brain volumes that far exceeded those of
modern chimpanzees (630 cc for Homo habilis and 1000 cc for Homo erectus,
compared with 350–400 cc for chimpanzees). Although brain volume does not provide
evidence for specific computational abilities per se, it suggests that early hominids had
the processing capacity requisite to the computational demands of lethal raiding.
These converging lines of evidence have led some researchers to hypothesize that
male H. sapiens evolved adaptations dedicated to engaging in CIA (McDonald et al.
2012; Tooby and Cosmides 1988, 2010; Wrangham 1999). A hypothesis that a given
trait is an adaptation is a hypothesis that the trait per se was shaped by natural selection.
Only natural selection (or its products) produces functional design, so demonstrating
evidence of functional design constitutes the necessary and sufficient evidence that a
trait is an adaptation. This requires a probability assessment of the degree to which the
hypothesized trait is an efficient, reliable solution to an adaptive problem faced by
ancestral members of the species (e.g., Darwin 1859; Dawkins 1986; Symons 1987,
1992; Thornhill 1997; Tooby and Cosmides 1989; Williams 1966). In other words, one
must demonstrate that the hypothesized trait is so well suited to solving a given adaptive
problem that the probability of its having arisen by chance alone, or as the nonfunctional
by-product of another adaptation, is so small that we can reject these explanations.
With regard to warfare, evidence of adaptation would consist of psychological
mechanisms improbably well suited to solving problems inherent to engaging in
CIA. If such mechanisms are present in male H. sapiens, it follows that they require
assembly. Among other tasks, this would include development and rehearsal of phys-
ical and cognitive skills instrumental to engaging in coalitional lethal raiding. At
minimum, this would include (a) the use of offensive and defensive body movements
(e.g., striking, kicking, blocking, dodging) in (b) the deployment of coordinated
coalitional action against (c) an opposing coalition, while (d) monitoring, anticipating,
and responding to the actions of both coalitions, and (e) continually reassessing
comparative fighting formidability as both sides lose combatants (owing to defection,
capture, injury, death, etc.). As part of the assembly phase, then, we would expect CIA
psychology to have an emotional component motivating individuals to engage in
activities that provide opportunities to develop these abilities. We posit that this
emotional component is manifest as motivation to engage in play behavior that
simulates critical features of raiding.
One such candidate is motivation to engage in play fighting, behavior in which the
action patterns used in actual fighting, such as hitting and kicking, are modified in ways
that reduce the likelihood of injury (Symons 1978). Dyadic (one-on-one) play fighting
occurs in many species, including humans, and is hypothesized to be an adaptation that
builds skills involved in actual dyadic fighting (Boulton and Smith 1992). Dyadic play
fighting in rhesus monkeys has been shown to recruit key motor patterns used in dyadic
agonistic interactions (Symons 1978) and may perform a similar function in humans
(Boulton and Smith 1992). However, because dyadic play fighting involves interac-
tions between individuals rather than coalitions, it does not simulate the key features of
coalitional fighting outlined above. On this point, a striking feature of human play is
that it includes coalitional play, and this coalitional play includes play fighting. Team
contact sports are a case in point: these play activities combine the agonistic and
Hum Nat

coalitional components of CIA and thus may simulate features of raiding that cannot be
simulated by dyadic play fighting alone.
We refer to the phenomenon of play fighting in teams as coalitional play fighting
(CPF), defined as play activity in which one coalition uses coordinated action and
nonlethal physical force to attain, and prevent an opposing coalition from attaining, a
predetermined physical objective (i.e., “goal”). Team contact sports are illustrative:
these games typically involve coordinated group action aimed at advancing or propel-
ling a ball (or similar object) into a pre-specified zone, while thwarting an opposing
coalition’s efforts to do the same. Because the ball is advanced with the body, these
games enable participants to rehearse body positioning and more fine-grained move-
ments involved in blocking, intercepting, striking, kicking, and/or throwing at moving
human targets. At the same time, the chance of injury is reduced by directing the thrust
of the action at the ball rather than the body per se. In many games, the ball is advanced
with a modified club or stick, which may rehearse skills related to landing, parrying,
and dodging blows delivered with a weapon. This is similar to the use of implements in
formal martial training—such as the wooden bokken and bamboo sword (fukuro shinai)
used in Kenjutsu training—to practice distance, reach, timing, and technique with less
risk than that entailed in using an actual sword.
In sum, we hypothesize that human CPF is a manifestation of adaptations for CIA
operating in their organizational mode. Specifically, we hypothesize that human males
are motivated to engage in CPF because it provides information inputs relevant to
building and rehearsing key skills involved in lethal raiding: (a) the use of offensive
and defensive body positioning and movements (e.g., striking, kicking, blocking,
dodging) in (b) the deployment of coordinated coalitional action against (c) an opposing
coalition, while (d) anticipating, monitoring, and strategically responding to the actions
of both coalitions, and (e) continually reassessing comparative fighting formidability as
both sides tire and/or lose combatants. If our hypothesis is correct, one expectation is
that we will find evidence of motivation to engage in CPF, and a correspondence
between movement patterns used in CPF and those used in actual coalitional fighting.
It is important to note that we are not arguing that the predicted movement patterns
evolved specifically for warfare. Many of the motor patterns examined herein likely
evolved in the context of predator evasion, hunting, and/or dyadic fighting and thus may
antedate the emergence of lethal raiding. The adaptation we hypothesize is psycholog-
ical: it lies in (a) an emotional system that motivates and organizes engagement in (b)
behaviors that recruit specific motor patterns (c) in the context of coalitional play
involving the use of coordinated action to attain, and prevent an opposing coalition
from attaining, a predetermined physical goal. Our hypothesis does not require that a
given game recruit all of the predicted motor patterns, because human cultures typically
exhibit more than one form of CPF: collectively, we expect a society’s CPF games to
rehearse many of the key motor patterns associated with lethal raiding.
Tests of predictions derived from the CPF hypothesis might include investigating
whether motivation to engage in CPF is evidenced in boys and young men cross-
culturally, and whether this behavior develops spontaneously (e.g., extemporaneous
emergence of coalitions in snowball fights or similar activities). One might investigate
the comparative popularity of sports that engage many versus few motor patterns
involved in human lethal raiding, or whether CPF enhances combat unit effectiveness.
However, these lines of evidence could be interpreted as the product of modern
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conditions and/or cultural transmission (e.g., media exposure, video games, the
military-industrial complex). Although historically documented foragers are not isolat-
ed facsimiles of ancestral foragers, they share a dependence on foraging for all or a
sizable part of subsistence, carried out in comparatively small, natural-fertility popula-
tions with low population densities and no reliable access to telecommunication,
motorized labor-saving devices, or Western medicine (Lee and DeVore 1968;
Marlowe 2005). Thus, as a first step toward testing the hypothesis that human males
have motivational mechanisms dedicated to CPF, we examine whether CPF is evident
in the forager ethnographic record, and whether these games engage key motor patterns
involved in lethal raiding.

Design of Coalitional Play Fighting

The play-as-practice hypothesis has been challenged on the grounds that there are
fundamental physical differences between play fighting and actual fighting (e.g.,
Loizos 1966; Stamps 1995; Sutton-Smith 1995). For example, Biben (1998) notes that
serious squirrel monkey fighting is characterized by the infliction of bites, but this
behavior is absent from play fighting: “we never saw biting, inhibited or otherwise, or
wounding in play, making play look like a less-than-perfect model for at least this
important aspect of fighting” (1998:173). This point overlooks a key criterion of play
behavior: it not aimed at inflicting serious injury (Fagen 1977). On the contrary, play is
characterized by the practice of self-handicapping, whereby bigger, stronger, faster,
and/or more experienced individuals voluntarily inhibit or redirect the force of their
actions to make the contest more even (Boulton and Smith 1992). As a result,
“consequences of playful activity differ from consequences of serious performance of
the same motor patterns” (Fagen 1977:395). In accordance with this logic, we would
not expect the actions used in play fighting to exactly mirror those used in actual
fighting; rather, we would expect these actions to be modified in ways that reduce the
likelihood of lethal or disabling injury. For example, in CPF, we would expect blows to
be aimed at a proxy (e.g., a ball) and/or less vulnerable parts of the body in order to
reduce the chance of injury. By the same logic, we might expect to find games in which
a projectile is driven along the ground because strikes aimed at ground level reduce the
chances of injury to the head or internal organs, while providing safe practice for
striking a downed opponent in actual fighting. In short, arguing that play fighting is not
practice for actual fighting because participants modify or inhibit actions likely to injure
their opponent is akin to arguing that Karate, Krav Maga, Pankration, Silat, Jiu Jitsu,
and Laamb wrestling are not practice for fighting because biting, eye gouging, throat
striking, and fish hooking are not carried out in sparring.
Although skills developed in dyadic play fighting can be deployed in coalitional
fighting, dyadic play fighting does not rehearse, and thus cannot develop, all of the skills
demanded by CIA. Coalitional fighting imposes attentional, coordination, strategic, and
evaluative demands that dyadic fighting does not. Chief of these is “orchestrating one’s
behavior so that it meshes simultaneously with that of several others” in order to thwart
the orchestrated actions of an opposing coalition (Tooby and Cosmides 1988:3).
Coalitional play that requires passing, receiving, and interception (e.g., lacrosse, rugby,
soccer, hockey) is more likely to engage these capacities than dyadic play fighting
Hum Nat

because it simulates the complex coordinated action and the main obstacle involved in
raiding—namely, resistance by a comparably armed human coalition. This observation
is echoed by sports commentators, who note that in modern team contact sports,
individual performance is not sufficient to produce wins because coordinated action is
critical to success: “With few exceptions, it doesn’t matter which team has the best
player, the final result hinges on the entire team. . . . No matter your talent level in team
sport, you must rely on your teammates. . . . Without a group of players performing
simultaneously complex motions pointed toward the same goal, the team performance
will falter” (https://g4athlete.com/team-vs-individual-sport/). Dyadic play fighting does
not require an individual to track, anticipate, assist, or impede the goals and aggressive
actions of multiple human agents in two opposed groups comprising individuals with
different skills and attributes, and it is thus unlikely to develop those skills specific to
cooperative fighting or assessment of group-fighting formidability and commitment. On
this point, although the Roman legions practiced individual and dyadic weapons
training, as do all professional armies, they also incessantly drilled coordinated tactical
maneuvers, upon which their fighting success was dependent (Webster 1998).
Like dyadic play fighting, play hunting is unlikely to develop all the skills critical to
engaging in CIA. For example, although “games of skill” (Roberts and Sutton-Smith
1962) that involve shooting at targets are common play activities among hunter-
gatherer children (e.g., hoop-and-pole; Culin 1907), these games do not involve
coordinated action against an opposing coalition. On this point, there are hints in the
ethnographic record that achieving hunting and warfare prowess later in life (Garfield
et al. 2016; MacDonald 2007) required differential training in youth (Mendoza 1985).
Among the Tahltan, for example, boys actively pursued their preferences: “most lads
desiring to be good hunters prayed to become such and practiced the real hunting of
game,” while “lads who desired to be good warriors prayed to be such and practiced
mimic warfare” (Teit 1956:137–38). Thus, although hunting play provides experience
in the use of weapons, and may develop strength and stamina as stalking and warfare
games do (MacFarlan and Macfarlan 1958), it does not fully simulate the tasks
involved in CIA. One such task is anticipating the moves of human opponents; the
vast majority of prey species are incapable of mounting the strategic, coordinated group
maneuvers exhibited by humans (e.g., fortification, encirclement, treachery). This point
is underscored in an eighteenth-century description of a Reindeer Chukchi game played
by adult males using real weapons. Participants draw the bow but “do not release the
arrows from the hand, and then they take a spear, making the same try as would be
necessary in a battle. . . . The primary difference from battle lies in the fact that the bow
is not shot and the spear not thrust” (Nefëdkin 2014:29). The observer adds that,
through this game, “the reaction of the warrior to the action of an opponent was
perfected. The sequence of exercises is purely combat” (Nefëdkin 2014:29).
Chase games, too, are common among foragers but tend to exhibit a many-vs.-one
or one-vs.-many rather than a coalition-vs.-coalition structure. For example, the
Netsilingmiut played a game in which one person was a “caribou” and the others were
“wolves”: the first “wolf” to touch the “caribou’s” bare skin became the next “caribou”
(Rasmussen 1931). Kiowa children played a game in which one person pretended to be
a bear and chased the other players, who were pretending to pick berries near the bear’s
den (Parsons 1929). Thus, chase games appear to simulate pursuit by two different
types of animal threats: social carnivores and solitary predators. A third threat
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potentially simulated by these games is charges by large game animals. For example,
the Netsilingmiut played a game in which one player, pretending to be a musk oxen,
chased the others and tried to “horn” (gore) them (Rasmussen 1931). Such games do
not mimic the coalitional structure of CIA.
Moreover, their explicit references to animals suggest that many chase games
simulate—and rehearse responses to—the offensive, defensive, and evasive behaviors
of nonhuman rather than human agents. This is an important distinction because animal
fighting tactics and weaponry are considerably different from those deployed by
humans. On this point, it may be significant that in some chase games, players imitate
key behavioral and/or physical traits of the animal they are pretending to be, as in the
musk oxen example above. Another example is a Netsilingmiut game in which one
player pretending to be a bear crawls on all fours while chasing the others (Rasmussen
1931). Such simulations may encourage participants to develop offensive, defensive,
and/or evasive strategies that are appropriate to the animal in question. In any case,
although they provide experience with pursuit and evasion, chase games do not
simulate other important features of coalitional human attack. With their highly devel-
oped ability to innovate (Tooby and DeVore 1987; Barrett et al. 2007), humans are
better able to improvise tactics on the fly and tailor them to immediate constraints and
opportunities. Their capacities for innovation, coordinated action, and division of labor
make human groups much less predictable in aggressive contexts than animal targets
and pose problems that require dedicated mechanisms for their solution (Duntley 2005;
Tooby and Cosmides 1988). These problems are not simulated by play hunting or
dyadic play fighting, but they are simulated by CPF (e.g., the use of strategic plays in
football, hockey, or lacrosse). The converse is also true: CPF is not well suited to
simulating predator evasion or hunting. Group hunting may appear to be an exception
in that, like CIA, it involves the use of coordinated aggressive action. However, group
hunting typically involves a small party of humans targeting a single nonhuman agent,
and while game drives target multiple agents, they typically exploit nonhuman animal
herd behavior. CPF does not reflect these aspects of group hunting.
We therefore posit that CPF provides a means by which, in an open-field context,
individuals can learn, practice, and refine the coordinated deployment of fighting skills
with those of coalition members while thwarting the fighting maneuvers of an opposing
coalition. Periodic participation in such games during childhood, adolescence, and
early to middle adulthood provides individuals with opportunities to viscerally assess
the aggressive formidability and commitment of their own and—when played with
neighboring groups—other coalitions as their composition and skills change through
time. Thus, we further hypothesize that team play fighting provides practice at making
such assessments with accuracy and rapidity. (The display and assessment components
of intergroup CPF will be discussed in a future publication.)

Methods

To test the prediction that motivation to engage in CPF occurs across diverse hunter-
gatherer populations, and regularly recruits key motor patterns used in forager lethal
raiding, we first searched the ethnographic record for detailed qualitative descriptions
of forager warfare from all continents for which such information was available (Asia,
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Australia, North America, South America). We used these qualitative descriptions to

deduce motor patterns requisite to the deployment of, and avoidance of injury by, the
weaponry and tactics referenced therein. We then surveyed a sample of forager societies
for the presence of team contact games and coded these games for the presence of the
motor patterns deployed in forager CIA.

Sample

To assemble the study sample, we searched Murdock’s (1967) Ethnographic Atlas for
forager societies, operationalized as a combined score of 7 or more for the categories of
dependence on gathering, hunting, and/or fishing (as measured in Table A, Column 7 of
the Atlas). This resulted in the inclusion of some forager-horticulturalist and forager-
pastoralist societies but was deemed necessary because a stricter criterion of 100%
dependence on gathering, hunting, and/or fishing would have greatly reduced the
sample size. The search yielded 235 culture groups distributed across 100 culture
clusters in five of Murdock’s six geographical regions (there are no forager groups in
the Circum-Mediterranean region by our criteria). Mounted foragers were included in
the sample because the acquisition of horses did not substantially alter the nature of
forager warfare, in that it continued to take the form of lethal raiding. Moreover, some
groups continued to raid on foot even though they possessed horses (Goodwin 1971).
Additionally, references in oral tradition to attacks by Oroks and Chukchi mounted on
reindeer (Batchelor 1926; Bogoras 1918) indicate that mounted attacks may have
occurred in some forager groups before the acquisition of the horse. Ethnographically
documented forager societies are not uniformly distributed across continents; as a
result, the representation of these cultures in the Ethnographic Atlas is biased by
geographical region, with 47 culture clusters from North America, 23 from South
America, 12 from East Eurasia, 11 from the Insular Pacific, and 7 from Africa, and
this bias carries over into our study sample.

Motor Patterns in Warfare

With the aim of elucidating design, we examined detailed descriptions of forager lethal
raiding to generate a list of motor patterns that we predicted would be present in CPF.
These motor patterns were inferred in large part from the weaponry used. An example
is seen in Burch’s account of Iñupiat warfare: “At a distance bows and arrows were
obviously the weapons of choice. At close quarters . . . thrusting spears might have
been more useful . . . while in hand-to-hand combat knives and clubs might have been
more effective than any other weapon” (2005:85). Similarly, among the Murngin, “The
wooden or stone-headed spear, the spear-thrower and the club, as well as the stone
knife, are used in these [combat] engagements. The spear is the chief weapon. . . . The
stone axe . . . also serves as a weapon” (Warner 1931:458). Slings and bolas were also
used in warfare (e.g., Haenke 1943). For example, in the eleventh century, a Norse
expedition led by Thorfinn Karlsefni was attacked by “Skrellings” on the east coast of
North America. According to the sagas, “their major weapons were large ball-shaped
objects, resembling the stomachs of sheep, which were flung from poles” (Oswalt
1999:12). It is unclear whether the “Skrellings” were Inuit or Algonkians, but both used
sling weapons. The Algonkian type was made by “sewing a large stone inside a fresh
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skin that tightened about the stone as it dried” and was “attached to a pole and hurled as
a weapon” (Oswalt 1999:12). The Inuit type is described in an account of a Danish
expedition attacked in 1605 while anchored off northwestern Greenland: the party of
thirty men in kayaks “paddled ashore to find stones that they hurled at the vessel with
slings” (Oswalt 1999:43). Slings were also used in combat by peoples of the Gran
Chaco region (Hutchinson 1865:326). Accounts also reference dodging, as seen in a
description of Ona warfare: “While they fought, the Ona did not stand still for a
moment, but jumped continuously to the right and to the left to avoid presenting
himself as an easy target to the enemy” (De Agostini 1956).
With regard to motor patterns, the use of slings indicates throwing and implies
dodging, and the use of spears and clubs indicates throwing, dodging, striking, and
parrying. Spears and clubs are used both as hand weapons and projectiles. For example,
Maguire reports that Dorobo use the club “indiscriminately as a throwing or hitting
weapon” and “are excellent shots with it” (1928:256). Spear-throwers, too, may be
deployed as weapons, as seen among the Murngin: “No shield is found here. The
Murngin depend on the spear-thrower to ward off spears, and also on their well-
developed agility to avoid being hit” (Warner 1931:458). Similar defensive tactics
(dodging, parrying, catching) are documented among the Chukchi: “When he is shot at,
he avoids the arrows by springing to one side, or parries them all with the butt-end of
his spear, or simply catches them between the fingers” (Bogoras 1904–1909:646; for
arrow-catching, see also Abreu de Galindo 1767:33). In hand-to-hand combat, grap-
pling comes into play. Among the Ona, for example, “the men shoot first from ambush,
then in the open, and finally close empty-handed, the object being to break the
opponent’s back or neck by wrestling” (Barclay 1904:73, our emphasis). Although
grappling includes several motor patterns (e.g., blocking, tackling, pinning, clinching,
choking), in most cases it was impossible to tease out different movements from the
descriptions of lethal raiding or play; accordingly, these movements were collapsed into
one category. Although not explicitly referenced in descriptions of lethal raiding,
kicking was inferred from the common use of sweeping in fighting, the use of strikes
with the legs/knees/feet in many martial arts, and the widespread use of kicking in
assaults (a Google search for “assault kicking” returned ~3,360,000 hits in .5 seconds).
For example, 20% of head injuries in UK accident and emergency patients were the
result of assault (Kay and Teasdale 2001), with the head a “target of choice” for kicking
and trampling in homicidal attacks (Henn and Lignitz 2004). Running was inferred
from the fact that lethal raiding is characterized by brief, surprise attack followed by
immediate, rapid retreat to the aggressor’s home territory (Wrangham 1999), and
because raiding often involves pursuit and evasion. Among the indigenous nations of
Alaska, for example, “unless the battle had gone on for a very long time, they [the
vanquished party] were usually hotly pursued by the victors” (Burch 2005:108).
Our survey of forager lethal raiding yielded eight motor pattern categories (ESM
Table 1): catching, dodging, grappling, kicking, parrying, running, striking, and throw-
ing. These motor patterns formed the basis of the ethogram used for coding (reproduced
in the ESM). The inclusion of catching may appear to be at odds with the claim that
CPF serves as practice for CIA: other than scattered references to arrow-catching, this
motor pattern is rare in descriptions of lethal raiding. However, catching may provide
practice for dodging, in that both movements require calculating the trajectory of a
projectile and quickly positioning the body in relation to it. In terms of position, the
Hum Nat

chief difference between catching and dodging is whether the body is placed in line
with the trajectory or immediately outside of it. Thus, catching games offer a less risky
means of developing skills related to dodging than dodging games do, which is what
we would expect if play actions are modified to reduce the likelihood of serious injury
(Fagen 1977; Burghardt 2004).

Forager CPF

We then searched the ethnographic record for descriptions of team contact games played
by forager societies in each of the 100 culture clusters from our sample, using materials
available through the University of Oregon Knight Library (including WorldCat). We
searched for descriptions documented at a time when traditional ways of life were still
practiced or practiced within living memory. The survey included sources in English,
Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, French, and German. When ethnographic sources included
mention of team games, the chapter or section was saved as a pdf for later coding.
Owing to the paucity of rich, detailed descriptions of forager games in the ethno-
graphic record, statistical sampling of societies was not feasible. Such an approach
would have resulted in the exclusion of societies for which such descriptions were
available and/or the inclusion of societies for which they were not. A further problem
was that, when play information was lacking for a given culture, it was impossible to
determine whether this was because of the behavior being absent or simply not being
recorded by the ethnographer.
The study sample was analyzed by culture cluster rather than individual cultures
because, in some cases, ethnographers reported on play behavior for a general region
(e.g., “Aborigines of Victoria,” “Bering Strait Eskimo”) rather than a specific culture group.
In most cases, information about team games was found for only one culture within a given
culture cluster. However, when we found sufficiently detailed play descriptions for two or
more cultures within a cluster, all were copied for coding, on the logic that such information
was too rare to be overlooked. When this occurred, it was often because the informant or
ethnographer mentioned that a given game was played with or by neighboring groups. For
example, in his description of hockey as played in the Gran Chaco region, Nordenskiöld
notes that he “saw it among the Choroti, Asluslay and Mataco” (1910:430–32).
Because the play behavior examined in this study is hypothesized to be generated by
adaptations dedicated to male coalitional aggression, we limited our survey to male
team play, defined as play in which two or more male players engaged another group of
two or more male players. This eliminated “team” sports such as wrestling matches, in
which only one player from each side competes at a time and which is thus more akin
to dyadic play. In the handful of descriptions where the sex of the players was not
specified, we assumed male participation owing to a pronounced tendency on the part
of ethnographers to identify games played by women only. For example, Culin notes
that “the game of double-ball throughout the eastern United States and among the
Plains tribes is played exclusively by women, and is commonly known as the woman’s
ball game” (1907:647). This pattern of calling attention to “women’s games” indicated
a default assumption on the part of the (usually male) investigator that, unless otherwise
indicated, male activity was being reported. We included mixed-sex team games in our
sample because they were rare and because our prediction that males will engage in
these games is neutral with respect to females.
 Hum Nat

Motor Pattern Coding

We coded descriptions of team games for motor patterns rather than game types
because physical play is composed of motor patterns and its hypothesized adaptive
function is to train motor and associated cognitive skills. As Burghardt notes, “Repe-
tition of patterns of movement is found in all play and games in human and nonhuman
animals” (2004:234). We therefore expect to find design at the level of the movement
patterns used in the context of CPF. In other words, we would expect selection to
produce motivations to engage in specific motor activities (e.g., throwing or dodging
projectiles) in a competitive coalitional context, not for engaging in specific games per
se. We took as our model Symons’s (1978) study, which breaks down rhesus play
fighting into a sequence of distinct motor patterns. Symons argues that rhesus play
fighting exhibits design, in that “each monkey attempts simultaneously to bite without
being bitten. Thus a playfighting monkey succeeds in achieving its goal to the extent
that its partner fails” (Symons 1978:87). This same design structure is inherent in team
play fighting, but instead of two individual opponents there are two sets of opponents.
Like dyadic play fighting, then, CPF is a structured activity: each team uses coordinated
action and nonlethal physical force to attain, and prevent an opposing team from
attaining, a predetermined physical objective.
Since our survey focused on motor patterns used across team game types, all CPF
games documented within a given culture cluster were collapsed into a single category.
The game descriptions collected for each cluster were then surveyed for the presence of
the predicted motor patterns. For example, Hoffman’s (1890:134) description of East-
ern Ojibwa lacrosse evinced the presence of the following motor patterns:

Catching: “The ball is tossed into the air in the center of the field. As soon as it
descends it is caught with the ball stick by one of the players”
Running: “he immediately sets out at full speed towards the opposite goal”
Throwing: “If too closely pursued, or if intercepted by an opponent, he throws the
ball in the direction of one of his own side, who takes up the race”
Striking: The usual method of depriving a player of the ball is to strike the handle
of the ball stick so as to dislodge the ball; but this is frequently a difficult matter on
account of a peculiar horizontal motion of the ball stick maintained by the runner.
Frequently the ball carrier is disabled by being struck across the arm or leg, thus
compelling his retirement”

For games identified by their Western name only (e.g., hockey, rounders, handball),
we followed Deaner and Smith (2013:8) and coded them as their modern equivalents,
reasoning that the investigator considered the label a sufficient description. In such
cases, we assumed that motor patterns used in the indigenous game were the same as
those used in the Western version, and coded the game accordingly (see the ESM). For
example, the observation that the Omaha played “shinny in the fall” (Culin 1907:781)
was coded for the same motor patterns involved in Western shinny. An exception to this
rule was “football,” which can refer to soccer, American football, or rugby. When it was
impossible to determine which form of the game the investigator was referencing,
“football” was coded only for running. Variants of hockey were coded for both striking
and parrying, on the grounds that the player in possession of the projectile must block
Hum Nat

strikes made by other players trying to steal it (i.e., stick checking). This is seen in a
description of Sioux shinny: “the club may be used in any manner to make a play
[coded as striking], or to prevent an opponent from making a play [coded as parrying]”
(Walker 1905:285). Because hockey allows body, shoulder, and hip checking, we also
coded hockey and its variants for grappling. Games that do not typically involve
grappling in modern societies were coded for the presence of this motor pattern only
if it was explicitly mentioned, as in a description of Micmac soccer: “a player may
catch his opponent by the neck and thus hold him back until he can obtain the ball
himself” (Hager 1895:35–36). Because many games prohibit players from using the
hands to restrain or take down opponents, much of the action coded as grappling
consisted of checking—driving the shoulder, arm, elbow, or hip into one’s opponent.
Interestingly, one of the team games we encountered in the ethnographic record was
mock warfare. Because this activity is an obvious instance of CPF, we included it in our
analysis. These games typically involve the throwing and dodging of projectiles, such as
rocks and sticks, and are similar to dodgeball in that action is expressly directed at the
body. In North Western Australia, for example, players “pick sides and throw blunted
miniature spears at each other. They can either dodge these spears or turn them off with a
small stick held in the left hand, and they seem to enjoy this sport immensely” (Withnell
1901:29). Similarly, Bambuti children “frequently have pitched battles, which open with
mutual taunts and end with cudgeling and mud-slinging” (Schebesta 1933:60). Many of
these games involve the hurling of projectiles using sticks and thus underscore the motor
pattern parallels between lethal raiding and stick-based throwing games such as lacrosse.
For example, in the “mud-and-willow” game of the Santee Sioux, “a lump of soft clay
was stuck on the end of a limber and springy willow wand and thrown as boys throw
apples from sticks, with considerable force” (Eastman 1902:55–56). The reference to
apple-throwing suggests that mock warfare games may be more widespread across
human societies than indicated by our study, which focused exclusively on foraging
peoples. For example, in a survey of indigenous South American games and amuse-
ments, Cooper (1949:511) reports that “mock battles of various kinds” were played in
the Andean, Eastern Bolivian, and Eastern Brazilian regions, and snowball fights and
similar activities are common among children in the United States.
All activities coded as play met Burghardt’s (2004:234) five criteria for identifying
play behavior: (1) performance of the behavior does not aid immediate survival in the
form or context in which it is expressed; (2) the behavior is voluntary, intentional, and/or
pleasurable; (3) compared with “serious” performance of ethotypic behavior, play
behavior is incomplete, exaggerated, awkward, and/or involves special signals; (4) it
occurs repeatedly in a similar form during at least a portion of the animal’s ontogeny;
and (5) it is initiated during leisure—when the animals are adequately fed, healthy, and
free from stress (e.g., predator threat, social instability, inclement climatic conditions,
feeding or mating competition).
The first author and an undergraduate assistant blind to the research hypothesis
independently coded ethnographic materials for presence of predicted motor patterns.
Motor patterns were coded for presence rather than frequency: if a motor pattern was
present in multiple games within a given culture cluster, it was coded only once. Cohen’s
κ calculated using SAS v. 9.49 shows agreement significantly above chance between the
two independent raters’ judgements overall (κ =.825, p<.0001) and for all eight motor
patterns with: almost perfect agreement between raters for strike (κ =.934, p<.0001) and
 Hum Nat

parry (κ =.826, p<.0001); substantial agreement for catch (κ =.784, p<.0001), kick
(κ =.771, p<.0001), throw (κ =.758, p<.0001), grapple (κ =.75, p<.0001), and
dodge (κ =.727, p<.0001); and moderate agreement for run (κ =.427, p=.0031)
(Landis and Koch 1977). There was also substantial agreement for the one type of
game coded independently, mock warfare (κ =.718, p<.0001). Running may have
shown less agreement than other categories because it was often implied rather than
explicitly stated in descriptions of team contact games.

Results

Despite the fact that play (or its absence) was not commonly or extensively document-
ed by early ethnographers, team game information was found for 46 of the 100 culture
clusters, across all five geographic regions in the sample (Africa, East Eurasia, Insular
Pacific, North America, and South America; ESM Table 1). Interestingly, mock warfare
was found in 39% of culture clusters and boys’ mock warfare in 26%, the latter
suggesting that motivation to engage in CPF emerges in childhood. As seen in ESM
Table 2, games using sticks to hit objects (and sometimes people) were the most
common game type (76%), followed by games involving kicking (41.2%) and team
handball (32.6%).
All eight of the predicted motor patterns were present in multiple culture clusters,
although some were more widespread than others (ESM Table 1). As noted above, our
prediction is not that every type of coalitional fighting game engages all eight predicted
motor patterns. Rather, we predicted that, cross-culturally, forager CPF games regularly
engage different subsets of these eight motor patterns. As seen in ESM Table 1, the
majority of culture clusters for which information regarding team games was available
evince participation in team games that, collectively, recruit several of the predicted
motor patterns. ESM Table 2 shows that most forager cultures engage in more than one
type of CPF game, with multiple CPF games present in 58.7% of culture clusters.
Running was the most common of the predicted motor patterns, being present in 39
(85%) of the culture clusters. It is also arguably the least diagnostic because running
ability is critical in other aspects of forager life, such as predator evasion and hunting.
Thus, the motivation to engage in running-based play activity might be driven by
multiple fitness advantages. However, this explanation does not satisfactorily account
for running play involving two opposing coalitions. Chase play more closely simulates
the dynamics of predator evasion than CPF does, and the degree to which forager
hunting depends on running is unclear. Endurance running is hypothesized to be a
derived capability of our genus that may have been used in the context of hunting or
scavenging (Carrier 1984). However, endurance running is not common in modern
forager hunting (Bramble and Lieberman 2004:351): although persistence hunting
(running game to exhaustion) has been documented in some hunter-gatherer groups,
it does not appear to be a widespread or frequently used tactic (Liebenberg 2006).
Forager hunting techniques rely more on walking and stalking than running down prey
(e.g., Raichlen et al. 2016). Even game drives do not tend to involve sustained, high-
speed running (e.g., McClellan 1987:119–22; Turnbull 1983; cf. Anell 1969). Thus,
although “it is reasonable to hypothesize that Homo evolved to travel long distances by
both walking and running” (Bramble and Lieberman 2004:351), the demands of
Hum Nat

hunting may not adequately account for human running abilities. In any case, running,
often in a coalitional context, is an inherent part of lethal raiding, which typically
involves a sudden strike followed by immediate retreat. Iñupiat warfare is illustrative:
“the overwhelming majority of armed confrontations were raids on single settlements,
after which the surviving invaders headed for home as fast as they could go” (Burch
2005:69). Fleeing enemies were often pursued; in such circumstances, stamina as well
as speed was critical, as evinced by Helena Valero’s account of a Yanoáma (Yąnomamö)
attack in which she and her fellow villagers were pursued by enemy warriors for nearly
twenty-four hours (Biocca 1970:31–37). Running also appears to have been critical to
mustering allies or securing refuge in a timely fashion: “when raiders were discovered to
be on the way, residents had to travel several miles to the nearest village to escape or get
help” (Burch 2005:69).
Games involving striking were present in 37 (80%) culture clusters. Since early
hunting may have involved the use of clubs, the motivation to engage in striking play
may be driven by more than one set of selective forces. But hunting doesn’t explain
play in which two coalitions compete to strike an object: although foragers often hunt
in groups, they don’t compete with other teams when doing so, nor do prey animals
defend themselves in teams. Games involving parrying were present in 35 (76%) of the
culture clusters. Parrying occurs in most games that involve striking, with the exception
of rounders. Throwing games that use sticks also involve parrying in the course of
blocking another player’s throw, as seen in a description of Chippewa lacrosse: “when
one is on the point of hurling it [the ball] to a great distance, an antagonist overtakes
him, and by a sudden stroke dashes down the ball” (Carver 1796). Parrying provides
some of the strongest evidence that CPF subserves the development of skills related to
lethal raiding rather than hunting: only humans parry with handheld implements.
Indeed, parry fractures are one of the clear osteological signatures of interpersonal
violence, including warfare (Lambert 2007). Games involving grappling were present
in 33 (72%) of the culture clusters. As with parrying, the presence of grappling is
compelling evidence that CPF develops skills related to lethal raiding rather than
hunting. As the use of projectile weapons attests, hunter-gatherers prefer to kill animals
from a distance because doing so reduces the chances of injury. Hence, grappling does
not normally occur in the course of hunting. In contrast, once a person’s supply of
projectile weapons is spent, lethal raiding comes down to hand-to-hand combat using
clubs, knives, and/or the body, at which point effective grappling skills are critical.
Games involving throwing were present in 31 (67%) of the culture clusters. Like
striking play, throwing play may also be driven by adaptations related to hunting.
However, throwing play in which two teams compete to drive a projectile into enemy
territory better simulates the maneuvers and calculations demanded by lethal raiding
rather than those required by group hunting. Catching was somewhat less common than
throwing, being present in 24 (52%) of the culture clusters. This may be explained by
the fact that some throwing games in the sample involved dodging rather than catching.
For example, the Netsilingmiut played a game called “Pretending to Kill Another” in
which players throw stones at each other and try to dodge them (Rasmussen 1931).
Games involving kicking were present in 18 (39%) of the culture clusters. Like
grappling, kicking is instrumental in hand-to-hand combat, and more diagnostic of
fighting than hunting: hunters don’t kick animals to death, or take them down by
sweeping. Games involving dodging were present in 16 (35%) of the culture clusters.
 Hum Nat

Limitations of This Study

This study is limited by the sparse nature of the early ethnographic record on forager
coalitional games. Geographically, evidence of CPF is heavily biased toward North
America, but this reflects the Ethographic Atlas forager sample as a whole. Whether or
not CPF was present in culture clusters for which data are lacking remains unknown.
Also unknown is the degree to which lack of data is due to the behavior not being
present or simply not having been recorded by early ethnographers. Further, except for
boys’ mock warfare, almost all reports are for formally recognized games rather than
spontaneously emerging coalitional contact play. Our finding that 46% of the culture
clusters in our sample show evidence of CPF is thus likely an underestimate of the
pervasiveness of this behavior. On this point, rough and tumble play is expected to be
ubiquitous in humans, yet according to the Atlas’s own coding, only 66 of the 100
clusters included in our survey show evidence of games of physical skill of any type.
Significantly, we found evidence of CPF in 43 (74%) of those 66 clusters, and evidence
of CPF in four clusters for which the presence of games of physical skill was coded in
the Atlas as unknown.
If CPF is the product of adaptations for CIA operating in their organizational mode,
we might expect to see CPF in other animals that exhibit CIA (e.g., chimpanzees,
wolves, hyenas, dolphins), yet a survey of the play literature yielded no evidence of
CPF in these species. There are a number of possible explanations for this, the first
being that absence of evidence is not evidence of absence: CPF may occur despite not
having been observed by investigators. Given the extensive behavioral observations
that have been made of these species, however, this seems unlikely, although it may be
that CPF has not been recognized as such. Secondly, the expectation that CPF will
occur in all species that exhibit CIA assumes that the benefit of engaging in CPF will
outweigh the costs across species, which may not be the case. Indeed, the cost/benefit
ratio of engaging in CPF is likely to vary considerably across human groups. Besides
the fitness costs and benefits of CIA itself, other variables (e.g., life history, group size,
demographic structure, diet, habitat, range size) are expected to affect the costs and
benefits of engaging in CPF. For example, population structure might not allow, or
might reduce opportunities for, coalitional play: a group might lack sufficient individ-
uals of the same age/sex class to support play in teams.
Another possibility is that, in some species, limits imposed by diet and feeding
behavior may make an energetically taxing activity such as CPF more costly than any
fitness benefits derived from it. Compared with the human diet, for example, the
chimpanzee diet is much less nutritionally dense and requires a higher volume of food
intake to supply adequate energy and nutrients (Leonard et al. 2007). Moreover, in
humans, post-weaning parental provisioning greatly increases juvenile survival rates
relative to nonhuman primates and social carnivores: in chimpanzees, only about one in
three juveniles survives adolescence, and in lions and wolves, survival rates drop to one
in five; in contrast, human foragers successfully rear one out of two offspring to
adulthood (Lancaster and Lancaster 1983). Similarly, juvenile survival rates are
higher—nearly double—in primate groups regularly provisioned by humans than in
wild, self-feeding groups (Lancaster and Lancaster 1983:39). In addition, the extensive
use of skilled extraction techniques by humans provides reliable access to large
resource packages that are pooled across the foraging group, adding further energy
Hum Nat

savings (Kaplan et al. 2007). Notably, forager intergroup CPF often occurs during
festivals or trade fairs—times when work demands are low and resources are abundant
(e.g., Wells Jr and Kelly 1890:25; Rand and Webster 1894:200; Stern 1934:55).
Diet plays a highly consequential role in the expression of play behavior because of
its effects on the organism’s energy budget. Play is defined, in part, as behavior initiated
during leisure—when the animal is adequately fed, healthy, and free from stressors
such as predation threat (Burghart 2004:234). In other words, play occurs when the
animal’s time and energy are not being allocated to more pressing tasks. The enabling
effect of leisure vis-à-vis play is illustrated in a study that found extensive tool use in a
range of captive species (e.g., birds, ungulates, monkeys) not known to use tools in the
wild (Beck 1980). Beck attributes this novel behavior to leisure: because the animals
were not burdened with tasks such as searching for food or fending off predators, their
time and energy could be invested in exploration and manipulation of their environ-
ment. In short, a life history approach suggests that ecological constraints on an
animal’s energy budget are highly likely to influence the nature and frequency of play
and should be taken into consideration in cross-species comparisons.
On this point, synchronous motor activities in adult bottlenose dolphins may be
instructive. Males in this species are known to form first-order and second-order
alliances: the former (dyads and triads) cooperate to guard and herd individual females,
whereas the latter (coalitions comprising two or more first-order alliances) cooperate in
conflicts with other alliances over females (Connor et al. 2010). Interestingly, synchro-
nous surfacing, aerial leaping, and underwater turning have been documented in male
dyads and (less commonly) triads, both between alliance members and between mem-
bers of different alliances (Connor et al. 2006). These synchronized activities have been
observed when alliances are alone, when they are affiliating with another alliance, and
when female consorts are present in one or both alliances (Connor et al. 2006). Connor
and his colleagues posit that this behavior serves a signaling function within or between
male alliances (Connor et al. 1992). However, it might also be explained as play
behavior whose function is to develop the coordinated action utilized in the guarding,
herding, and stealing of females, with signaling as a related functional component.
Although it is unclear whether this behavior is CPF, synchronized movement is critical
to coordinating action, and thus a critical component of CPF. Connor’s findings suggest
that, with regard to CPF, synchronized motor activities performed during leisure among
allied individuals may be a productive line of inquiry in species that exhibit CIA.
Besides the adaptation assembly hypothesis, a number of other explanations for the
occurrence of CPF in humans are possible. For example, it could be argued that CPF
games function as alternatives to CIA. It may well be that some CPF play is initiated in
this spirit, either consciously or unconsciously, but this hypothesis is challenged by the
playing of mock warfare games by young boys, who do not customarily engage in
warfare (ESM Table 1). Furthermore, if CPF were a substitute for intergroup aggres-
sion, we would expect to find a negative correlation between frequency of warfare and
participation in contact sports. However, research shows the opposite: “where we find
warlike behavior we typically find combative sports and where war is relatively rare
combative sports tend to be absent” (Sipes 1973:71; see also Chick et al. 1997). Indeed,
Chick et al. (1997) found that frequency of external warfare correlates strongly with the
presence of sham combat games. These results are what we would expect if CPF is
preparation for warfare.
 Hum Nat

A purely costly signaling explanation for CPF is problematic as well. We don’t deny
that CPF recruits some motor patterns used in hunting, predator evasion, and dyadic
fighting, or that it provides an opportunity for individuals to display qualities related to
these endeavors. But if the point is to display individual qualities, why play in teams?
Individual performance is likely to be obscured by the presence of other players on the
field. Racing, target practice, and wrestling are all common amusements in forager
societies (Culin 1907), provide ample opportunity to display hunting and dyadic
fighting ability, and offer an unobstructed view of each performer. Another possibility
is that CPF is costly signaling of physical and cognitive abilities related to CIA.
However, this is only a partial explanation: it presumes that these abilities are valuable
but overlooks the source of that value—namely, their instrumentality to success in
warfare. A more parsimonious explanation is that motivation to engage in CPF
improves abilities important for CIA and, in so doing, provides a context in which
these abilities can be effectively signaled.
Cultural transmission is also insufficient to account for CPF. Although particular
forms of this behavior are often transmitted through social learning, a content-free
social learning hypothesis for CPF takes us back to the question of motivation and
appeal: why—despite differences in language, cultural practices, and habitat—have so
many societies invented or adopted this behavior? Such widespread imitation of these
types of behaviors is not an explanation but a phenomenon to be explained. On this
point, from the limited ethnographic information available, it was impossible to
determine whether the games we examined were independently invented or acquired
through cultural borrowing. This is unfortunate because, if motivation to engage in CPF
is part of the CIA assembly process, we would expect CPF to emerge spontaneously
among groups of human males. The presence of informal mock warfare play among
young boys in diverse forager cultures (ESM Table 1) hints that this may indeed be the
case—especially when it occurs in famously peaceful societies such as the Bambuti
(Schebesta 1933:60). Additionally, although team contact play could take any number
of forms (e.g., team boulder carrying, team nose-touching), cross-culturally this type of
play converges on a particular constellation of features: the use of offensive and
defensive body positioning and movements in the deployment of coordinated
coalitional action against an opposing coalition. Finally, regardless of how they emerge,
these play behaviors must be sufficiently appealing to be maintained from generation to
generation. Thus, the presence of voluntary and enthusiastic CPF across diverse
cultures attests to a powerful human motivation to engage in this activity.

Directions for Future Research

Although we have focused here on motor patterns deployed in coalitional contact

games, other aspects of CPF warrant investigation as well. First, further cross-cultural
research on the spontaneous emergence of coalitional play in childhood is needed.
Another consideration is age distribution: if CPF builds, rehearses, and calibrates motor
systems and cognitive circuitry involved in lethal raiding, we would expect participa-
tion in CPF to begin in childhood and persist into the prime of life in order to provide
practice against opponents who have reached peak adult strength and stamina. Al-
though play is widely hypothesized to serve a developmental function, and is
Hum Nat

commonly observed in juveniles (e.g., Dolhinow 1999; Fagen 1981), it also occurs in
adulthood (Cordoni 2009; Logan and Longino 2013; Pellis and Iwaniuk 1999). This
suggests that play might serve other functions besides development and/or that some
developmental processes might continue into adulthood. In the case of CPF, adult
participation is expected because of the need to keep skills sharp and the fluidity of
coalition membership, which varies for several reasons. Participation in a given raid is
typically optional, and men may opt out of attacks directed at villages in which they
have close social ties (e.g., Burch 2005; Chagnon 1997; Goodwin 1971). Coalition
composition also varies as a result of attrition when members move away, are injured,
die, or become too old to fight. Conversely, new coalition members are periodically
gained as juvenile males reach adulthood and new males marry into the group.
Thus, individuals are regularly presented with a different constellation of persons
with whom they must orchestrate their actions, and a different constellation of
persons against whom they must orchestrate their actions. Unfortunately, numer-
ical age is rarely mentioned in ethnographic descriptions of team games, making it
impossible to determine age-specific rates of play. However, occasional references
to the age categories of participants tend to support the expected age distribution.
For example: Twana “shinny was played by older boys and young men”
(Elmendorf and Kroeber 1992:234); Assiniboin shinny was “usually played by
men of 20 to 30 years of age” (Culin 1907:636–37); Makah shinny was “played,
as a rule, only by young men” (Dorsey 1901:70); and Chiricahua shinny was played
by “men thirty or forty years” of age (Opler 1941:445–46). CPF is common in boys
(Mendoza 2016), and the participation of old men appears to be rare (Nordenskiöld
1910:431).
A question raised by but beyond the scope of this study is the degree to which
forager girls and women engage in CPF. If CIA in humans is male-specific, and if CPF
functions to build and calibrate some of its components, we would expect such games
to be played primarily by males or to be played between teams of the same sex, for the
simple reason that competing against females would not give males an accurate sense
of their fighting formidability. Symons makes a similar point with regard to dyadic
fighting: “A male rhesus monkey who, by chance, had only female playmates during
his formative years could conceivably develop a dysfunctional, exaggerated estimate of
his fighting skills” (1978:195). However, since women were often captured, raped, or
killed in raids (Scalise Sugiyama 2014), they too may have reaped fitness benefits from
engaging in CPF. Team contact play might have increased female proficiency at
thwarting aggression, which could be mustered for self-defense in actual attacks. On
this point, we found that shinny and double-ball were popular women’s games in many
forager groups, which suggests that the female mind might also have been shaped by
CIA, albeit in somewhat different ways (Scalise Sugiyama 2014).
Although difficult to quantify, the strenuousness and roughness of CPF are further
aspects of this behavior that simulate the conditions of lethal raiding. The arduousness
of play can be inferred from the length of playing fields. For example: the Omaha and
Ponca shinny field was “300 to 400 yards in length” (Dorsey 1884:336); Menomini
lacrosse goals were “erected about one-third of a mile apart” (Hoffman 1896:128);
Chippewa lacrosse goals were “about 600 yards apart” (Culin 1907:566); Yokuts
lacrosse goals were “about 1,200 yards” apart (Culin 1907:596); and Chinook lacrosse
goals were “about a mile apart” (Culin 1907:573). The arduousness of play can also be
 Hum Nat

inferred from game duration. For example, in Ojibwa lacrosse, “a single inning may be
continued for an hour or more” (Hoffman 1890:134), and Pomo shinny games might
last “a half day or more” (Powers 1877:193). These extremes of time and distance were
a keen test of stamina, and observers often commented on how exhausting play was.
For example, Powers notes that Nisenan double-ball “goals are several hundred yards
apart . . . and the players often race up and down the champaign . . . until they are dead
blown and perspiring like top-sawyers” (1877:193). In lethal raiding, stamina would
have been integral to retreat since mounting a raid often involved several days’ travel,
and it was not uncommon for attackers to be pursued as they made their way home
(Burch 2005:87; see also Ingstad 1987:347; Opler 1938:382; Wilbert 1975:74).
Another aspect of CPF that simulates the conditions of lethal raiding is roughness. In
the game of mungan-mungan, for example, “the stick is often thrown through the air
while men . . . are tripped and tackled, pushed and shoved” (Craig 2002:245). In
Micmac lacrosse, “regard for neither life nor limb was allowed to stand in the way of
possible success” (Brown 1889:45-46), and Ojibwa lacrosse players “fall upon and
tread upon each other, and in the struggle some get rather rough treatment” (Copway
1860:4–5). Similarly, the Copper Inuit played a version of handball in which “nothing
is disallowed: players may fight for the ball, trip one another, and so on” (Rasmussen
and Calvert 1932:269–70). Not surprisingly, injuries—including the occasional broken
bone—sometimes resulted from this vigorous play (e.g., Culin 1907:566; Guinnard
1861:93–94; Hoffman 1890:134; Métraux 1943:207–8; Powers 1877:193). For exam-
ple, Tututni shinny players exhibited “great activity and strength, whacking away at
each other’s shins . . . with a refreshing disregard for bruises” (Chase 1869:433), and in
Menomini lacrosse, “frequently the ball carrier is disabled by being struck across the
arm or leg, thus compelling his retirement” (Culin 1907:573). The roughness of these
games may appear to contradict the claim that play is aimed at avoiding injury.
However, observers rarely report that injuries were deliberately inflicted, permanently
disabling, or lethal, and in at least some groups games were refereed (e.g., Gilij 1992;
Hager 1895; Nordenskiöld 1910). Moreover, injury—or the prospect of it—can be
beneficial: non-debilitating injury may develop pain tolerance, and the desire to avoid
injury is a powerful incentive to rapidly hone one’s defensive skills. As Dolhinow and
Bishop argue, “if learning which animals are stronger involves some pain, the young
primate may learn the rules rapidly” (1970:170).

Conclusions

In this study, we have identified and described a previously unrecognized type of play,
coalitional play fighting, and its possible function. We have shown that this play type
occurs in more recent hunter-gatherer populations and thus may have occurred in
earlier H. sapiens. Despite the fact that data are sparse, we have also shown that CPF
is present across diverse hunter-gatherer societies on five continents, suggesting that it
may be a statistical universal (Brown 1991) in humans. Finally, we have applied a new
theoretical framework that conceptualizes play as part of the process of adaptation
assembly and approaches design in terms of experiences available to the organism that
can provide it with information inputs requisite to constructing and calibrating the
adaptation in question.
Hum Nat

As Symons (1978:6) observes, addressing the question of design vis-à-vis play

requires granular description of the behavior in question. Although it has been argued
that the widespread human affinity for watching and participating in sports is rooted in
adaptations that evolved “in the context of male-male physical competition and prim-
itive hunting and warfare” (Lombardo 2012:5), this claim has not been tested by
comparing the motor patterns, body positioning, coordinated action, and strategies
used in sports to those used in forager lethal raiding and/or hunting. To the best of
our knowledge, this claim has only been tested by looking for sex differences in sports
participation, spectatorship, and postgame affiliation in modern societies (e.g.,
Apostolou 2015; Apostolou and Zacharia 2015; Benenson and Wrangham 2016;
Deaner and Smith 2013; Deaner et al. 2015). Although valuable, this approach does
not illuminate design features beyond sex-specificity, and it overlooks the degree to
which forager women engaged in CPF. We believe that identifying the motor patterns
used in lethal raiding and demonstrating that these motor patterns are regularly
recruited in competitive coalitional contact games across diverse forager cultures and
habitats is an important step toward delineating design. If CPF builds, rehearses, and
calibrates motor skills critical to engaging in lethal raiding, we would expect the former
to exhibit the motor patterns demanded by the latter, which is precisely what we find.
Alternative hypotheses must account for the recruitment of these particular motor
patterns in the context of two male coalitions using coordinated action and physical
force to prevent each other from penetrating each other’s “territory.” Given that team
contact games presently enjoy worldwide popularity, the finding of CPF in 46 forager
culture clusters across five continents—despite the fact that few ethnographers have
given detailed attention to play in forager populations—suggests the presence of a
robust phenomenon across human societies.

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Michelle Scalise Sugiyama is an evolutionary anthropologist/psychologist who specializes in symbolic and

aesthetic behavior, with an emphasis on storytelling, art, and play. Her work investigates the origin, design,
and function of these behaviors: the selection pressures that led to their emergence, the role they played in
ancestral human environments, and the cognitive capacities that make them possible.

Marcela Mendoza is an evolutionary cultural anthropologist who conducts fieldwork among hunter-gatherer
societies of the South American Gran Chaco. One of her current projects examines genetic ancestry vis-à-vis
national identity (www.cei-ar.org).

Frances White is a biological anthropologist and behavioral ecologist who studies the evolution of human
sociality using comparative studies of non-human primates. She directs the University of Oregon Primate
Osteology Lab, and conducts research with bonobos in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and with free-
ranging lemurs on St. Catherine’s Island, GA.

Lawrence Sugiyama is a cultural anthropologist, evolutionary psychologist, and behavioral ecologist who
studies the evolution and design of the human mind. He conducts fieldwork among Shuar, Shiwiar, Achuar,
and Zaparo forager-horticulturalists of Amazonia, and is the founder and co-director of the Shuar Health and
Life History Project and Field Research Director of the Human Universals Project at the Center for
Evolutionary Psychology.