PDF-(EBOOK)-The Origins of War: Violence in Prehistory

Stretching across continents and centuries The Origins of War Violence in Prehistory provides a fascinating examination of executions torture ritual sacrifices and other acts of violence committed in the prehistoric world Written as an accessible guide to the nature of life in prehistory and to the underpinnings of human violence Combines symbolic interpretations of archaeological remains with a medical understanding of violent acts Written by an eminent prehistorian and a respected medical doctor. 1. SOCIAL - EMOTIONAL ORIGINS OF VIOLENCE: A THEORY OF MULTIPLE KILLING Thomas J. Scheff Abstract: This essay outlines a cybernetic theory of violence , supporting and extending earlier studi 30,000 – 500 BCE. Enduring Understandings. Human expression existed across the globe before written record.. Concern with natural world and humans’ place within.. Occurred on different continents with Africa and Asia preceding and influencing other areas as population spread.. Geography and History of the World . 1. History, as we know it! . Prehistory- time before writing and reading . Large span of time where we know little about the people and world inhabitants . Prehistory . (or how the historic events changed and shaped it). GOALS. :. Before AD 43. c. 410. 1066. 1485. 1603. 1714. 1837. 1901. 2000. Prehistory. . Romans. Dark. . Ages. Medieval. Tudors. Stuarts. . Georgians. Why?. What was the result?. Violence. What is it?. Violence: . the intentional use of physical force or power, threatened or actual, against oneself, another person, or against a group or community that either results in or has a high likelihood of resulting in injury, death, psychological harm, maladaptive development, or deprivation.. UNIT 6 PREHISTORY What is Prehistory? What is History? What is the difference? PREHISTORY The term Prehistory designates the period of time that has elapsed since the appearance of the first human being until the invention of writing. Whatever their virtues, men are more violent than women. Why do men kill, rape, and wage war, and what can we do about it? Drawing on the latest discoveries about human evolution and about our closest living relatives, the great apes, Demonic Males offers some startling new answers. Dramatic, vivid, and firmly grounded in meticulous research, this book will change the way you see the world. As the San Francisco Chronicle said, it dares to dig for the roots of a contentious and complicated subject that makes up much of our daily news. Ancient humans were peaceful - modern violence is avoidable. That\'s the basic message contained in Saharasia, a controversial marriage of heresies over 10 years in the making. It will change forever your way of looking at the world, your home culture, and current events. Saharasia constitutes a revolutionary new discovery on a geographic pattern to global human behavior as deeply embedded within the scientific literature of anthropology, history and archaeology. It covers issues and events which typically are ignored in the politically correct academic environment, even though it was produced within that same environment. Saharasia presents the first cross-cultural, anthropological, archaeological and historical survey of human family and social institutions, tracing human violence back in time to specific times and places of first-origin. Saharasia also presents an additional controversy, given the factual identity of the violence-prone Saharasian region to be the homeland of the Islamo-fascist terror brigades. Saharasia has at several times in human history been the region from which massive armies marched out to conquer those moister regions lying at its periphery: into Europe, China, India and sub-Saharan Africa. These would be the early Indo-Aryan, Kurgan and Battle-Axe warriors, the Scythians and Huns, the Mongols, Turks, and Arab-Muslims, all of whom formed gigantic empires encompassing desert Saharasia and parts of its moister borderlands. While the analysis contained in this book starts around 12,000 BC and ends at around 1900 AD, the suggestion is clear, that the modern problem of global terrorism also springs forth from basic Saharasian-warrior roots. If you really want to know why so much of the world is in such a miserable condition, and to fully understand the current march to war within Islamic nations, this book will provide answers. One of the largest and most ambitious scientific and systematic, cross-cultural evaluations of human behavior ever undertaken. Originally a doctoral dissertation undertaken by the author at the University of Kansas, now supplemented with new chapters, and with hundreds of maps and illustrations. Saharasia is scarsely known to the wider public, given the controversial conclusions which precipitated from its development. But its findings, made as early as 1980, have been validated repeatedly by subsequent scientific discovery, and by world events. The new edition contains all-new Appendix documentation: Update on Saharasiareviewing archaeological evidence suggestive of an ancient period of generally peaceful human social conditions, world-wide. Here is an exhilarating intellectual performance, in the tradition of Roger Penrose\'s The Emperor\'s New Mind and Steven Pinker\'s The Language Instinct. On the way to showing how the world of our ancient ancestors shaped our modern modular mind, Steven Mithen shares one provocative insight after another as he answers a series of fascinating questions:Were our brains hard-wired in the Pleistocene Era by the needs of hunter-gatherers? When did religious beliefs first emerge?Why were the first paintings made by humankind so technically accomplished and expressive?What can the sexual habits of chimpanzees tell us about the prehistory of the modern mind?This is the first archaeological account to support the new modular concept of the mind. The concept, promulgated by cognitive and evolutionary psychologists, views the mind as a collection of specialized intelligences or cognitive domains, somewhat like a Swiss army knife with its specialized blades and tools. Arguing that only archaeology can answer many of the key questions raised by the new concept, Mithen delineates a three-phase sequence for the mind\'s evolution over six million years—from early Homo in Africa to the ice-age Neanderthals to our modern modular minds. The Prehistory of the Mind is an intriguing and challenging explanation of what it means to be human, a bold new theory about the origins and nature of the mind. Focusing on the thousand years preceding the first Spanish probes northward from Mexico, these essays disclose as well the changing character of archaeological inquiry. Here is an exhilarating intellectual performance, in the tradition of Roger Penrose\'s The Emperor\'s New Mind and Steven Pinker\'s The Language Instinct. On the way to showing how the world of our ancient ancestors shaped our modern modular mind, Steven Mithen shares one provocative insight after another as he answers a series of fascinating questions:Were our brains hard-wired in the Pleistocene Era by the needs of hunter-gatherers? When did religious beliefs first emerge?Why were the first paintings made by humankind so technically accomplished and expressive?What can the sexual habits of chimpanzees tell us about the prehistory of the modern mind?This is the first archaeological account to support the new modular concept of the mind. The concept, promulgated by cognitive and evolutionary psychologists, views the mind as a collection of specialized intelligences or cognitive domains, somewhat like a Swiss army knife with its specialized blades and tools. Arguing that only archaeology can answer many of the key questions raised by the new concept, Mithen delineates a three-phase sequence for the mind\'s evolution over six million years—from early Homo in Africa to the ice-age Neanderthals to our modern modular minds. The Prehistory of the Mind is an intriguing and challenging explanation of what it means to be human, a bold new theory about the origins and nature of the mind. Previously published as the first volume of The Encyclopedia of Global Human Migration, this work is devoted exclusively to prehistoric migration, covering all periods and places from the first hominin migrations out of Africa through the end of prehistory. Presents interdisciplinary coverage of this topic, including scholarship from the fields of archaeology, anthropology, genetics, biology, linguistics, and more Includes contributions from a diverse international team of authors, representing 17 countries and a variety of disciplines Divided into two sections, covering the Pleistocene and Holocene each section examines human migration through chapters that focus on different regional and disciplinary lenses Contemporary life is so deeply reliant upon digital technology that the computer has come to dominate almost every aspect of our culture. What is the philosophical and spiritual significance of this dependence on electronic technology, both for our relationship to nature and for the future of humanity? And, what processes in human perception and awareness have produced the situation we find ourselves in?As Jeremy Naydler elucidates in this penetrating study, we cannot understand the emergence of the computer without seeing it within the wider context of the evolution of human consciousness, which has taken place over millennia. Modern consciousness, he shows, has evolved in conjunction with the development of machines and under their intensifying shadow.The computer was the product of a long historical development, culminating in the scientific revolution of the 17th century. It was during this period that the first mechanical calculators were invented and the project to create more complex `thinking machines\' began in earnest. But the seeds were sown many hundreds of years earlier, deep in antiquity. Naydler paints a vast panorama depicting human development and the emergence of electronic technology. His painstaking research illuminates an urgent question that concerns every living person today: What does it mean to be human and what, if anything, distinguishes us from machines? The Agricultural Revolution in Prehistory addresses one of the most debated and least understood revolutions in the history of our species, the change from hunting and gathering to farming. Graeme Barker takes a global view, and integrates a massive array of information from archaeology and many other disciplines, including anthropology, botany, climatology, genetics, linguistics, and zoology. Against current orthodoxy, Barker develops a strong case for the development of agricultural systems in many areas as transformations in the life-ways of the indigenous forager societies, and argues that these were as much changes in social norms and ideologies as in ways of obtaining food. With a large number of helpful line drawings and photographs as well as a comprehensive bibliography, this authoritative study will appeal to a wide general readership as well as to specialists in a variety of fields.