miltheo – Histonautica

PART II. ERA OF HUNTER-GATHERERS

“Indeed, want and hunger were not the only reasons for fighting. Plenty and scarcity are relative not only to the number of mouths to be fed but also to the potentially ever-expanding and insatiable range of human needs and desires. It is as if, paradoxically, human competition increases with abundance, as well as with deficiency, taking more complex forms and expressions, widening social gaps, and enhancing stratification.”
– Dr Azar Gat. War in Human Civilization (pg.32)

This is how we lived for the majority of our time here on Earth. In some sense, it is the evolutionary natural way of life, termed the ‘state of nature’ in political philosophy. We hunted for food and fought for survival; we did what every other animal on Earth did. How did we then, a random species of apes, rise to be the most proficient killers on this planet?

Three million years ago, to around 30,000 years ago, species of the genus Homo engaged in a ‘simple’ hunter-gatherer form of lifestyle. Following this, till around 10,000 years ago, ‘complex’ hunter-gatherers, uniquely Homo sapiens, bridged the gap between the pure hunter-gatherers and the new agriculturalists. We shall look at the purpose of armed conflict in both these ways of life and how it may have shaped future transitions in human history.

Figure 2. Homo sapiens timeline to agriculture

THE DREAM LABORATORIES

AUSTRALIA: SIMPLE HUNTER-GATHERERS

At the time of the European arrival in Australia, no pastoralists or agriculturalists existed. An estimated 300,000 hunter-gatherers, distributed in 400-700 regional groups, lived on the continent. Due to the geography of Australia, this laboratory of hunter-gatherers was one of the few pre-state societies studied that had relatively no outside interference. We can classify the people living in Australia then as ‘simple’ hunter-gatherers, living closest to the human state of nature. Not a single one had even used a bow, a device that significantly advanced human’s first-strike capability. However, archaeological evidence does point to the use of spears, clubs, stone knives, boomerangs, and wooden shields. The shields being the only specialized fighting device rather than a hunting one.

An additional factor to consider is the population density, as it provides insight into the link between resource scarcity and warfare.

Australia’s coastal and lush regions had 2-6 people per kilometre square. Compare this to the world’s current population density of 55 people per kilometre square. Even in the least populated desert areas of central Australia, where it was one person per 50 kilometres, there was no common land of idyllic peace. Territories had been drawn up and existed from ancient times, supported by totems and myth. Trespassing was considered a sacrilege and would meet an aggressive response involving a demonstration of power or violence itself. A pitched battle fought between the Waringari and Walbiri tribes showed that claims on native wells were reason enough to invade another territory.

In well-watered environments, hunting game and food became the priority. Starvation and death loomed over the heads of these hunter-gatherers on a daily basis. It became essential to secure resources for the present and the future of their family, even at the expense of another.

Figure 5. Children worry about resource scarcity

These primary biological resource needs became the first level causes of conflict among humans. The second level causes of war originate from these very primary needs and desires, and are activated through relative abundance or scarcity. To understand the connection, let us look at the continent of North America during the European arrival in the 15th century.

NORTH AMERICA: COMPLEX HUNTER-GATHERERS

North America’s west coastline is home to rich marine resources, especially the salmon. Additionally, wild game was abundant on land as well. This allowed permanent settlement and high population densities around these pockets of plenty. The people who controlled the richest sources were conveniently better off than the others. Resource hoarding and territorial control by way of force became the foundation for developing social hierarchy within these societies, giving rise to a new class – ‘the big men’. These men would be associated with more wealth, women, and martial prowess. The competition that this created influenced violent conflict due to an interesting paradox. Deficiency of resources would cause conflict, but even abundance could be a trigger. This is due to the ever-expanding and insatiable range of human needs and desires. Dr Gat states, “it is as if, paradoxically, human competition, increased with abundance, as well as with deficiency, taking more complex forms and expressions, widening social gaps, and enhancing stratification.” Now, war was a path to slave labour and territorial gains to further one’s resource accumulating capability. Or, it was a path for the unfortunate to create resource accumulating potential.

Why big ‘men’ though? Were there no big ‘women’? Even today, many modern feminists argue that it was male’s violent tendencies that caused most if not all of humankind’s horrific wars. Recent statistics are some proof of the matter and show that most recorded female violence is done against male violence or under male leadership. Cross-cultural studies on humans show that the second most distinctive characteristic between males and females, after childbearing, is that of serious violence. Are men adapted for this, or is it a just a result of social conventions?

MAN THE BEAST?

Part I of this series covered the fundamental asymmetry between males and females with respect to their reproductive strategies. Females with a logistical barrier of few eggs and the ability to produce offspring only once at a given time had to rely on the ‘quality’ of mate, while males having no logistical barrier seek to enhance the ‘quantity’ of sexual partners in their life. Therefore, the key limiting factor for a male is competition from other males. The violent competition for females and the necessity to obtain strong survival genes by females made strength, size, and risk-taking behaviour recursive replicating forms within the male sex. Let us see how this influenced Homo sapiens in particular.

Human beings are bipedal creatures. The reasons for which are a plethora of factors, one of which was the need to accommodate a larger brain. However, bipedalism reoriented the birth canal and resulted in a relatively earlier foetal birth than quadrupeds. Due to which, human offspring mature slowly in nature. This makes it necessary for the infant to obtain protection from both the parents during the helpless development stage in its life, making cooperative breeding or pair bonding a preference in humans. A male’s loyalty and ability to provide, protect, and survive became highly desirable qualities to females. This increased post-copulation investment by the males became one strategy to even out the reproductive asymmetry while also making sex specialisation possible. Division of labour caused women to focus on foraging close to home, making them the last line of defence in case of an attack. Women also played a prominent role in the child-rearing process due to their ability to provide for the child’s nutrition. While men specialised in long-distance hunting and in fighting to defend the family or settlement. Those who were bigger, stronger, and more ferocious would have more success defending their homes, allowing their genes to carry onto the next generation successfully.

Males had no other option other than to run or fight against the enemy. By contrast, female scarcity made them highly valuable as a resource to the enemy. The story of Moses’ command (Numbers 31. 17-18) exemplifies war conduct throughout history: kill the men, rape the women, take the young and beautiful as war trophies. Women taken alive had other options for survival – submission, cooperation, and manipulation. Understanding people and being more in-tune with the situation would aid in their quest for survival, making a heightened ‘attention to detail’ and spatial memory beneficial adaptations – the basis of the ‘female intuition’. In contrast, males developed an enhanced spatial orientation as a result of fighting and hunting.

To conclude, the long-standing and mutually reinforcing evolutionary strategies and biological adaptations in males and females made it such that men would be more predisposed to fighting than women. However, these predispositions are strongly regulated by evolution-shaped motivational complexes that come into play under relative abundance or scarcity and act as the second level causes of violent conflict.

EMOTIONAL BEINGS

STATUS, POWER, AND DOMINANCE

Abundance and scarcity introduced social hierarchy and status in early societies. The big men who controlled the resources through way of force were also able to become the dominant propagator of genes through polygamy. This behaviour contradicts the human biological disposition to pair-bonding, but was made possible due to resource accumulation and the ability to feed and shelter more wives. Having a bigger family also entailed having more kin-based ties and a larger group, resulting in a larger defensive or invasive force. Success with resource acquisition contributed to an increase in status and power, which in turn enhanced one’s access to resources and matrimonial opportunities. To maintain this dominance, the big men developed a preference for male children. Causing female infanticide to be incorporated in the fear of resource scarcity, exacerbating the already present female scarcity! This, in turn, enhanced the male competition for women, resulting in more violence. On the other hand, monogamy distributes the reproductive capacity more evenly among men. This does not entirely remove violence as a tool to obtain women, as abduction and rape, even of other male’s wives, still existed as a tool to further one’s reproductive capacity. However, according to a cross-cultural study, monogamy did reduce the amount of internal warfare compared to a highly polygynous society. This is credited to the correlation of violent male death to female scarcity.

A vicious cycle took hold here – individuals resorted to polygamy and female infanticide to increase the number of males who could fight for them, reinforcing the scarcity of females and violence among males. Having fewer wives or raising female children would have solved both issues by alleviating female scarcity and reducing in-group male violent competition. Here, the rationale choice of the individual mind conflicted with the common good. This is a perfect example of the ‘prisoners dilemma’ in game theory, which holds the key to understanding one of the most interesting reasons for violent conflict – revenge.

REVENGE – TO DETER OR ANNIHILATE

THE PRISONER’S DILEMMA

The Game:
Two prisoners, A and B, are being interrogated about a crime they jointly committed. Each prisoner has three options –
(i) defect and blame the other
(ii) keep silent
(iii) confess
If A chooses to blame B, A goes free, and the accomplice B, who kept silent, gets a heavy sentence. If both A and B confess or blame the other, they are given a heavy sentence, perhaps moderated by their willingness to comply. If both A and B keep silent, there will be little to go on, and the authorities will give both light sentences, the best result for the prisoners. However, what is the most rationale decision an individual can take in this situation?

The logical decision here is to blame the other, because, unable to establish cooperation with your accomplice, this option is best regardless of their choice. However, if both select this option, they both end up with a heavy sentence. In contrast, if they had kept silent, they would be let off lightly. This highlights that the optimal choice under isolation is, in fact, inferior to the optimal choice had there been mutual cooperation secured. The prisoner’s dilemma provides great relevance and insight into the cycle of war and animosity. Although, it is important to note that the prisoner’s dilemma comes into play only when a decisive result cannot be obtained or obtained through terrific costs. Submission and acceptance of humiliation are at times preferred over the risk of retaliation, especially against a much stronger opponent. However, in isolation, retaliation is often viewed as the most rationale choice, as a lack of it could invite more injuries or even new attackers.

The source of these retaliatory conflicts, or the quest for vengeance, does not arise form the first level causes or from direct conflict itself, but from the fear, suspicion, and insecurity created by the potential of those first level causes for conflict. The fear of war breeds war, even if there existed no real hostility. The escalation of the arms race in nature results from this motivational system, leading to faster cheetahs, taller trees, more deceitful viruses or more immune hosts. In many cases, every step taken to improve upon the existing fighting capability is matched by a counter step by the other.

Increased resources are poured into this seemingly unending quest for an advantage, giving rise to the ‘Red Queen effect’, wherein both sides run faster and faster only to find that they themselves are staying where they were. In international relations, this principle expands further as the ‘security dilemma’, wherein states stay suspicious of each other and preemptive strikes may be launched in the name of defence. The prisoner’s dilemma in nature and the modern world is that if either side gave up their quest to outpace the other, they could save themselves heavy costs that cancel each other out. But this is often not the case because of faulty communication and lack of regulated competition.

The massive first-strike capability of humans blew the prisoner’s dilemma out of proportion. The side that strikes first would have a considerable advantage, forcing one to pre-empt in most cases. If the result is good, it would deter future enemies and ensure security; if not, tit for tat follows until mutual deterrence through attrition gets established. This cycle made primitive humans indulge in stealth raids more often than not, as humans caught off guard were extremely vulnerable. When pitched battles would occur, they would involve spear throwing from afar and demonstrations of power, as opposed to brutal onslaughts. Consecutive innovations in battle tactics and the introduction of ranged weapons would further enhance humans’ first-strike capabilities. We shall look more into this in the next part of the series.

HUMAN ALTRUISM: KINSHIP AND ETHNICITY

First, we need to understand the structure of an average hunter-gatherer society. What held each group together? And how larger groups may have formed.

Figure 11. Structure of hunter-gatherer tribes.

The basic social unit in a hunter-gatherer society is the clan or the extended family group. While evolutionary theory strongly encourages the propagation of one’s own genes, it also inspires the preservation of one’s existing genes in conspecifics. The survivability of the genes shared within a clan becomes the evolutionary justification for seeking cooperation and sustaining risks for one another. For instance, siblings, parents, and offspring share 50 per cent of their genes, half-siblings 25 per cent, and cousins 12.5 per cent. Therefore, it makes sense in an evolutionary perspective for one to sacrifice itself for the survival of more than two brothers, four half-brothers, or eight cousins.

A larger social unit is a regional group or a dialect tribe, unique to the modern Human. This involves multiple clans bonded together with the promise of mutual cooperation. The principal incentive to protect a separate clan is created by the evolutionary ‘investment’ made by individuals who pass on the clan genes by way of marriage into another clan, leading to offspring that both families are genetically invested in. Most hunter-gatherer societies are patrilineal, wherein females come from outside the family. Kinship extends in this way to encompass more and more clans to a point where a regional group is created. However, the biological evolutionary reward steeply declines as the per cent of shared genes reduces. This is because large regional groups are too recent of a development to have had an effect on biological mechanisms. A famous Arab proverb symbolizes this best: ‘I against my brother; I and my brother against my cousin; I and my brother and my cousin against the world.’

So how then does one get a large group of cooperative humans? Enter culture. The sharing of cultural traits among multiple tribes allows for the further extension of human social cooperation, eventually forming a confederation of regional groups or a tribe.

Figure 12. Plot representation of biological investment and cultural sharing against group size.

Once cultural sharing reaches a plateau, it diversifies rapidly. Making preservation of the group’s culture as important as the preservation of one’s genes. This fact provides the basis of ‘ethnocentrism’, which creates a drastic bias between one’s own culture and other alien ones. Common extensions are nationalism, racism, and xenophobia, which could all eventually lead to war.

Figure 13. Crusader-Viking cultural jabs.

In large groups, it becomes possible for one to reap the benefits of cooperation while avoiding one’s share in the costs – the ‘free rider’ problem in social sciences. For this reason, subgroups of a larger group will hold each other accountable and expect aid in return for their aid. If one party fails to deliver, they risk the chance of being ostracized from the cooperating system. In human relations, this is expanded as reciprocal altruism, wherein goodwill is used to sustain cooperation between parties of a much larger entity. Therefore, culture plays a crucial role in developing cohesion in large non-kin-based societies and in uniting them under a common cause for war.

CONCLUSION

The need to preserve and propagate one’s genes, first-level causes, further extends to develop emotion-based motivational mechanisms, second-level causes, to incite warfare. In those gene-sharing groups that prospered under warfare, aggression becomes an emotional predisposition, reinforcing the culture sharing made possible by the biological adaptation of teaching and learning. These groups would attempt to minimize conflict within themselves and direct it outward. As they would evolve, from family to clan, from regional group to tribal federations, eventually forming states, empires, and nations, the offensive first-strike capability would grow proportionally, piling up the death count of war.

PART II. ERA OF HUNTER-GATHERERS Read More »

PART I. RISE OF THE HOMO SAPIENS

“Thus evolutionary theory reconstructed the question of fighting in the following way: it suggested a deeper natural rationale for fighting and, by inference from that rationale, claimed, in a previously unnecessary way, that this tremendously deadly and wasteful behaviour was somehow carried out in a manner that promoted survival and reproductive success.”
– Dr Azar Gat. War in Human Civilization (pg.42)

Four billion years ago, planet Earth witnessed a revolutionary event that dramatically altered its future compared to its cosmic kin. Today, as far as we know, it is the only planet to harbour life. Though despite the variation life has taken in the form of countless species, one has come atop all. The plan for domination of Earth’s ecosystems by Homo sapiens had been set in motion much before their emergence 300,000 years ago. Humans today are widely considered the most ruthless and dangerous of all animals. What makes us so exceptional? To understand this supposed exponential bellicosity in man, we need to understand the role of violence and killing in the animal kingdom.

BEASTS AND MEN

Most interspecific killings are carried out for prey, like in human hunting. This discussion, however, is more concerned with intraspecific conflict and competition. Violence between mature males constitutes the majority of intraspecific animosity. The main reasons for violent conflict are resources and females. However, intraspecific ‘killing’ depends on the lethality of the animal — first strike capability. In the natural environment, even a slight disadvantage in the form of wounds can significantly diminish the animal’s capacity to obtain food and therefore, shorten their life expectancy. Due to this, animals usually decide to cut their losses and retreat at some stage in a violent conflict. Self-preservation comes first.

The group most vulnerable to intraspecific killing are not mature animals but infants, where the adult has a significant advantage when it comes to lethality. For example, when a new alpha in a lion’s pride systematically kills all the cubs of the previous monarch. Langur monkeys and gorilla males display similar behaviour. Intraspecific elimination of infants, chicks, and eggs, even by females, is widely observed to reduce potential resource competition. Additionally, young animals often fiercely compete for nourishment, leading to merciless killing during food shortages. This behaviour is displayed more often by animals that use the ‘R’ strategy of reproduction, which entails more offspring and less parental care, in contrast to the ‘K’ strategy of reproduction.

We can see that intraspecific violence is not uncommon in the animal kingdom. The scale of intraspecific killing may vary between species, but it is still more the norm than the exception. Which brings us to evolutionary theory to explain the rationale for this deadly conspecific activity we indulge in.

EVOLUTION AND NATURAL SELECTION

Darwin’s theory of evolution proposes that every organism participates in a vicious competition in nature, the winners of which get shelter, food, water, and the chance to reproduce. This competition is termed ‘natural selection’ and occurs between organisms of different species and within the same species. Random ‘mutations’ appearing in the offspring are the driving force behind the theory of evolution; they permit the introduction of new strategies in nature to cope with changes in the survival calculus. Successful strategies allow individuals to fulfil their somatic and reproductive needs, permitting replication of those strategies in their offspring as well. However, the unfortunate thing about evolution is that it does not entail ‘improvement’ but pushes towards increasing ‘complexity’. One can see this from the limitless variation in flora and fauna around us, much like how Darwin came to the conclusion. Evolution believes more options are better, working somewhat like brainstorming. This recursive reproduction of replicating forms is inherent to evolution, which variates to certain degrees based on selective ‘biological’ or ‘cultural’ pressures.

Biological and cultural adaptations mutually interact to co-evolve and take the form of innate traits or predispositions that persist within groups when proven successful in the wider competition. For example, the turtle first developed thick ribs to aid in digging deeper and thereby successfully protect the eggs. Then it evolved to develop a shell from those ribs to defend itself.

VIOLENCE AND AGGRESSION

The strategic development of violent conflict resembles the evolution of a turtle’s protective shell. Unlike competition, which runs parallel with other species in the quest for an advantage, a conflict involves direct action against competitors to sabotage the competition. If physical injury is the goal of said action, the conflict becomes violent. Since conspecifics share the same ecological niches and pursue the same mates, the intraspecific competition could force the hand of some species to resort to violence, thereby significantly reducing the competition by eliminating others. Successful proliferation further strains the scarcity of resources, refuelling the contest for said resources. Therefore, there is no real ‘justification’ for fighting other than the fact that it was a strategy incorporated by species to deal with increased intraspecific competition.

Figure 5. Violence as a strategy in evolution.

Aggression, an emotion antithetical to compassion, actively governs violence. Like all means to an end, the efficacy of aggression depends significantly on its utilization. It continually contends with emotions that elicit other strategies such as cooperation, capitulation, or escape. It becomes optional and situationally dependent on the intuitive assessment of the reward gained to the risk incurred—the risk/reward ratio—along with the feasibility of other alternatives. Rodents, fish, or even humans do not consciously make well-calculated decisions; this is a cumulative effect of evolution over generations. Evolution has selected against maladaptive traits, allowing successful behavioural patterns to persist. If violence as a strategy works against the competition, it further propagates to the next generation, reinforcing the aggressive tendency of that gene-sharing group. This rationale is inherent to evolutionary theory, making aggression an innate trait strongly selected over millions of years.

SOMATIC NEEDS AND REPRODUCTIVE DESIRES

The somatic element, directly linked to the organism’s survivability, encompasses nourishment and shelter. This strong evolutionary selective force necessitated the monopolization of dense resource areas, resulting in established territories in some species. When resources were mobile, such as during herd migrations, hunting in others’ territories became necessary. Trespassing would often lead to violent conflict as it jeopardized the security of one’s somatic needs. Conversely, equally important in terms of evolutionary drive is the reproductive element, vital to the survivability of the species as a whole. It is not that species consciously desire more offspring, but the evolutionary mechanism in place causes individuals to desire sex. This fact is evident in the widespread practice of infanticide among many species to meet the growing population demand for environmental resources. If the societal demand for an offspring mediated libido, organisms would not engage in copulation under population abundance.

Additionally, there exists an asymmetry in nature between males and females, which forms the crux of male competition in most species. However, to understand sex differences, we must first examine their genesis — Why do two sexes exist?

ANISOGAMOUS SEXUAL REPRODUCTION: ASYMMETRICAL IN NATURE

Before a distinction between sex cells, all gametes were of the same size and shape in an isogamous state of affairs. Some cells on the larger side would have had an evolutionary advantage in terms of a greater initial nourishment supply to the embryo, leading to more developed offspring. This trend towards larger gametes would also propagate the evolution of exploiters, who could be of a smaller size and actively seeking out extra-large gametes, making them more numerous and mobile. The honest ones would not find the need to be mobile and would direct all their efforts to become as large as possible in order to produce a highly developed offspring. In turn, each group would push the other to the extreme, making one group extremely large, immobile, and scarce, while the other becomes smaller, faster, and more numerous. Two reproductive strategies took shape, the large-investment or ‘honest’ strategy and the small investment exploitative strategy. The strategies in the middle would fall short of the advantages the two extremes would reap. Anisogamous sexual reproduction is born, allowing genetic variation of unseen levels. The honest ones eventually formed the eggs, and the exploiters became the sperm. Conveniently, we use ‘female’ and ‘male’ to address these different reproductive strategies. My references to the terms have been and will be on this key anatomical difference, which forms the basis of the fundamental asymmetry discussed above. The numerous sperm cells compared to that of a few large eggs created a competition like no other. Causing a divergence in evolutionary adaptations that both groups would undertake throughout their course of life on Earth.

Figure 7. Anisogamous sexual reproduction.

The large investment provided by females prior to the fertilization process became a significant commitment to the offspring. Nature does not permit such imbalances to exist. Therefore, females adopted various strategies in nature to ensure investment from males before copulation. A commonly known example is that of female praying mantises biting the head off of male mantises prior, during, or after the fertilization process. Interestingly, the male’s sexual performance does not decline even after losing its head. In fact, since the insect head has inhibitory nerve centres, she may even be improving his performance. In this manner, the female obtains an investment as it gets a nutritious meal used to nourish the offspring.

Figure 8. Female praying mantis reproductive strategy.

In the case of birds and mammals, let us look at two prominent strategies. One is the domestic-bliss strategy; females try to discern the male’s character by assessing his fidelity, more often adopted by species that gravitate towards pair-bonding. Female ‘coyness’ displayed in many species results from the domestic-bliss strategy. This entails long periods of courtship rituals, including considerable pre-copulation investment by the male. Some bird species do not copulate until the male has built the nest for the eggs.

Figure 9. Domestic-bliss reproductive strategy in birds.

Another is the he-man strategy, adopted in species where females raise the child by themselves to counter male abandonment. It entails obtaining strong genes through rigorous discrimination pre-copulation, ensuring a strong, healthy child who will not weigh the mother down when it comes to survival.

Additionally, as females carry a limited number of fertilized eggs and can be fertilized only once at a given time, they are logistically limited in the number of offspring they can have. The male, lacking this logistical burden, theoretically has no limit to the number of offspring he can have. With both sexes having the need to propagate their genes, two strategies took shape. Evolutionary, the reproductive capacity of a male is directly related to the ‘quantity’ of sex partners, while a female’s is dependent on the ‘quality’ of the partner. Therefore, the crucial limiting factor for a male’s reproductive success is competition from other males. One can imagine how that plays a role in inciting violent conflict.

HUMANS: THE QUINTESSENTIAL FIRST STRIKE KILLERS

The risk-reward ratio dictates violent conflict in nature. Violent killing majorly occurs in asymmetrical fighting — conflict involving highly favourable odds. However, humans evolved to cheat the system itself. The enhanced tool-making ability of Homo sapiens made us extremely lethal creatures, with unprecedented first-strike capability, giving us the upper hand against creatures considerable times stronger than us. However, this came at a cost, a steady decrease in natural defences. While animals had sharp teeth, claws, and beaks as weapons, we had our tools, without which we were practically defenceless, but with which we could drive entire species out of existence. Add the unmatched lingual communication skills that enabled large group formation; we get a pack of highly proficient killers who never tire and always find a way.

This gives us a reasonable answer to the mysterious disappearance of every other human archaic species on Earth, most notably, the Homo neanderthalensis. The Homo sapiens’ enhanced in-group cooperation and superior first-strike capability made them the most dominant in terms of martial prowess of all the species under the genus Homo. Although a combination of reasons, like the spread of diseases from Africa, and climate change, can be associated with the demise of the archaic human species. Warfare must have played a crucial role, and the numerical superiority the Homo sapiens possessed must have been decisive in battle.

However, the massive first-strike capability completely changed the game of warfare between Homo sapiens. As humans were quite defenceless without their tools, the asymmetry in fighting regularly rotated. The victim today could be the raider tomorrow, shifting the risk/reward ratio back and forth. The fear of war breeds war, and we became insecure, fearful creatures.

CONCLUSION

In nature’s brutal competition for somatic needs and sexual desires, violence evolved as a strategy to mitigate the contest, while scarcity or abundance would further enhance it. Highly antithetical emotions evoke and suppress violence, making it both innate and optional, to be turned on and off in response to changes in the calculus of survival and reproduction.

The competition for resources gave rise to established territories protected by the pack against anyone thinking of threatening their resource security. On the other hand, the competition for females and the necessity to obtain strong survival genes by females made strength, size, and risk-taking behaviour recursive replicating forms within the male sex. How these factors affected warfare among humans will be discussed in the next article titled “Era of Hunter-gatherers”.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Gat, Azar. War in human civilization. OUP Oxford, 2008.
Dawkins, Richard. The selfish gene. Oxford university press, 2016.

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