Perimortem mutilation of human remains in an early village in the American Southwest: A case for ethnic violence

Potter, James M.; Chuipka, Jason

doi:10.1016/j.jaa.2010.08.001

Cited by 47 publications

(21 citation statements)

References 19 publications

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“…Before the rise of the large Chacoan settlements, warfare in the northern Southwest was characterized by tit‐for‐tat raiding in which small numbers of people fought and died. Occasional massacres of whole villages occurred . During and after development of the Chaco Canyon polity around AD 900, warfare appears to have been generally curtailed in favor of targeted killings of specific individuals or family groups.…”

Section: Southwestern Sociopolitical Complexitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Sociopolitical Complexity and the Bow and Arrow in the American Southwest

VanPool

O’Brien²

2013

Evolutionary Anthropology

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The evolution of sociopolitical complexity, including heightened relations of cooperation and competition among large nonkin groups, has long been a central focus of anthropological research. Anthropologists suggest any number of variables that affect the waxing and waning of complexity and define the precise trajectories that groups take, including population density, subsistence strategies, warfare, the distribution of resources, and trade relationships. Changes in weaponry, here the introduction of the bow and arrow, can have profound implications for population aggregation and density, subsistence and settlement strategies, and access to resources, trade, and warfare.Bingham and Souza provide a general conceptual model for the relationship between complexity and the bow and arrow, arguing that this compound weapon system, whereby smaller projectiles travel at higher speed and are capable of hitting targets more accurately and at greater distances than hand-thrown darts, fundamentally favors the formation of larger groups because it allows for cost-effective means of dealing with conflicts of interest through social coercion, thereby dramatically transforming kin-based social relations. Here we consider the impacts the introduction of the bow and arrow had on sociopolitical complexity in the North American Southwest.

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Section: Southwestern Sociopolitical Complexitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Sociopolitical Complexity and the Bow and Arrow in the American Southwest

VanPool

O’Brien²

2013

Evolutionary Anthropology

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“…Not until the Pueblo I period, a few hundred years after the introduction of the bow and arrow, are there unmistakable signs of warfare. The best example of this is Sacred Ridge in southeast Colorado, where at least 35 individuals were dispatched at one time …”

Section: Bow Use In Warfarementioning

confidence: 99%

Sedentism, Social Change, Warfare, and the Bow in the Ancient Pueblo Southwest

Reed

Geib²

2013

Evolutionary Anthropology

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In the ancient American Southwest, use of the bow developed relatively rapidly among Pueblo people by the fifth century AD. This new technology replaced the millennia‐old atlatl and dart weaponry system. Roughly 150 years later in the AD 600s, Pueblo socioeconomic organization began to evolve rapidly, as many groups adopted a much more sedentary life. Multiple factors converged to allow this sedentary pattern to emerge, but the role of the bow in this process has not been fully explored. In this paper, we trace the development of the bow and discuss its role as sedentism emerged and social changes occurred in ancient Puebloan society from the fifth through seventh centuries AD.

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“…Specifically smashing the legs (tibiae and fibulae) certainly conveyed a message, which might be decoded with reference to other sites showing evidence of comparable levels of violence. In fact, torture and mutilation are often found as part of warfare (64,(68)(69)(70), and instances in which the lower limbs have been targeted specifically are known both from archaeological sites (71,72) and recent history (69,73). Restricting movement, practically and symbolically, may be the main reason for primarily targeting the legs, violently stressing the futility of resistance and escape and adding to the terror of the victims if they were still alive and acting as a subjugated audience (72).…”

Section: Osteoarchaeological Synthesismentioning

confidence: 99%

The massacre mass grave of Schöneck-Kilianstädten reveals new insights into collective violence in Early Neolithic Central Europe

Meyer

Lohr

Gronenborn

et al. 2015

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

102

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Conflict and warfare are central but also disputed themes in discussions about the European Neolithic. Although a few recent population studies provide broad overviews, only a very limited number of currently known key sites provide precise insights into moments of extreme and mass violence and their impact on Neolithic societies. The massacre sites of Talheim, Germany, and Asparn/ Schletz, Austria, have long been the focal points around which hypotheses concerning a final lethal crisis of the first Central European farmers of the Early Neolithic Linearbandkeramik Culture (LBK) have concentrated. With the recently examined LBK mass grave site of Schöneck-Kilianstädten, Germany, we present new conclusive and indisputable evidence for another massacre, adding new data to the discussion of LBK violence patterns. At least 26 individuals were violently killed by blunt force and arrow injuries before being deposited in a commingled mass grave. Although the absence and possible abduction of younger females has been suggested for other sites previously, a new violence-related pattern was identified here: the intentional and systematic breaking of lower limbs. The abundance of the identified perimortem fractures clearly indicates torture and/or mutilation of the victims. The new evidence presented here for unequivocal lethal violence on a large scale is put into perspective for the Early Neolithic of Central Europe and, in conjunction with previous results, indicates that massacres of entire communities were not isolated occurrences but rather were frequent features of the last phases of the LBK.LBK | warfare | trauma | burial | osteoarchaeology

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Perimortem mutilation of human remains in an early village in the American Southwest: A case for ethnic violence

Cited by 47 publications

References 19 publications

Sociopolitical Complexity and the Bow and Arrow in the American Southwest

Sociopolitical Complexity and the Bow and Arrow in the American Southwest

Sedentism, Social Change, Warfare, and the Bow in the Ancient Pueblo Southwest

The massacre mass grave of Schöneck-Kilianstädten reveals new insights into collective violence in Early Neolithic Central Europe

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