Stone Age violence

A survey of British skulls from the early part of the New Stone Age, or Neolithic, shows societies then were more violent than was supposed.

Early Neolithic Britons had a one in 20 chance of suffering a skull fracture at the hands of someone else and a one in 50 chance of dying from their injuries. . .

Blunt instruments such as clubs were responsible for most of the trauma.

From the BBC. Yet another refutation of the myth of primitive innocence. Civilization? Yes, please!

But the true scale of the violence still remains unclear due to the nature of the evidence, say the authors. In other simple, small-scale societies, the incidence of death as a result of violence ranges from 8-33%.

Posted by David on May 11, 2006 8:28 PM