That paper seems to focus on raiding activities; if repeated raiding activities are difficult, then wouldn’t that increase the utility of extermination warfare?
Indeed, the paper you cite posits that exactly that started happening:
The earliest conclusive archaeological evidence for attacks on settlements is a Nubian cemetery (site 117) near the present-day town of Jebel Sahaba in the Sudan dated at 12,000-14,000 B.P. (7, 12). War originated independently in other parts of the world at dates as late as 4,000 B.P. (13). Otterbein argues that agriculture was only able to develop initially at locations where ambushes, battles, and raids were absent (14).
And that such war predated agriculture.
I noted that humans are the only hominoid species alive.To the best of my admittedly limited archaeological knowledge, the others became extinct during the timeframe of the first two phases the paper describes; yet, if that were the case, wouldn’t other hominoid communities have likely survived to see the total war phase of human development?
I would thus posit that total war is much older than even their existing data suggests.
That paper seems to focus on raiding activities; if repeated raiding activities are difficult, then wouldn’t that increase the utility of extermination warfare?
Indeed, the paper you cite posits that exactly that started happening:
And that such war predated agriculture.
I noted that humans are the only hominoid species alive.To the best of my admittedly limited archaeological knowledge, the others became extinct during the timeframe of the first two phases the paper describes; yet, if that were the case, wouldn’t other hominoid communities have likely survived to see the total war phase of human development?
I would thus posit that total war is much older than even their existing data suggests.