WAR? 鈥楾was ever thus. Remains of a grisly massacre discovered in Nataruk, Kenya, show that violent conflict was a fact of life even for our hunter-gatherer ancestors.
Ten skeletons excavated at the site show signs of a violent death, including blows and cuts to the head. Two of them have obsidian projectile tips embedded in the body, probably from arrows. The body positions of another two suggest that their hands might have been tied when they died (Nature, ).
The site, dated to around 10,000 years ago, is the only known evidence of a prehistoric massacre of hunter-gatherer people, says Marta Miraz贸n Lahr at the University of Cambridge, whose team analysed the skeletons. 鈥淚t was an intentional conflict between two groups, and it involved a large number of people, so it qualifies in my mind as small-scale warfare,鈥� she says.
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The motivation for the attack could have been a raid for resources, such as territory or fish in the nearby lake, the team suggests. Or aggression might have been a standard response when groups of humans met each other, as it is for chimpanzees. 鈥淚t could be that two groups met, they were both foraging parties, and one of them was carrying weapons and they attacked,鈥� says Miraz贸n Lahr.
This article appeared in print under the headline 鈥淢assacre find is one of oldest wars鈥�