# War before Civilisation



## Venusian Broon (Jan 14, 2020)

I'm currently reading _War before Civilisation: The Myth of the Peaceful Savage_ by Lawrence H. Keeley. Not sure if it's the most up to date discussion on the topic, but it's full of ethnographic, historic and archeological considersations and I'm finding it fascinating. 

However saw this paragraph that I thought it might tickle your fancies: 

'Artillery is usually a great killer on modern battlefields with no counterpart in primitive ones. But until the latest generation of electronically assisted artillery, its poor accuracy has demanded enormous expenditure of shells per casualty..(discussion of Verdun)...the best defences against artillery are dispersion and mobility, two of the primary characteristics of primitive warfare. As a matter of fact, in the fights with western Indians, the U.S. Army was able to employ artillery very rarely, for the simple reason that the Indians refused to concentrate or stay put long enough for it to be used...The narrowness of the conditions under which artillery is genuinely lethal were well observed by a party of Sioux visiting Washington D.C., in 1870. To emphasize the White Father's might, government officials took them to see a huge coastal artillery gun firing into the Potomac. The Sioux were unimpressed: it was a monstrous weapon, all right, but "nobody with any brains would sit on his pony in front of it."'


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## Foxbat (Jan 15, 2020)

Artillery did shape warfare for a while in Europe in 19th century. Cavalry attacks were used to force opposing infantry into defensive squares and then these high concentrations of troops could be pounded by artillery. Of course, Wellington was able to somewhat overcome this problem by using the reverse slopes of hills at Waterloo (protecting his men from any follow-up artillery fire). 

Having never read the book, I'm not sure to what extent the author means by 'primitive' but if we say that Rome was primitive then his argument does not hold because the cohorts of a legion operated in tight formations and therefore would be vulnerable to bombardment, whereas,  something like the Golden Horde would fare much better because it was primarily a cavalry-based army with great mobility.


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## -K2- (Jan 15, 2020)

I get what you've presented and don't disagree with the premise presented (using Indigenous Americans as the example). That said, considering Verdun's rolling barrages during advances against static/grouped forces, it might be a bit more that 'lack of artillery in volume' was more an issue when dealing with dispersed groups... though, the tactics change. To make the point using longbows and arching shots... if you choose the location wisely drawing the enemy into a narrow pass/area as they attack concentrating your fire, or have your archers advance with you providing a rolling wall allowing your troops to get closer, then you have an advantage. Naturally, both cases demand a significant volume of fire.

It can also be used to deny the enemy access to a particular area. Sea lane fortresses are obvious, what isn't, again using archers, might be ensuring that no one can pass through X area, so they take Y route where you want them (much the way Mustard Gas (liquid) was used in WWI, mines since). In all cases again, however, it requires a change in tactics and a volume of fire which also must be sustainable.

K2


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## CupofJoe (Jan 15, 2020)

"nobody with any brains would sit on his pony in front of it."' 
I think that will be quote of the week, and of the year so far...


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## Venusian Broon (Jan 15, 2020)

Foxbat said:


> Artillery did shape warfare for a while in Europe in 19th century. Cavalry attacks were used to force opposing infantry into defensive squares and then these high concentrations of troops could be pounded by artillery. Of course, Wellington was able to somewhat overcome this problem by using the reverse slopes of hills at Waterloo (protecting his men from any follow-up artillery fire).
> 
> Having never read the book, I'm not sure to what extent the author means by 'primitive' but if we say that Rome was primitive then his argument does not hold because the cohorts of a legion operated in tight formations and therefore would be vulnerable to bombardment, whereas,  something like the Golden Horde would fare much better because it was primarily a cavalry-based army with great mobility.



I'll use his own words to define what he means by primitive:

"The term _primitive, _when used in its usual sense on anthropology, merely refers to a technological condition - that of using preindustrial or preliterate tecnology. In social terms, primitive refers to societies that are not urban or literate"

So both Rome and the Golden Horde were not primitive by this definition. Keeley is a professor of Anthropology and his thesis is, as the title suggests, to explore the idea that perhaps war was common pre-civilisation i.e. before Sumer, Ancient Egypt and the other river civilisations, where really all human societies could be classified as primitive.

As for your Roman example, I have no doubt that, on occasion, artillery was used in ancient warfare in field battles, but generally, as Keeley himself  points out, artillery was by far most effective against fortifications and I'd expect that's where it was mostly used. It was expensive, heavy and therefore generally immobile - you'd bring it to siege not fight pitched battles in rough terrain.

As technology moved to cannon and developed, this position changed and it became worthwhile for a field army to have artillery (at first for shock and awe, rather than any decisive use on the battlefield - again they were far more effective at knocking down castles and walls). But that changed in the 17th and 18th century - look at the Swedish innovation of small horse drawn gun batteries that could be effectively moved quickly to take advantage of battlefied situations) However again as the battlefields expanded and gunners lost sight of their actual targets, in the 20th century, the accuracy of artillery plummeted. 




-K2- said:


> I get what you've presented and don't disagree with the premise presented (using Indigenous Americans as the example). That said, considering Verdun's rolling barrages during advances against static/grouped forces, it might be a bit more that 'lack of artillery in volume' was more an issue when dealing with dispersed groups... though, the tactics change. To make the point using longbows and arching shots... if you choose the location wisely drawing the enemy into a narrow pass/area as they attack concentrating your fire, or have your archers advance with you providing a rolling wall allowing your troops to get closer, then you have an advantage. Naturally, both cases demand a significant volume of fire.
> 
> It can also be used to deny the enemy access to a particular area. Sea lane fortresses are obvious, what isn't, again using archers, might be ensuring that no one can pass through X area, so they take Y route where you want them (much the way Mustard Gas (liquid) was used in WWI, mines since). In all cases again, however, it requires a change in tactics and a volume of fire which also must be sustainable.
> 
> K2



The point about Verdun that I omitted was that this was the 'greatest artillery battle' ever (I paraphrase, but I think it's true.) Keeley states that 200 rounds of artillery ammunition were fired for _every casualty _in that battle - I assume combining both sides_. _Other sources for the battle of the Somme have higher figures of 250 rounds of British artillery ammunition for every German casualty. 

Remember these artillery barrages are against large numbers of static forces. i.e. the ideal target. Yes they are in fortifications - but then, well, you would be, right, if you were ordered to confront the enemy and not to give up territory and faced such technology? So the point he is making is that in the face of a mobile, dispersed enemy who doesn't care about 'holding land', artillery is pretty much useless. Yes you could theoretically build up sufficient artillery forces to pound a tribe that is facing up to you, but you'd need _a lot _- remember, at their pinnicle of use in Verdun, even taking into account fortifications, they just weren't that accurate at all - so by the time you build up enough, the enemy could easily move away, thus making such weapons highly ineffectual. Today with drones, guided missiles, ground attack aircraft and as Keeley puts it 'electronically-assisted artillery' etc. this accuracy issue has subsided somewhat. 

As for the examples you bring up, they are tactics. Primitive warfare very probably used bottlenecks and other such tactics when the situation allowed them. I disagree with the 'rolling barrage' of arrows, however. This seems to be an extrapolation of a modern technique, but doesn't make sense in the primitive world. One has to assume that both sides had archers and other types of missile weapons. So advancing your own missle troops into the enemies zone of fire, effectively giving the enemy a load of free shots at you would be highly risky...

...Because, before you point out things like armour, Keeley is talking about primitive warfare and there are significant differences - essentially there was no armour. Quilted cotton armour was effective at stopping an atlatl as the Conquistidors found out and against an individual arrow, a variety of materials could easily stop it penetrating and make it merely bounce off if you had metal armour, given that arrows are quite light - especially at a distance. (Of course then that's why you wanted to fight huge numbers of arrows into a concentrated space, a la English Longbowmen at Agincourt. A lot would be ineffective, but some might find weak spots and cause other problems.) 

However such defensive technologies, such as quilted cotton/linen or bronze breastplates, say, are the product of urban civilisation - metal working and diverse crop growing. Just having enough of these specialists to make all the armour for your men would also mean you need surplus food production. Primitive societies just couldn't produce such artefacts for socio-economic reasons. (I will point out that that's probably not quite true, as there have been primitive societies that have on the _very _odd occasion been able to equip men in such a manner - but these are societies, when you look into them, that also were producing large food surpluses consistently and thus it was therefore their socio-economic sitatuation again that determined such tecnologies. I am thinking in particular of the American Indians of the Pacfiic coast in the North-west.) 

Primitive battles, Keeley argues, were likely to consist of two bands facing off each other, in dispersed formation, at their extremes of bow range, taking pot shots at each other. (If you have no armour and a hit by an arrow will likely cause a wound or death, why present your enemy with a solid scrum of people to aim at?) Melee with clubs, maces, daggers or spears would likely only occur when one side retired/fled and the other came up to finish off any stragglers/wounded. Of course this is about a 'formal' battle where two side present themselves for a fight. A lot of primitive warfare would really be raids and ambushes, so using the element of surprise and more asymmetral.


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## Foxbat (Jan 15, 2020)

Venusian Broon said:


> "The term _primitive, _when used in its usual sense on anthropology, merely refers to a technological condition - that of using preindustrial or preliterate tecnology. In social terms, primitive refers to societies that are not urban or literate"


Ah. Okay.



Venusian Broon said:


> A lot of primitive warfare would really be raids and ambushes, so using the element of surprise and more asymmetral.


Not a lot has changed. Sounds like outside a Scottish pub on a typical saturday night.


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## Robert Zwilling (Jan 15, 2020)

The idea that a valuable target that couldn't move was more susceptible to artillery damage has been updated in the new wars that aren't wars where the urban centers are the new valuable targets that can't move, and the new "artillery shells" are hand delivered by any means possible, which does have a higher degree of accuracy, like the new electronic weapons. It could be argued that automatic weapons are miniature hand held "artillery" pieces that are shooting old fashioned shrapnel.


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## Venusian Broon (Jan 18, 2020)

Some other choice morsels....

Keeley has a nice sardonic turn of phrase, after all it's about a terrible subject, so some grim humour works.

In the chapter _'Primitive Warriors Versus Civilised Soldiers' :-_

'The Seminoles of Florida were never completely conquered by the U.S. Army, and it is hardly hyperbole to claim that tourists, armed only with tasteless clothing, have done a better job.'

Also a nice anecdote:

'Primitive warriors often more quickly appreciated the military potential of civilized weapons that did soldiers long familiar with them...whereas civilised soldiers took a decade or more to translate powered flight into a means of inflicting death and destruction, some New Guinea tribesmen grasped its possibilities in only a matter of mintes. The Eipo of highland Irian Jaya were first contacted by an ethnographer and his pilot, who landed their small plane among the tribesmen...the tribal leader immediately asked for a ride...When finally seated, he said that he wanted to bring a few heavy stones with him on the flight. Asked what the rocks were for, he replied that if he were flown over the village of his enemies, he would drop these rocks on them. Although his request for a bombing raid was not granted, this tribal Billy Mitchell had immediately recognised the military value of aerial bombardment...the military leaders of the civilised nations...assigned the first military aircraft to unarmed observational roles'

(This is probably a bit unfair, I'm sure a few civilised people saw immediately what an aircraft could do, but it is true that the top brass of most militaries were quite dismissive of this new technology at first.)

In the chapter '_The Profits and Losses of Primitive War' :-_

This is quite a disturbing chapter, essentially arguing that primitive warfare was usually extremely vicious with very high causality rates and a great deal of what we would easily interpret as atrocities.

'Enemy corpses and captives were eaten on a similar scale in a few places in Oceania. On Fiji, one chief kept a tally of the number of bodies he had consumed by placing a stone for each victim in a line behind his house; the line stretched nearly 200 metres and contained 872 stones."

But what do think of when you think of Tahiti? I remember reading about it, from the perspective of European explorers in the Pacific, being an Eden in the South Seas that welcomed any sailor and was a peaceful and bountiful island. Then it was ruined by European disease, capitalism and over-explotation by the global powers. The natives though were untouched Adams and Eves, yes?

I read this: "In Tahiti, a victorious warrior, give the opportunity, would pound his vanquished foe's corpse flat with his heavy war club, cut a slit through the well-crushed victim, and don him as a trophy poncho."


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## .matthew. (Jan 18, 2020)

Small tribes could easily be wiped out in a single war, and they were often fighting for a bigger piece of a small pie, something the attackers would view as critical to their survival.

I suppose it's also easier to commit atrocities when you think you have a chance to utterly eradicate your enemies, and spare yourself any reprisals.

However, once the capacity to implement such a plan exists, it is often used, even when dealing with civilised countries. Germany, Russia, China, Japan, to name but a few carried out genocides even though they were large nations - because they felt they could actually achieve their goal.

-

As for primitive cultures seeing more advantage of modern warfare than the generals of those modern nations, that also makes sense. To take your example, WW1 was the first real use of both planes and tanks in combat. These were a step up from the weapons of the day, but they also suffered from being a new technology, expensive and prone to failure. This gives a general who already has access to guns, cannons, and chemical weapons much less reason to intergrate these new technologies than a tribal leader who sees it as such a massive step forward in the art of dropping rocks on his enemies.


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## Foxbat (Jan 19, 2020)

Venusian Broon said:


> (This is probably a bit unfair, I'm sure a few civilised people saw immediately what an aircraft could do, but it is true that the top brass of most militaries were quite dismissive of this new technology at first.)


I remember reading an article giving a similar attitude to submarines in Britain. Initially the Royal Navy chiefs didn't like them because their use  was 'just not cricket'.


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## Brian G Turner (Jan 26, 2020)

I have to admit, I'm disturbed by the use of "primitive", as this is not a term I see used in archaeology or ancient history. Is Keeley using the term to describe h-f-g (hunter-fisher-gather) peoples, or a wider spectrum?


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## Venusian Broon (Jan 26, 2020)

Brian G Turner said:


> I have to admit, I'm disturbed by the use of "primitive", as this is not a term I see used in archaeology or ancient history. Is Keeley using the term to describe h-f-g (hunter-fisher-gather) peoples, or a wider spectrum?


I describe how he uses the word primitive in post #5. He is (was? The book is from 1996, so he may have retired) a professor of Anthropology. I'll give the quote again:

"The term _primitive, _when used in its usual sense in anthropology, merely refers to a technological condition - that of using preindustrial or preliterate tecnology. In social terms, primitive refers to societies that are not urban or literate."

He also points out just after this: "But because the word has negative connotations in everyday speech, _primitive _has fallen out of favour. It has been erratically replaced by a number of inelegant neologisms such as _preliterate _or _nonliterate, prestate _or _nonstate_, _preindustrial _and _small-scale_."

I wouldn't expect it to really be in ancient history, because I believe technically history is concerned really with societies who are literate and therefore we have written records -i.e. no need to use the word primitive in the definition as give above - (although I suppose such literate civilisations can interact and record histories of those who are not urban/literate etc.) Prehistory is then 'explored' by archaelogist or anthropologists.

I have just been picking out some anecdotes and therefore just using his langugage as the book gives. Clearly he is of the old school and doesn't mind using it. 

Also I haven't given an account of his argument but it really is a critique of Western views of non-western and pre-civilisation societies, and the criticism of the idea promoted by Western anthropologists/archeologists that pre-civilisation peoples were/are somehow 'peaceful savages' - simple people who did not war. He marshalls evidence that they are neither simple, savages nor people that lived in some Rousseauian Eden of peace. After reading the book he does not use the term primitive disparagingly, but outs earlier works by Western academics that were blatantly using the term in a negative sense. 

EDIT: oh, just to add, I don't know what current anthropology thinks of this book, as it is ~25 years old, and a lot more evidence has probably come to light. But I found it a fascinating argument with a lot of evidence and would certainly recommend you reading if you have get a chance. It also has a bit on the archeological work he has done on the LBK culture - and I had just posted a vid from Stefan Milo on 'The Rise and Fall of Europe's first Longhouse Builders' which mentioned the large scale cannibal sites that have been discovered - Keeley has quite a lot on ritual cannibalism and warfare in the book, so it tied in very nicely.


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## Brian G Turner (Jan 26, 2020)

Venusian Broon said:


> "The term _primitive, _when used in its usual sense in anthropology, merely refers to a technological condition - that of using preindustrial or preliterate tecnology. In social terms, primitive refers to societies that are not urban or literate."



That's what's confusing, because - at least these days - different peoples would be described in terms of their lifestyle, not technical development. Otherwise Keeley is effectively lumping Mesolithic hunter-gathers with Neolithic farmers and Iron Age steppe-nomads. Thanks for the clarification, though - it does sound like an interesting book, even if some of the terms used aren't the most helpful to a modern reader.


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## Venusian Broon (Jan 26, 2020)

Brian G Turner said:


> That's what's confusing, because - at least these days - different peoples would be described in terms of their lifestyle, not technical development. Otherwise Keeley is effectively lumping Mesolithic hunter-gathers with Neolithic farmers and Iron Age steppe-nomads.



Yes he does lump them all together, but it makes little sense I feel, to further sub-divide into the lifestyle groupings you suggest, because he finds plenty of evidence of all sorts of societies, sedentary or nomadic that regularly engaged in warfare (and there is a great deal of similarities with all groups.)

So he is suggesting some universal truth of human existence in societies with regards to warfare (or perhaps one must be careful, as this may have been a, conscious or not, tenet that he wanted to 'prove' in his thesis, I suppose. However he makes a good argument with evidence.)

In some ways it is a bit depressing argument. He has some hard data on tribal casualties in their wars, and points out that the wars between nation states in the 20th Century probably killed 100 million people - however if instead of nation states they were replaced by similar numbers of people in tribal or non-state groupings then the death toll would have reached 2 billion! 

However it is a complex subject with a lot of nuances that I haven't touched upon here.

There is hope though - more civilisation and meaningful cooperation with strong over-arching institutions. Roll on the World Government!


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## Aldarion (Jan 27, 2020)

Venusian Broon said:


> In some ways it is a bit depressing argument. He has some hard data on tribal casualties in their wars, and points out that the wars between nation states in the 20th Century probably killed 100 million people - however if instead of nation states they were replaced by similar numbers of people in tribal or non-state groupings then the death toll would have reached 2 billion!



I have actually touched on that here, basically an argument on why organized warfare is not as bad thing as it is portrayed as:








						An Argument for War
					

Catelyn waited until they had quieted. “My lords,” she said then, “Lord Eddard was your liege, but I shared his bed and bore his children. Do you think I love him any less than you?” Her voice almo…




					militaryfantasy.home.blog
				




To sum it up, great advantage of organized, conventional warfare is that you have huge number of casualties _all at once_. So there is incentive to take countermeasures to make such warfare less frequent. But when you have constant low-key conflicts (gang wars, tribal warfare, ethnic/religious/etc. tensions as seen in multicultural societies), no such incentive exists. Yet those conflicts can, over time, rack up casualty counts greater than those of formal wars.

I remember reading that in some US cities person has greater probability of getting killed than US soldier did during World War II.

EDIT: If anything, world government would make matters _worse_. No borders, no strong identity = no incentive to avoid murder or mass murder.

EDIT2:


Brian G Turner said:


> I have to admit, I'm disturbed by the use of "primitive", as this is not a term I see used in archaeology or ancient history. Is Keeley using the term to describe h-f-g (hunter-fisher-gather) peoples, or a wider spectrum?



I don't understand why would word "primitive" be disturbing? It merely denotes something lacking sophistication or complexity... which in and by itself, is not necessarily a bad thing.


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