Origins and evolution of war and politics

Abstract

This is a progress report of The Long-Range Analysis of War (LORANOW) Project, an ongoing investigation on the earliest origins and evolution of warfare and politics. Using multidisciplinary sources (archaeology, epigraphy, ethnology) and new coding procedures (integrated historical reconstruction). thus far approximately 2,300 wars have been recorded in the pilot datasets. indicating a tentatively lower onset rate (≈ 0.2 wars/year) than for the modern system (≈ 1.1 wars/year). Paleolithic "protowarfare" among the earliest humans in Afro-Eurasia is also discussed. Besides the early date for warfare at Jericho (ca. 7500 B.C.), findings thus far support the hypothesis that war and politics have had multiple independent origins (pleogenic theory), in at least three separate regions (trident model): Mesopotamia (Tigris-Euphrates Rivers basin, since ca. 3000 B.C.), China (Yellow River basin, since ca. 2500 B.C.), and Mesoamerica (Olmec-Mexican Gulf Coast, since ca. 900 B.C.), Two other possible, unconfirmed areas are Nubia and the Peruvian Andes.