Jonathan Haas – författare

In every culture area, the origins and development of politically cen­ tralized social systems and the emergence of leaders and rulers followed a unique evolutionary trajectory depending on local history and environment.

This volume brings together research on the evolution of civilisation in the Andean region of South America from the work of sixteen leading scholars, at one time actively engaged in fieldwork in Peru. Beginning with early chiefdom societies living along the Peruvian coast 2000 years before Christ, the authors trace the growing complexity of Andean states and empires over the next 3000 years. They examine the accomplishments of the ancient Andeans in the rise of magnificent monumental architecture and the construction of unparalleled prehistoric irrigation systems. They also look at the dominant role of warfare in Andean societies and at the collapse of empires in the millennia before the arrival of the Spanish in 1534. Together, the contributors provide the first systematic study of the evolution of polities along the dry coastal plains and high mountain valleys of the Peruvian Andes.

The book brings together a group of authors who are addressing the nature and causes of warfare in simpler, tribal societies. The authors represent a range of different opinions about why humans engage in warfare, why wars start, and the role of war in human evolution. Warfare in cultures from several different world areas is considered, ranging from the Amazon, the Caribbean, the Andes, the Southwestern US, Southeast Asia, Polynesia, and Malaysia. To explain the origins and maintenance of war in tribal societies, different authors appeal to a broad spectrum of demographic, environmental, historical and biological variables. Competing explanatory model of warfare are presented with overlapping bodies of data offered in support of each model.

In every culture area, the origins and development of politically cen­ tralized social systems and the emergence of leaders and rulers followed a unique evolutionary trajectory depending on local history and environment.

The evolution of complex cultural systems is marked by a number of broad, sweeping patterns that characterize many different cultures at different points in time across the globe. Over the course of the past 100,000 years, there has been a general evolutionary trend for cultural systems to get larger and more complex. A consistent element in the broad course of cultural evolu­ tion has been the emergence and subsequent development of centralized forms of political organization. The record of the first modern humans illuminates a global wide pat­ tern of relative social equality and decentralized deciSion-making processes. Prior to about 10,000 years ago, there are no indications of clear social, political, or economic hierarchies. In these early millennia archaeological markers of social ranking are lacking and there is a similar absence of evidence pointing to the presence of leaders, chiefs or rulers. The pattern of social equality began to change at different moments and at different rates in various parts of the world in the course of the last 10,000 years. In some areas, such as Mesopotamia, politically centralized hierarchies emerged very early and developed rapidly, while in others, such as the Arctic, political centralization never emerged outside the context of Western colonialism. In every culture area, the origins and development of politically cen­ tralized social systems and the emergence of leaders and rulers followed a unique evolutionary trajectory depending on local history and environment.

This edited collection contains important new material on the origins and role of warfare in “tribal” societies. The chapters focus on a number of basic research issues, including war and social evolution, causes of war, ideology of war, and European transformation of indigenous warfare patterns. The anthropologist contributors represent different theoretical positions and world areas, and approach the phenomena of pre-state warfare from different perspectives. The diversity of views is a positive and particularly stimulating feature of the volume. The Anthropology of War is a significant contribution to an area within anthropology that has gained little attention, and will be of interest to political scientists, historians, and sociologists who are curious about how anthropologists deal with the problem of warfare.