Patterns of violence in the pre‑Neolithic Nile Valley

0574280 - ARÚ 2024 RIV US eng J - Článek v odborném periodiku
Brukner Havelková, P. - Crevecoeur, I. - Varadzin, Ladislav - Ambrose, S. H. - Tartar, E. - Thibeault, A. - Buckley, M. - Villotte, S. - Varadzinová, L.
Patterns of violence in the pre‑Neolithic Nile Valley.
African Archaeological Review. Roč. 40, č. 4 (2023), s. 597-619. ISSN 0263-0338. E-ISSN 1572-9842
Grant ostatní: GA ČR(CZ) GA17-03207S
Institucionální podpora: RVO:67985912
Klíčová slova: interpersonal violence * informal bone tool * heat treatment of bone * hunter-gatherers * Sudan * early Holocene * terminal Pleistocene
Obor OECD: Archaeology
Impakt faktor: 1.6, rok: 2022
Způsob publikování: Open access
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10437-023-09533-w

Burial assemblages inform us about the biology of past societies, social relations, and ritual and symbolic behavior. However, they also allow us to examine the circumstances of death and social violence. A high level of intergroup violence among prehistoric hunter-gatherers is well-documented in some times and places but is extremely rare in others. Here we present an analysis of the perimortem injury to skeleton PD8 at the site of Sphinx in Central Sudan. This burial, attributed to the Early Khartoum (Khartoum Mesolithic) culture, radiocarbon dated between 8637 and 8463 cal BP, bears evidence of a perimortem sharp force trauma caused by penetration of an unshaped, fractured nonhuman bone between the right scapula and the rib cage. Among more than 200 anthropologically assessed human burials from the early Holocene Nile Valley reviewed in this paper, PD8 provides the only documented evidence of violence resulting in death. This rare case of death differs from the numerous cases of intergroup conflict documented in terminal Pleistocene burial grounds in Lower Nubia. This suggests different patterns of violence and strategies of conflict resolution in the pre-Neolithic (terminal Pleistocene and early Holocene) Nile Valley. We attribute this difference in the prevalence of interpersonal trauma to climatic and environmental conditions, territorial boundary defense, and post-marital residence practices before and after the Younger Dryas’ arid millennium (~ 12,800–11,600 BP).
Trvalý link: https://hdl.handle.net/11104/0344657