A human skull found in the Tollense valley, an ancient battlefield in Germany, with fatal trauma caused by a Bronze arrowhead.Is human society becoming more violent? It’s hard to imagine a point in time containing an event as destructive as an atomic bombing. Even the most brutal acts committed by our ancient ancestors pale in comparison to the organized assaults countries have executed in the last century alone.
When Falk included the absolute number of deaths into the calculations, she found it was the population size, not the type of civilization structure, that determined whether a society lost their residents to warfare. And while the percentage of annual war deaths was lower among state societies, Falk says the number of annual war deaths has gone up in bigger populations. “This might have to do with big brains and having technology to invent more effective weapons to kill each other.
This study was particularly interesting because it tries to contextualize what’s happening, says Fibiger, who was not involved in the research. The large dataset of human skeletal remains allowed them to link traumatic deaths to ongoing conflicts, economics, and the unequal distribution of resources and wealth caused by climate. “Bringing these things together gives a better concept of people’s lives,” Fibiger says, “and what might have escalated conflict and broken down relationships.