Conworlds: What environment lead to nomadics?

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Conworlds: What environment lead to nomadics?

Post by Codpiece Callaway »

What sort of environment, climate, geography can lead to nomadic society? What about the kind of draught animals that are available to the people?

This is related somewhat, but what are the geoographical/environmental underpinings for warlike societies

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Re: Conworlds: What environment lead to nomadics?

Post by Zaarin »

Codpiece Callaway wrote:What sort of environment, climate, geography can lead to nomadic society? What about the kind of draught animals that are available to the people?
Any climate where farming would be difficult but grazing is possible will tend to favor nomadism: steppes, highlands, savannas, deserts, jungles, tundra, taiga...I assume from your question that we're talking about pastoral nomadism. If the question is simply about nomadism, hunter-gatherers once presumably lived in all environments before being marginalized by agriculturalists and pastoral nomads. Most nomads tend some kind of bovine (cattle, sheep, goats, yaks, water buffalo, musk-oxen) and generally ride horses (or camels, in the desert); llamas and alpacas would replace both functions in the Andes.
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Re: Conworlds: What environment lead to nomadics?

Post by Codpiece Callaway »

YEs, I meant for pastoral nomads. But what about the climate and environment were no animals can be raised, like the frozen tundras? And for second part of question, is it inevitable for these sort of society to focus on war and raiding (each other or the nearby sedentary peoples) for survival or are other sorts of arrangements possible outside of the conquer and pillage scheme?

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Re: Conworlds: What environment lead to nomadics?

Post by Zaarin »

Codpiece Callaway wrote:YEs, I meant for pastoral nomads. But what about the climate and environment were no animals can be raised, like the frozen tundras? And for second part of question, is it inevitable for these sort of society to focus on war and raiding (each other or the nearby sedentary peoples) for survival or are other sorts of arrangements possible outside of the conquer and pillage scheme?
Sami herd reindeer in the tundra of northern Scandinavia, and as far as I know they've never had a particularly warlike culture. The ancient Israelites were semi-nomadic shepherds who seem to have gone through intermittent years of war and peace; at any rate, their wars seem to have been more due to the strategic value of the land they inhabited than anything related to their (semi-)nomadic lifestyle. Warlike nomadism seems to be more a part of horse nomadism from the steppes than inherent to the nomadic lifestyle itself.
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Re: Conworlds: What environment lead to nomadics?

Post by hwhatting »

Codpiece Callaway wrote:YEs, I meant for pastoral nomads. But what about the climate and environment were no animals can be raised
Very simple, you cannot get pastoral nomadism in areas where there is no animal fodder to be foraged for, only hunter-gatherer nomadism. So either you have herdable animals that are adapted to that specific environment (and then that's not a "climate and environment where no animals can be raised"); or you haven't, then pastoral nomadism is impossible.
Zaarin wrote:Warlike nomadism seems to be more a part of horse nomadism from the steppes than inherent to the nomadic lifestyle itself.
Yes. In horse nomad societies, generally the entire adult population knows skills like riding and archery (for hunting) that are valuable for warfare, and pastoral nomadism also offers more leisure time during which such skills can be practised. The mobility of horse nomads also favours raiding. In agricultural societies, most of the people spend most of the time on farm work and spare time on communal construction works etc., and only a small elite is schooled in war, so in general, before the invention of long-range firearms and modern agricultural technologies that freed large parts of the populace from the need to do farm work, nomadic tribes had an in-built advantage - their armies were more mobile and they could raise bigger armies relative to the population (although agriculture allowed for higher population densities than pastoral nomadism).
Weapon skills tend also to be better for hunter-gatherer populations, but they tend to be less politically organized than pastoral nomads, and their population densities are even lower than with pastoral nomads, so they generally didn't pose much of a danger except for border / newly colonised areas.

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Re: Conworlds: What environment lead to nomadics?

Post by Torco »

Having weakling agriculturalists nearby whom you can raid from time to time: You also want to have large swathes of land, preferrably flat, and of course animals and such.

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Re: Conworlds: What environment lead to nomadics?

Post by Fixsme »

I don't think there is a climate that leads to nomadism.

For instance, in France in the 10th century, people were apparently neither nomad neither completely sedentary. They were moving a lot but from places to places that had been reused since before 2 000 BC. It's only after taxes were inforced that people stopped moving.
Nowadays, we are pretty much all nomads. My hometown is not the town I live now. I lived in Brittany and in the Colorado. I may go back to Brittany.

So I guess you would have to ask:
- how nomad are they? Do they migrate from region to region or have a territory of their own and they stay inside.
- What are the patterns? Monthly patterns (going from point A to B for trade)? Yearly patterns (following seasons: in winter you hunt, in summer you grow crops)? Decade patterns (land or sea overuse)? Longer patterns (climate change)?
- Do they take their home with them or do they leave it like that (semi-permanent habitat)?

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Re: Conworlds: What environment lead to nomadics?

Post by zompist »

Codpiece Callaway wrote:This is related somewhat, but what are the geoographical/environmental underpinings for warlike societies
Having human beings in them.

Human societies are almost all warlike. Some have a reputation for being more so— like the Spartans or the Mongols— but you have to consider that this is usually the opinion of nearby people reacting to periods when they were very active. The Athenians and the Chinese were no less warlike. And note that there were plenty of periods when the Eurasian nomads were divided or quite and thus no great threat to the agricultural nations.

Societies do differ of course in how they organize warfare— the Mongols, as hwhatting points out, could mobilize almost the entire male adult population, while in (say) the US it's less than 1% of the population. But the US intervenes militarily all over the world.

There are a few cultures who don't seem very warlike— the !Kung, for instance– but they are hunter-gatherers living in a desert; they've probably been marginalized by intrusive agriculturalists and they're too few to fight back.

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Re: Conworlds: What environment lead to nomadics?

Post by Hydroeccentricity »

An American of all people wrote:Human societies are almost all warlike.
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Re: Conworlds: What environment lead to nomadics?

Post by zompist »

Native Canadians might have something to say about that...

This is pretty interesting reading, too. Gotta admit, I didn't even know you folks fought the Boers.

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Re: Conworlds: What environment lead to nomadics?

Post by Hydroeccentricity »

zompist wrote:Native Canadians might have something to say about that...
Nice try, but that's murder, not war. I mean, if we're comparing murder statistics, Canada's going to look even better. Also, the fact that you had to google "Military history of Canada" is the best evidence of our peacefulness I could have asked for. :p

EDIT: But I'm aware that I'm wasting everyone's time. The point was that any modern society has some violent tendencies, and that's a given. But some are remarkably peaceful, and we shouldn't ignore those cases as aberrant. If you're trying to find out which societies become more warlike, it makes sense to also look at what makes societies very peaceful.
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Re: Conworlds: What environment lead to nomadics?

Post by Zaarin »

Hydroeccentricity wrote:
zompist wrote:Native Canadians might have something to say about that...
Nice try, but that's murder, not war. I mean, if we're comparing murder statistics, Canada's going to look even better. Also, the fact that you had to google "Military history of Canada" is the best evidence of our peacefulness I could have asked for. :p

EDIT: But I'm aware that I'm wasting everyone's time. The point was that any modern society has some violent tendencies, and that's a given. But some are remarkably peaceful, and we shouldn't ignore those cases as aberrant. If you're trying to find out which societies become more warlike, it makes sense to also look at what makes societies very peaceful.
If we're discussing pastoral nomadism, we're probably talking about pre-modern people. If we're talking about pre-modern people, then the answer to what makes societies peaceful is being totally isolated from anyone else to be in conflict with or having conflict preempted by the enforcement of a superior power (see Pax Romana). In which case they'll simply have conflict among themselves, because that's what people do. Canada, as a modern nation with no belligerent powers on its doorstep, has the luxury to be peaceful, a luxury your average pre-modern people don't have.
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Re: Conworlds: What environment lead to nomadics?

Post by Sevly »

Canada also benefits from being right next to a superpower with which it shares more the less the same values. We love to criticize what we see as American overagression, but in many ways it is their military power that allows us to be the "peaceful" one.
which is basically what Zaarin wrote:having conflict preempted by the enforcement of a superior power
Of course, this is about more than just military power. A motif that appears throughout Canadian speculative fiction is the fear of annexation by our southern neighbours. We all know that their Armed Forces could be in Ottawa at the drop of a hat, so it's a pretty natural question—if they're intervening everywhere else, will they really just leave us alone?

The primary dissuading factor is a lack of political will within the States itself. As mentioned above, Canada already has the same values as America; military intervention would be, if anything, counterproductive. So where Canada and America do disagree, the standoffs are economic, such as in the softwood lumber dispute. But in the realm of speculative fiction, we can explore disagreements that are more interesting, more cutting: how the White House would react, for example, if Ottawa were to be the site of something as horrendous as a communist revolution (dun dun dun)?

The other dissuading factor is the certain backlash from the international community. In this case, it's the UN that acts as the preempting superior power. But even here the war would be a political and economic one; I imagine a hypothetical American invasion of Canada would be received much like the current situation with Russia and Ukraine—with much condemnation and threat of "sanctions" but little will to send physical troops.

So coming back to the question of the OP, while it's true that human societies are almost entirely warlike, it is equally true that few of us are eager to be maimed or killed. As a result, we come up with structures that allow us to fight our wars more subtly and indirectly. When considering the warlikeness of a society, you should factor in the likelihood and effectiveness of socioeconomic retribution, and the other tools with which the potential aggressor can accomplish its goals at lesser expense.

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Re: Conworlds: What environment lead to nomadics?

Post by Lambuzhao »

@ Zaarin -

Despite a lot of well-wishing, and some photos on Google Images, the general rule of thumb about llamas and alpacas is that they cannot be mounted/ridden by the average person.
They generally can support 25-30% of their body weight. Most llamas fall in the 300-400 lb range; too lightweight to carry someone over 100 lb.

That's not to say that one could not breed bigger llamas. In fact there are reports of a few individuals that get up to 500 lb.

The cama llama-camel hybrid is also larger than the average llama (but not smarter than the average bear).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cama_(animal)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NwTCpDaHI4w

But generally, llamas and alpacas are too small to carry adult humans over long distances. They'd only be good as pack animals and/or food.

https://answers.yahoo.com/question/inde ... 601AAzgWka

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Re: Conworlds: What environment lead to nomadics?

Post by Lambuzhao »

@ Zaarin -

From a Pan-American perspective, you'd be better off using a bison. Some can carry up to three people on their backs. The don't seem to be as "darty" as a llama.

But as for pulling a wagon or cart, llamas and bison would be equally handy.

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Re: Conworlds: What environment lead to nomadics?

Post by Zaarin »

Lambuzhao wrote:@ Zaarin -

Despite a lot of well-wishing, and some photos on Google Images, the general rule of thumb about llamas and alpacas is that they cannot be mounted/ridden by the average person.
They generally can support 25-30% of their body weight. Most llamas fall in the 300-400 lb range; too lightweight to carry someone over 100 lb.

That's not to say that one could not breed bigger llamas. In fact there are reports of a few individuals that get up to 500 lb.

The cama llama-camel hybrid is also larger than the average llama (but not smarter than the average bear).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cama_(animal)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NwTCpDaHI4w

But generally, llamas and alpacas are too small to carry adult humans over long distances. They'd only be good as pack animals and/or food.

https://answers.yahoo.com/question/inde ... 601AAzgWka
Yes, you're right; I'm not sure what I was thinking when I posted that. :?
Lambuzhao wrote:@ Zaarin -

From a Pan-American perspective, you'd be better off using a bison. Some can carry up to three people on their backs. The don't seem to be as "darty" as a llama.

But as for pulling a wagon or cart, llamas and bison would be equally handy.
As I understand it, bison aren't very easy to domesticate, though; one would be better off going with the musk-ox--or, if you don't mind bending history a bit, its extinct cousin the shrub-ox.
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Re: Conworlds: What environment lead to nomadics?

Post by Lambuzhao »

If we're going with resurrection of The Daleks extinct species, we might as well go with the horse.

D'oh.

IMHO, if people put their focus into it, we could have herds of tame bison & less jittery, 600+ lb llamas within 3-4 generations.

I mean, just look at domesticated foxes, for example.
And we have bred pretty huge monster donkeys solely for the purpose of siring mules.

Baudet de Poitou
http://www.inspirefusion.com/media/2012 ... onkey4.jpg
Not only big - big-haired!

American Mammoth Donkey
http://www.rarebreeds.co.nz/mammoth2.jpg


We should (have been able to) breed a bigger llama. And tamer llamas. And tamer bison.


Just sayin.

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Re: Conworlds: What environment lead to nomadics?

Post by Zaarin »

Historically I don't think domestication tends to be a particularly focused thing.
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Re: Conworlds: What environment lead to nomadics?

Post by zompist »

Lambuzhao wrote:IMHO, if people put their focus into it, we could have herds of tame bison & less jittery, 600+ lb llamas within 3-4 generations.
Nah. Llamas have been domesticated for 5500 years, and it doesn't take modern technology to breed animals. If it was easy to breed rideable llamas, it would have been done long ago.

Jared Diamond has a section on this, comparing almonds to acorns, both of which are bitter in their native state. But only one gene controls the bitterness in almonds, while many genes do so for oaks. So it's much easier to randomly find and then breed edible almonds. So what you can do with animals and plants is constrained by the gene structure.

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Re: Conworlds: What environment lead to nomadics?

Post by Codpiece Callaway »

zompist wrote:
Lambuzhao wrote:IMHO, if people put their focus into it, we could have herds of tame bison & less jittery, 600+ lb llamas within 3-4 generations.
Nah. Llamas have been domesticated for 5500 years, and it doesn't take modern technology to breed animals. If it was easy to breed rideable llamas, it would have been done long ago.

Jared Diamond has a section on this, comparing almonds to acorns, both of which are bitter in their native state. But only one gene controls the bitterness in almonds, while many genes do so for oaks. So it's much easier to randomly find and then breed edible almonds. So what you can do with animals and plants is constrained by the gene structure.
There are examples of zebras being domesticated by Europeans. Why not by native africans?

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Re: Conworlds: What environment lead to nomadics?

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Hydroeccentricity wrote:
zompist wrote:Native Canadians might have something to say about that...
EDIT: But I'm aware that I'm wasting everyone's time. The point was that any modern society has some violent tendencies, and that's a given. But some are remarkably peaceful, and we shouldn't ignore those cases as aberrant. If you're trying to find out which societies become more warlike, it makes sense to also look at what makes societies very peaceful.
Some factors I would guess in the case of Canada: it's got a lot of space, and was comfortably able to exterminate and drive off the competitors to that land, and it's sensible enough not to challenge the US for strategic dominance of the western hemisphere.

A lot of the time I consider Australia to be a "peaceful" society as well. But Australia has for most of my adult life been sending troops overseas to fight in wars. I know it's a cliche, but the geopolitical environment for countries like ours has a lot of similarities to the imperial protectorates of the Pax Romana: we have domestic peace and prosperity and protection thanks to US hegemony, which also necessitates hosting troops, paying tribute (in the form of say, preferential trade agreements and the purchase US weaponry), and of course, furnishing armies when called upon.

"Peace" at home for a nation state is usually a symptom of being successfully able to push conflict to the margins. Britain was extremely "peaceful" during the 19th century if you confined yourself to looking at the home islands. But ask the Indians, the Chinese, the Sudanese, the Zulu, etc. etc. about the same period and you'd have a different view.

The "peace" of Europe since the end of WWII was helped initially by the US-Soviet stalemate and is now maintained by stretching US control and influence further and further east, which looks less "peaceful" if you are based in Moscow.

Of course it also helps if you are a geographically isolated state, like (e.g.) New Zealand. Compared to Australia, NZ spends less on its military and is less committed to allegiance with the USA, which is helped by the fact that they can rely on Australia and the USA to provide cover anyway. Canada also has the advantage of having only one land border.
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Re: Conworlds: What environment lead to nomadics?

Post by Salmoneus »

Britain was not peaceful during the 19th century. The first half of that century saw the first increase in murder rates since the Black Death - murder doubled, and was massively higher than in the 1970s-1990s murder boom. Plus, numerous terrorist threats, and serious threats of armed uprising in Ireland.


Anyway, human nature is incredibly malleable when it comes to violence. Human societies display violent death rates (murder, war, executions etc) that vary between 60% of the population and 0.05% of the population (and probably a bit lower than that, even).

Primitive societies were more horrible. Hunter-gatherers were diabolically violent compared to, say, Nazis, and horticulturalists were even worse. In some societies, more than 50% of men could expect to die violently. Papua New Guinea is where these societies lasted longest, but similar studies have been done on groups from Africa and North America, with similar results. Violence has gradually declined through civilisation: strong and organised political, legal and military institutions, and the development of ethics of peacefulness and tolerance. Occasionally, however, the margins of civilisation manage to be almost as bad as primitive tribes - as late as the 18th century, Corsica had a murder rate of around 700. Maryland in the 17th century had a rate around 500. [For context, the murder rate in modern El Salvador is around 40]. In England, by the middle ages the rate had fallen to under 50, although in some parts of Europe it was over 100. It then plummeted down to around 1 by the late 18th century, not including war and execution.
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Re: Conworlds: What environment lead to nomadics?

Post by Lambuzhao »

zompist wrote:
Lambuzhao wrote:IMHO, if people put their focus into it, we could have herds of tame bison & less jittery, 600+ lb llamas within 3-4 generations.
Nah. Llamas have been domesticated for 5500 years, and it doesn't take modern technology to breed animals. If it was easy to breed rideable llamas, it would have been done long ago.

Jared Diamond has a section on this, comparing almonds to acorns, both of which are bitter in their native state. But only one gene controls the bitterness in almonds, while many genes do so for oaks. So it's much easier to randomly find and then breed edible almonds. So what you can do with animals and plants is constrained by the gene structure.
I humbly beg to differ.
It certainly may depend on whether a rideable animal (e.g. llama, bison) is "easy" to breed or not. For argument's sake, I'm following the llama's trail below.


Much depends on whether the breeding folks even could have comprehended that the creature in question could have been ridden. And by breeding, I mean 'breeding' the old fashioned way: no artificial insemination, nor genetic crossings with wheat or bioluminescent fungus.
The ancestors of the Quechuas/inhabitants of Tihuantinsuyu who domesticated the llama and alpaca did not seem to comprehend that these animals could have been regularly ridden: just loaded down with cargo. And they basically followed the 'whut ain't broke don't need fixin' rule of civilization advancement. For approximately 5,500 years. If they had comprehended it, I am sure that they would've bred larger, less darty beasts to accommodate mounting & riding. 5,500 years is certainly plenty of time for such selective breeding to occur.

The whole concept of a beast of burden used as a single mount came to the Americas with the Conquistadors, who introduced the already acclimated horse and donkey, which folks have used everywhere the Spanish colonized since then. Why even bother to try to be a 'buffalo-whisperer' or a 'llama-whisperer' when horses already are programmed to do the job well?

Anyway, the current generation of llamas can be made to work. 2-3 harnessed llamas are capable of pulling carts and wagons with easily more weight combined than what they each could carry individually on their backs. And, although not all llamas take to the harness & halter, many can learn to take well to harnessing and pulling carts.

http://www.workingllamas.com/?id=93
http://www.llamas-information.com/llama ... e-to-cart/
http://lostcreekllamas.com/driving.htm
http://www.pearsonpond.com/LlamaDriving ... ience.html
http://www.camelidynamics.com/forums/sh ... ving-llama


-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

And, frankly, I can understand where one might wish to breed a less bitter acorn, but why bother when there is a cousin (the Chestnut) that produces bushels of perfectly edible nuts in temperate to subtropical climes where oaks are found?

from wiki:
Castanea dentata was once one of the most common trees in the northeastern US. In Pennsylvania alone, it is estimated to have comprised 25-30% of all hardwoods. The tree's huge population was due to a combination of rapid growth and a large annual seed crop in comparison to oaks which do not reliably produce sizable numbers of acorns every year. Nut production begins when C. dentata is 7–8 years old. The tree's survival strategy proved so successful that it may have ultimately become vulnerable to disease because of a near-monoculture in some locations.
I could see the attempts at hybridizing or selecting for "meaty-mast" acorn oaks like the Burr Oak (I used to get regular catalogs from Oikos Tree Crops, among other plant/tree dealers),
http://oikostreecrops.com/products/?rou ... gory_id=86

but maybe it would be wiser to try to rebreed a more resistant (hybrid) American Chestnut?

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Re: Conworlds: What environment lead to nomadics?

Post by Zaarin »

Salmoneus wrote:Britain was not peaceful during the 19th century. The first half of that century saw the first increase in murder rates since the Black Death - murder doubled, and was massively higher than in the 1970s-1990s murder boom. Plus, numerous terrorist threats, and serious threats of armed uprising in Ireland.


Anyway, human nature is incredibly malleable when it comes to violence. Human societies display violent death rates (murder, war, executions etc) that vary between 60% of the population and 0.05% of the population (and probably a bit lower than that, even).

Primitive societies were more horrible. Hunter-gatherers were diabolically violent compared to, say, Nazis, and horticulturalists were even worse. In some societies, more than 50% of men could expect to die violently. Papua New Guinea is where these societies lasted longest, but similar studies have been done on groups from Africa and North America, with similar results. Violence has gradually declined through civilisation: strong and organised political, legal and military institutions, and the development of ethics of peacefulness and tolerance. Occasionally, however, the margins of civilisation manage to be almost as bad as primitive tribes - as late as the 18th century, Corsica had a murder rate of around 700. Maryland in the 17th century had a rate around 500. [For context, the murder rate in modern El Salvador is around 40]. In England, by the middle ages the rate had fallen to under 50, although in some parts of Europe it was over 100. It then plummeted down to around 1 by the late 18th century, not including war and execution.
I thought hunter-gatherers were generally regarded as less violent than settled societies?
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Re: Conworlds: What environment lead to nomadics?

Post by Aldwinkle »

I thought hunter-gatherers were generally regarded as less violent than settled societies?

Code: Select all

Analysing statistics in Lawrence Keeley's War Before Civilization: the Myth of the Peaceful Savage (1996):

    Table 6.2 lists the Percentage of Deaths Due to Warfare. Of the 8 primitive societies that survived long enough to be analyzed by modern demographics, the median indicates that some 15.4% of all primitives, male and female alike, died by warfare. Of the 14 prehistoric cultures excavated and analyzed by archaeologists, the median indicates that about 14.8% of all prehistorics, male and female alike, died by warfare.
    Combining these into a sample group of 22 gives us a median of about 15.1%. The middle one-third of this combined sample runs from 12% to 16%. In practical terms, this means that for every 1,000,000 people who lived outside of a literate state, some 120,000 to 160,000 would eventually be killed in war. [For comparison, my calculation is that for every million people who lived in the 20th Century, some 37,000 died by violence.]
    Table 6.1 lists Annual Warfare Death Rates. The median for the 25 pre-state societies listed is 0.45%. The middle one-third runs from 0.3% to 0.6%. This indicates that if a region had population of, say, 1,000,000 typical primitives, 3,000 to 6,000 of them would be killed in war each year. That comes to about 450,000 (±150,000) per million per century, which nicely fits the 120-160,000 killed per generation in Table 6.2 if we assume some 3 or 4 generations per century.
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(from http://necrometrics.com)

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