NEO-LITHICS 1/10 the Newsletter of Southwest Asian Neolithic Research Special Topic on Conflict and Warfare in the Near Eastern Neolithic Content
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Editorial Introduction Clare and Gebel Introduction: Conflict and Warfare Keynote Bar-Yosef Warfare in Levantine Early Neolithic. A Hypothesis Comments and Contributions Bernbeck A Scholastic Fallacy Clare Pastoral Clashes: Conflict Risk and Mitigation Gebel Conflict and Conflict Mitigation Grosman Prehistoric Warfare – Cause and Visibility Guilaine Neolithic Warfare: Comments LeBlanc Broader Implications Müller-Neuhof Comment Özdoğan Warfare Due to Social Stress or State of Security Through Social Welfare Otterbein Early Warfare Roksandic Commentary Rollefson Violence in Eden: Comments Roscoe War, Community, and Environment Warburton Methodological Considerations Reply Bar-Yosef Warfare in Levantine Early Neolithic. Response Ofer Bar-Yosef Other Contributions Köksal-Schmidt and Schmidt Göbekli Tepe „Totem Pole“ Arimura, Badalyan, Gasparan, and Chataigner Current Neolithic Research in Armenia Neeley TBAS 102: A Late Natufian Site in West-Central Jordan Bartl Shir, West Syria New Theses NEO-LITHICS 1/10 The Newsletter of Southwest Asian Neolithic Research Special Topic on Conflict and Warfare in the Near Eastern Neolithic Content Editorial 3 Introduction Lee Clare and Hans Georg K. Gebel Introduction: Conflict and Warfare in the Near Eastern Neolithic 3 Keynote Ofer Bar-Yosef Warfare in Levantine Early Neolithic. A Hypothesis to be Considered 6 Comments and Contributions Reinhard Bernbeck Prehistoric Wars, A Scholastic Fallacy 11 Lee Clare Pastoral Clashes: Conflict Risk and Mitigation at the Pottery Neolithic Transition in the Southern Levant 13 Hans Georg K. Gebel Conflict and Conflict Mitigation in Early Near Eastern Sedentism 32 Leore Grosman Prehistoric Warfare – Cause and Visibility 36 Jean Guilaine Neolithic Warfare: Comments 38 Steven A. LeBlanc Early Neolithic Warfare in the Near East and its Broader Implications 40 Bernd Müller-Neuhof Comment to Ofer Bar Yosef‘s Keynote: Warfare in Levantine Early Neolithic. A Hypothesis to be Considered 50 Mehmet Özdoğan The Neolithic Medium: Warfare Due to Social Stress or State of Security Through Social Welfare 54 Keith F. Otterbein Early Warfare in the Near East 56 Mirjana Roksandic Commentary on “Warfare in Levantine Early Neolithic. A Hypothesis to be Considered” 59 Gary O. Rollefson Violence in Eden: Comments on Bar-Yosef’s Neolithic Warfare Hypothesis 62 Paul Roscoe War, Community, and Environment in the Levantine Neolithic 66 David A. Warburton Warfare in the Neolithic? Methodological Considerations 68 Reply Ofer Bar-Yosef Warfare in Levantine Early Neolithic. Response Ofer Bar-Yosef 71 Other Contributions Çiğdem Köksal-Schmidt and Klaus Schmidt The Göbekli Tepe “Totem Pole“. A First Discussion of an Autumn 2010 Discovery (PPN, Southeastern Turkey) 74 Makoto Arimura, Ruben Badalyan, Boris Gasparyan, and Christine Chataigner Current Neolithic Research in Armenia 77 Michael P. Neeley TBAS 102: A Late Natufian Site in West-Central Jordan 86 Karin Bartl Shir, West Syria 92 Theses 94 New Publications 97 Masthead 99 2 Neo-Lithics 1/10 Editorial We extend our most sincere thanks to Ofer Bar-Yosef for his keynote contribution on Warfare in the Levantine Neolithic, the special topic of this Neo-Lithics issue, which has attracted the intellectual company of so many colleagues. The result is a very substantial and in many parts new discussion, and the thickest issue of Neo-Lithics published to date. The keynote triggered some controversy, as we expected, and this appears to come less from the different perceptions of the warfare issue per se and more from the different areas in which such perceptions are gained. Indeed, it is essential that we differentiate between these two aspects. For example, in a recent discussion at a fish mezze to which one of us (H.G.K.G.) was invited by Mehmet Özdoğan, I learned that Neolithic warfare should not be neglected just because one’s own sights are dominated by evidence from more extensive Neolithic habitats. Also personal moral and political views can considerably influence many of the sights and approaches to the topic. We extend our sincere thanks to all contributors for preparing the substratum of a broader discussion upon which we can build in the future; the diversity of arguments and approaches which our discourse has started shows that we are at the very beginning of addressing the issue of conflict and warfare. It was a pleasure to cooperate with our guest editor, Lee Clare. We not only won the perfect colleague for this special topic, but he also brought in the patience and care for the contributions which were collected in just a few months. While we finalize works on this issue, we become confident that it is only a matter of time until we are confronted with direct evidence for warfare or coalitional aggression from one of the current excavations. This issue aims to raise awareness about such findings … Hans Georg K. Gebel Gary O. Rollefson Introduction Introduction: Conflict and Warfare in the Near Eastern Neolithic Lee Clare University of Cologne [email protected] Hans Georg K. Gebel Free University of Berlin [email protected] This edition of Neo-Lithics is dedicated to a topic were invited from esteemed scholars from the fields that to present has received relatively little attention of warfare and conflict studies and Near Eastern and from scholars working in the field of the Near Eastern European prehistory. Unfortunately, some academic Neolithic. Conflict and warfare in traditional societies disciplines are still missing in our collection of can range significantly in scale from minor intra- comments, for example we are lacking contributions familial clashes at the level of small residence groups from the spheres of physical anthropology, human to large scale inter-community hostilities characterised ethology, evolutionary psychology, neurobiology, by alliance formation and the annexation of foreign cognitive neurosciences and others; these areas will territories. Granted, warfare can in some instances be undoubtedly play a sigificant role in the future, i.e. in the agent, institutionalised, and serve significant socio- second stage of our discourse on conflict and warfare. economic and ritual functions, but in others, where Topics addressed by contributors in this issue range an increase in hostilities, particularly at the regional from theoretical issues, concerned with the origins and and supra-regional level, has an external catalyst, genesis of Neolithic conflict, to more practical aspects bellicose enterprises can culminate in the breakdown such as the identification of markers for hostilities in the of afflicted communities, migration, adjustment of archaeological record. Indeed, this latter point would vertical differentiation within social networks, and appear to constitute one of the most pressing concerns material culture change. As such, this absence of among prehistorians, at least judging by the frequency scholarly interest with respect to the Neolithic in the by which this topic has been broached in recent Near East, with a few notable exceptions, is all the publications, and also within this present volume. Here, more incomprehensible. This edition of Neo-Lithics the observation that a lack of evidence is not necessarily seeks not to remedy directly this deficit of scholarly tantamount to a real absence of warfare is certainly not activity, but to provide a platform for initial discussions insignificant, and some relevant lines of documentation and deliberations in the hope that more detailed studies are simply misunderstood (LeBlanc). On the other will duly follow. hand, as demonstrated by Bernbeck with respect to Our volume is opened by a keynote paper by Ofer site abandonment and Grosman with reference to Bar-Yosef to which comments and contributions skeletal pathologies, there always remains a degree of 3 Neo-Lithics 1/10 Special Topic:Warfare in Levantine Early Neolithic Introduction ambiguity concerning the correct interpretation, even of akin to resisting temptations of calorie-rich foods and those lines of evidence frequently cited as being among casual sex (Smith 2009: 27)! This is most certainly the most reliable. Again, Guilaine and Clare discuss an extreme view, but as pointed out by Gebel, who the significance of the ratio of arrowheads in lithic succeeds in combining the two grand paradigms, assemblages as an indicator of violence on Cyprus and human aggression, although biologically anchored, is in the southern Levant respectively. If however clear nevertheless dominated by cooperation and empathy. archaeological evidence for violence is unearthed, Further, and most intriguingly, he goes on to assert how can we ascertain the extent of bellicosity in the clearly neo-Rousseauan values positing that Neolithic respective culture; could it not be that we are merely conflict is intrinsically linked to sedentary lifeways witnessing a single (otherwise infrequent) outbreak of and is dictated by the failure of related mechanisms violence (Roksandic)? Indeed, Bernbeck goes one of aggregation, commodification and innovation. This step further and criticises the pursuit of evidence of stance is echoed in the contributions by Özdoğan prehistoric conflict (for conflict’s sake) in a region and and Otterbein. For the period of the formation and period to have hitherto provided comparatively little dissemination of the aceramic Neolithic in the Levant indication of its occurrence. and Anatolia Özdoğan concludes that this would only Returning to theoretical considerations, since the have been possible