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Before the dawn of agriculture, anthropologists agree, we humans flourished in our varied environments, often moving nomadically from one location to the next following successions of ripening fruit, in season, or the migration patterns of herds of herbivores. We hunted with traps and snares or used spears, arrows, hurled stones or darts. Humans fished using toxic herbs or nets. On land they hunted using strategies with diversions, ambushes, fires, or stampeded their prey off cliffs. As gatherers we understood how to identify virtually all food plants in our habitat, we learned when and where they could be found and how to obtain them from treetops or buried beneath the earth. Like Chimpanzees or other animals have been observed to do, we consumed herbs from nature, when needed, to alleviate symptoms of illness. At some archeological sites in Africa scientists have even found remnants of an ancient human culture that used a beer-like brew cultures with a strain of Streptomyces bacteria that yielded a miraculous potion containing therapeutic levels of the antibiotic tetracycline. Even in deep prehistory we humans lived in much more complex societies than most of us realize today, or may ever know, as the evidence of our language, songs, music, philosophy, religion, customs, and morals have been lost through the ages. DNA tracing of ancient human migration patterns reveal that we were far more mobile than previously realized. Humans tread their way from Africa, into Europe, across Asia and throughout the Americas in wave after wave of migrations. The native inhabitants of Australia, as well, traversed thousands of miles by sea through shark infested waters to settle in a land they had no clear way of knowing was there, not once, but on multiple occasions. It is difficult to conceive of the cultural motivations that must have inspired them. Even North America bears archeological evidence of settlers arriving from both Europe and Asia on multiple occasions. All these events transpired before recorded history, and we therefore have relatively few clues about the type of culture in which they lived, but there is enough evidence to reconstruct key elements of their lifestyle and habits. One current human practice that remains almost absent from the archeological record of these early humans, but that does appear in subsequent eras, is war.
To aid us in determining what is or is not “natural” to the human condition, let’s review the social structure of our non-human cousins. Beginning in the mid 1960’s Dr. Jane Goodall observed and recorded chimpanzee culture in a group of chimps in the Gombie reserve of Tanzania, Africa. Males of the tribes would frequently band together to form organized patrols to scout along the borders of their territories. In 1974 Dr. Goodall observed the large Kasakela group go to war with a splinter group of seven males. In a protracted “war” that spanned four years, the larger parent group systematically murdered all seven of the rival males, while preserving the females. Although this occurred over a long period, if viewed in time-lapse fashion it might bear some resemblance to a human war, or series of mafia style “hits” on members of rival gangs [In the Shadow of Man(1971), and in National Geographicmagazine (1964, 1995)]. In 1975 Goodall also witnessed a female chimp, that she had named Passion, kill and eat the newborn offspring of a rival female, Gilka. Passion shared the kill with her daughter, Pom. The mother-daughter team continued to kill and eat infants of other females for the next two years.
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Historically many wars have been genocidal in nature, the victors slaughtering all the losers and taking permanent control of their assets. In many other wars throughout history the victors have offered to spare some defenders and make them into conscripts in their conquering armies. And in still other cases the dominators have enslaved the populations they are victorious over. Today, in 2011, the United States has been at war in Iraq and Afghanistan for nine years and is now orchestrating regime change in Egypt, Syria, Yemen, and Libya. It has been a tremendously profitable venture for this government.
Let us now contrast our recent history with the living conditions of pre-agricultural hunter/gatherer societies. First, stone-age societies were usually much smaller in number. There simply were not enough resources in most areas to support populations over a few thousand at most. Rather than remaining in a fixed location, they were often nomadic and many returned to certain habitation sites seasonally. Essentially everyone was afforded the same opportunities in life. Clothing was of animal hide or natural woven fibers. Tools were made of plant or stone and little else. Although there might be optimal locations for obtaining obsidian, for example, to craft razor sharp tools or weapons, these locations were known and often available to anyone in their society or could be obtained through trade with other groups. Likewise, the best plants for harvesting fibers might grow in a specific location, or the best type trees for making strong spear shafts or axe handles, or light weight straight arrow shafts were known. Hunter/gathering societies also had abundant leisure time. There is a common misconception among our current population that Stone Age humans were in constant battle against nature. That life was cruel, brutal, and short. In reality, cultural anthropologists who have studied these types of societies in the recent past have observed that most of these peoples spend a very small amount of their time actually working to survive. Two or three hours a day, on the average, is all that it takes. The remaining hours of each day are spent relaxing, talking, singing, painting, carving, weaving, raising children and the like.
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