BlackSun31 | 20 Feb 2010 1:30 p.m. PST |
Thats what i'd like to know :) The time frame is astonishing really. I mean when you look at 'popular' dates like 1066 for example.. that seems almost modern by comparison! |
Parzival | 20 Feb 2010 1:57 p.m. PST |
According to the following site, the first battle actually recorded in detail by name is the Battle of Megiddo in 1469 B.C., between Pharaoh Thutmose III and a coalition of northern opponents from the region of modern-day Israel. link This is of course not the first battle, but merely the first given a specific location and description in a contemporary account. Warfare, after all, began much, much earlier. |
Dan Wideman II | 20 Feb 2010 2:00 p.m. PST |
According to the Wiki article on Militsry History (the first place I could look quickly) the first recorded conflict (not specific battle) was the war between Sumer and Elam recorded in the Bible. The earliest archeological record of armed conflict is a cemetary full of people killed by spears and arrows (stone) found along the Nile. It dates to 14000 BC. |
Hrothgar Berserk | 20 Feb 2010 3:04 p.m. PST |
Dan, Is that site from the Nile the place where the losers were massacred? It would also count as one of the earliest atrocities on record. The first known illustration of combat is from a Neolithic cave painting in Spain. The painting portrays an archery duel with 4 warriors shooting it out with 3 others. |
Knight Templar | 20 Feb 2010 5:28 p.m. PST |
"2001 A Space Odyssey": "The Dawn of Man": the battle for the muddy water hole is recorded in lurid, graphic detail – I've seen it with my own eyes |
aecurtis | 20 Feb 2010 5:39 p.m. PST |
That would have been right after Adam and Eve were expelled from Eden. |
Jojojimmyjohn | 20 Feb 2010 6:46 p.m. PST |
Right after Cain borrowed Abel's church riden dinosaur without askin. |
Major Mike | 20 Feb 2010 9:01 p.m. PST |
"The Encyclopedia of Military History" agrees with Parzival. |
Renaud S | 20 Feb 2010 10:13 p.m. PST |
You can always find an earlier battle. Before Meggido, other battles are well recorded in the egyptian history for instance, like the battles of Avaris or the siege of Sharuhen, at the end of the Second Intermediate Period. I suppose you could find some as early as the Middle or the Old Kingdom. |
CooperSteveOnTheLaptop | 21 Feb 2010 12:02 a.m. PST |
In Genesis there is quite a bit of detail on Kedorlaomer's campaign into Canaan & the battle in the Vale of Siddim There is a stone-age massacre site in Europe too, Germany I think |
borrible | 21 Feb 2010 12:41 a.m. PST |
Hrothgar Berserk wrote
It would also count as one of the earliest atrocities on record. Actually no. It was a peace keeping mission to suppress illegal reprisal actions from potential insurgents against the occupying power that seized vital resources from a community of irresponsible breakers of the laws of nature for the coming gene pool. Maybe my gene pool, maybe your gene pool
Never forget, we're the offspring of survivors, and you can never be sure what they had to do to survive. ;-) |
NoLongerAMember | 21 Feb 2010 3:04 a.m. PST |
There are hints at battles and wars in pre-dynistic Egypt as well as armour and weapons found in Babylon and Ur. However the bible does not count for recording battles or wars not recorded elsewhere, anymore than the Iliad or Gilgamesh does. I don't doubt they happened, but the information of where, when and between precisley whom i stoo vague. |
Cacique Caribe | 21 Feb 2010 3:46 a.m. PST |
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Diadochoi | 21 Feb 2010 4:52 a.m. PST |
It depends a bit what you mean by "recorded" but there are certainly a lot of older battles and wars pre-Megiddo from Sumerian records e.g. Gu-edina (city states of Umma and Lagash) around 2450 BC (date subject to the usual questions of new vs old chronologies etc). |
CooperSteveOnTheLaptop | 21 Feb 2010 6:36 a.m. PST |
"However the bible does not count for recording battles or wars not recorded elsewhere" Kedorlaomer's campaign matches the archaeology of blitzed tels-layers of the right period all along his campaign trail. |
crhkrebs | 21 Feb 2010 7:39 a.m. PST |
Diadochoi is correct, it depends what you mean as recorded. In Sumer, during the Early Dynastic Period III 1) Weapons of warfare (not just hunting weapons) found in the Royal burial sites of Ur. 2) War chariots are found. 3) Iconographic evidence for chariots being used in warfare. 4) Iconographic scenes of war captives executed by being hit on the head by someone wielding a mace. (Gursu Iraq, circa 2600BCE) 5) Same on Narmer Palette from Eygpt.(contemporary to Gursu site) 6) the Royal Standard from the Royal burials at Ur (circa 2500BCE, now in the British Museum). It depicts chariotry, Infantry, battle, the taking of prisoners and their presentation to the victorious leader. 7) Earliest recorded conflict is border dispute between two city states in modern day southern Iraq. As Diadochoi says these towns are Umma and Lagash. Gursu is part of the later polity of Lagash. The information is contained from inscriptions found at Gursu. The disputed area was called Ugut-adin or "border of the plain" set by the "King of Kish". The inscriptions describe continual warfare from 2600 to 2300BCE. The Ummaites smashed the boundary markers and settled into the borderlands just prior to 2600. The Lagashites under their king, Eannatum, defeated the Ummaites in two separate battles close to 2600BCE. I'm not aware of earlier battles that are corroborated by more than one source. Surely warfare existed much earlier than this. The first battle that has a name is Megiddo. As for Neolithic sites of multiple death burials, most historians would not come out and claim them to be evidence for warfare. They COULD be evidence of warfare, but they COULD be something else (ritualized killings, executions, religious ceremonies, etc.) The biggest problem with these sites are that the victims do NOT come from a single time period. This is what we would expect to see if they represented sacrificial executions of captives taken in battle. Ralph |
Hrothgar Berserk | 21 Feb 2010 8:12 a.m. PST |
True that the Neolithic burial sites could be ritual killings, etc., but the evidence for Neolithic warfare is beyond overwhelming. The Paleolithic and Mesolithic have less evidence of war, but the amount of material available is much smaller. |
normsmith | 21 Feb 2010 10:17 a.m. PST |
First battles would have been at the tribal / family level, which had to manifest before state or national structures could emerge. |
crhkrebs | 21 Feb 2010 8:07 p.m. PST |
Hi Hrothgar,
.but the evidence for Neolithic warfare is beyond overwhelming. It is? A quote from Garret Fagan of the University of Pennsylvania, an expert in primitive warfare. "The issue of warfare's origins proved to be a methodological and evidentiary quagmire, where certainty proves elusive." As the experts can't agree if any of the "kill sites" actually indicate warfare, I'm not sure they would agree to your statement. I'll leave you with this idea. Military weapons that had no practical farming or hunting use, such as sickle swords, maces, socket axes, and of course armour, all show up at 2500 BCE and not earlier. Regular axes, lances, bows and chariots had other non-military uses, and there is no ethnographic or iconographic evidence showing warfare at any earlier time. I think you will find that cave paintings which purport to show warfare is something that is also debated amongst the experts. A quick search of the literature will confirm this. Did warfare exist before 2500 BCE or in the Neolithic? Most likely. Is there indisputable evidence for this? Not according to the experts. In fact, there are some academics who believe warfare started only once city states formed in Mesopotamia. I don't know enough to weigh in on either side of that argument. Ralph |
zippyfusenet | 21 Feb 2010 9:32 p.m. PST |
Here are a couple of authors who muster a lot of evidence for warfare among non-urbanized neolithic farming villagers. While the people being studied are relatively recent stone-agers, I'm convinced that war-fighting starts with farming, if not sooner: link link Of course this is a tanget to the OP's question about the earliest recorded (hence historical) battle. |
Deucey | 21 Feb 2010 9:52 p.m. PST |
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crhkrebs | 22 Feb 2010 6:08 a.m. PST |
I'm well acquainted with the work of Steven LeBlanc (your first example), as my interest is in Meso-American warfare. Dr. Leblanc is an expert in the introduction of the bow into Meso-America. It's difficult the discern from an Amazon ad, but the comments for "overpopulation", and "ecological disasters" seem to indicate more advanced cultures. The New World provides new problems too. The term pre-historic is a lot more encompassing as most civilizations in the New World had no written language. Also be careful about extrapolating the behaviour of modern "neolithic" people onto our forefathers from millenia ago. That is beyond the scope of this thread.
I'm convinced that war-fighting starts with farming That's reasonable. The problem is that farmer/soldiers don't leave good evidence of their activity and that that they do leave, is inconclusive. Ralph |