" War was central to Europe’s first civilisation..." Topic

… (Minoan) contrary to popular belief.

"Research from the University of Sheffield has discovered that the ancient civilisation of Crete, known as Minoan, had strong martial traditions, contradicting the commonly held view of Minoans as a peace-loving people.

The research, carried out by Dr Barry Molloy of the University of Sheffield's Department of Archaeology, investigated the Bronze Age people of Crete, known by many as the Minoans, who created the very first complex urban civilisation in Europe.

"Their world was uncovered just over a century ago, and was deemed to be a largely peaceful society," explained Molloy. "In time, many took this to be a paradigm of a society that was devoid of war, where warriors and violence were shunned and played no significant role.

"That utopian view has not survived into modern scholarship, but it remains in the background unchallenged and still crops up in modern texts and popular culture with surprising frequency…"
From here
link

Amicalement
Armand

Well, duh. The idea that Crete under the Minoans was a land of peace and egalitarianism is a throwback to what I call. "Hippie Archaeology". Its the denial of human nature in an attempt to make the modern world look bad when compared to a mythic, idealized past.

I've seen it manifested in numerous ways over the years, Crete being only one example. In West Virginia I lived near Moundsville where there was, unsurprising considering the name, an Indian mound. Excavation showed that one group had built it and another group moved in later to live in the area. The plaque at the museum stated that the original inhabitants moved out of the area for unknown reasons and another group moved in. I'm willing to guess that the prior inhabitants were forced out by an invading group. People rarely leave an area because they're bored.

I've also read arcaeologists writing on middle eastern cities of the bronze age that the piles of small stones on a wall were for heating water, not that they were sling stones for defending the place.

Agree, duh. War was essential to early and later civilizations as they expanded to control limited resources. When new ones were developed then the race to control those resources happened as well.

Well said. The myth of the peaceful savage is exactly that – a myth. The fact is that there has been warfare since the Ice Age – archeologists have come up with some very improbable explanations for things that have a very clear explanation as Dn Jackson very cogently notes

My favourite example is the Mayans – they didn't abandon those big stone cities because the Aliens came for them, they ran out of resources and had a series of very destructive wars

For those who want a very readable take on this I recommend John Keegan's A History of Warfare – a little long in the tooth but very, very readable