"An interesting book on pre-Colombian warfare. " Topic

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North American Indigenous Warfare and Ritual Violence.

Richard Chacon and Ruben G Mendoza editors.

A series of essays on pre-Colombian warfare by various archaeologists and anthropologists. Each essay covers a different region of North America from north of the Rio Grande to the Arctic Circle.
Much of the evidence presented is from prehistoric excavations combined with immediate post-contact narratives from European explorers.
I found some information surprising and it contradicted what I had learned in anthro classes long ago in the 80s, namely that war would be unlikely before the discovery of agriculture. The essays that explore warfare among the Cree, Inuit, Chumash, and Northwest Coast peoples show that warfare was endemic to these groups, and often had no material gain for the combatants. Motives for the pre-agricultural warfare ranged from keeping strangers out of territory to punitive raids against suspected practitioners of witchcraft. In the case of the supernatural casus belli, the explanation is that in a world where nearly every conceivable misfortune that might befall a person or community was seen as the result of evil magic, the response was to blame hostile neighbors. Several raids in the early historic period were known to be launched to massacre a hostile shaman and his people.

I found the strongest chapters were on osteological evidence of warfare, including mass graves such as Crow Creek, numerous skulls with scrapes suggesting scalping, and suspected cannibalized remains in Chaco Canyon. The weakest chapters are one on Iroquois warfare that states the obvious that one motivating factor in native warfare was that the braves that brought home the most scalps received the most honors and female attention! Another weakish chapter was the final one about the ethical dimension when presenting evidence of Pre-Columbian warfare. I'm more of the "present the evidence and let the chips fall where they may" kind of guy.

I would recommend this book to those interested in prehistoric warfare, early Colonial warfare, and primitive war in general.

I forgot to add that there is a second volume on Central and South America.

Would agriculture be 'discovered' or 'invented'?

I've seen both 'discovered' and 'invented' used in the same article.

A compromise would be that the prehistoric people discover that plants grow from seeds, and then invent the cultivation of crops.

I'm surprised they mentioned the cannibalism at Chaco. The Hopis don't like that and have been aggressive in quashing it being mentioned.

jdginaz, I was also surprised, though I'm not sure why one would get so bent out of shape about it. I have Turner's book,"Man Corn," and the evidence for cannibalism is overwhelming. Why I question the outrage is that the perpetrators of the cannibal feasts are unknown. They may have been nomadic raiders that attacked Hopi's ancestors as far as we know today.

Ah, but the Hopi claim that any inhabitants of the area are their and only their ancestors. The possibility that their ancestors might have engaged in cannibalistic acts damages the myth of their being just peaceful pueblo dwellers.

Nobody likes to show off the skeletons in their family closet, specially the skeletons that have teeth marks! :)

The facts would need to be "re-interpreted" to conform with the preferred version of events.

Dan
PS. And all the obvious de-fleshing cut marks, pot "rounding", etc.