War Before Civilization

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War Before Civilization Page 8

by Lawrence H Keeley


  STRATEGIES

  If nonstates could be said to have implemented strategies in war, they were of the attritional and total-war varieties. Attrition was achieved by frequent low-casualty battles and raids, occasionally by surprise massacres. Total-war strategies were manifested in the plunder of wealth and food; destruction of houses, fields, and other means of production; and killing or capture of women and children. All these were common features of primitive warfare. Since in most cases such strategies were customary and unspoken, they must be inferred from the conduct and effects of warfare. Therefore, evidence for them is discussed in later chapters.

  WEAPONRY

  Students of military weapons usually divide them into two classes: fire (or missile) and shock. Fire weapons injure with projectiles—such as arrows, javelins, darts, stones, or pellets—and they are effective at some distance. Shock weapons—for example, lances, clubs, axes, and swords—require contact between warriors and injure by blows or cuts. A very rare third category of weapons might loosely be called chemical. These involve noxious or heated substances that injure by direct poisoning or burning. The potency of weapons is usually evaluated in terms of their range, accuracy, rate of fire, and striking power; but psychological and social considerations may be much more important in determining their military effectiveness.

  No primitive or ancient fire weapon can surpass the accuracy and striking power of shock weapons.14 The accuracy of shock weapons is the result of trigonometry and guidance. Most of us experience little difficulty in squarely striking the head of a finishing nail even with a tack hammer, but replicating this feat with a rifle bullet fired from just a few yards away is extraordinarily difficult. Tiny differences in the firing angles of missiles rapidly compound with distance into large variations in the impact point. The heavier weight of shock weapons means greater inertia, which contributes to accuracy since they are not subject to diversion by wind; and they impart a greater force at impact than that generated by necessarily lighter missiles. Once a missile is released, it is unguided, whereas a shock weapon’s path can be adjusted to track the target. A single blow from such weapons can severely wound or kill outright an unarmored opponent. It is no surprise, then, to read of skulls being crushed, brains dashed out, limbs fractured or severed, and torsos pierced through by such weapons. For example, an Aztec warrior could decapitate a Spanish horse with a single blow of his obsidian-edged sword-club.15 Although primitive projectiles may be “improved” with poison or other features that increase the likelihood of wound infection and severity (see discussion following), shock weapons are usually sufficiently lethal that any improvement is superfluous. The potential “rate of fire” of shock weapons is also very rapid, limited only by the weight of the weapon, the reflex speed, and muscular endurance of their wielder.

  On the negative side, the maximum range of shock arms is seldom greater than a couple of meters. Long lances or pikes can double this reach, but only at the expense of accuracy, mobility, and impact. Moreover, these very short ranges create severe psychological and social difficulties that render shock weapons the weapon of choice among only the more severely disciplined armies of high chiefdoms and states. These weapons are very dangerous to an opponent, but they put their wielder at great risk. To employ them against a comparably armed opponent, a warrior must close to a distance where both parties are in maximum danger of being killed or terribly wounded. And more important, to reach this closure the warrior must pass through the killing zone of the enemy’s fire weapons, with each step forward increasing their accuracy and their impact force. It is no accident that the use of body armor is highly correlated with the use of shock weapons, since the former can dramatically decrease the risks of injury from missiles and can ameliorate those from close combat.16 Many groups equipped themselves with shock weapons but employed them only to dispatch fleeing or captured foes after these had been routed. Only units disciplined by training and fear of punishment could be expected to traverse the missile zone and close for shock action with an unbroken enemy.

  Shock weapons are more likely than missile weapons to be specialized for war. For example, maces and clubs find little or no use in everyday life. Similarly, employing a thrusting spear or lance in hunting requires too close an approach to wary prey to be useful, except against large aggressive animals (such as jaguars, lions, boars, bears, and men) inclined to attack rather than flee. Daggers, unlike knives, seldom have any function but violence against other humans. Thus tomahawks, maces, lances, daggers, and swords are excellent weapons of war but often have no other purpose.

  Of course, axes have prosaic nonviolent as well as military functions. But just because axes are used for woodworking does not mean that this is always their primary or most important function. Until local laws prohibited the practice, Mae Enga men in highland New Guinea always carried an ax tucked in their belts and felt “naked” without them.17 This habit was not the result of their being subject to sudden impulses to clear forest or work wood, but of their never knowing when they might need to fight. The groundstone axes of the Early Neolithic (ca. 5000 B.C.) in northwestern Europe are an archaeological parallel. Because these pioneer farmers cleared forests to establish their fields and felled many trees to make their longhouses, many scholars have assumed that their axes were exclusively woodworking tools. Yet it seems strange that a mere carpenters’ tool would be the only grave good buried with men—and only a few of the oldest men at that—since this practice implies that male status was based on woodworking. Moreover, some of the axes found were made of rather course, friable types of stone that would not have held an edge sharp enough for woodcutting. The find at Talheim (Chapter 2) of a mass of victims with holes in their skulls exactly the shape of Early Neolithic axes and adzes solves these mysteries. These implements were male status symbols because, whatever other purposes they may have had, they were weapons. Some of them did not need a durable sharp edge because they worked perfectly well for busting heads. It is likely that these prehistoric axes—like those of the New Guinea tribesmen—were often employed for woodworking and for felling trees, but the only documented use for them is homicide.18

  Missile or fire weapons, the second weapons category, far outrange handheld shock arms, but their accuracy, rate of fire, and striking power are significantly poorer.19 Among fire weapons, arrows can kill at maximum distances of from 50 to 200 meters depending on their weight, their point type, and the power of the bow. The rate of fire of bows is potentially high, approximately five to ten aimed shots per minute. In addition, compared with smooth-bore muskets, bows are much more accurate. Indeed, experiments and calculations from historical data have led two historians to conclude that ancient composite-bow archery was twenty times more effective at causing casualties than eighteenth-century musketry. However, the low impact force of arrows (the result of their small mass) meant that body armor and shields provided sufficient defense except at very close distances.

  The atl-atl, or spear-thrower, can deliver a javelin or dart (a fletched javelin) with a higher impact force but over a shorter range than an arrow. The Australian spear-thrower was deadly within a range of 40 meters and permitted a maximum cast of 80 to 100 meters.20 The fletched darts thrown by Aztec atl-atls may have had a slightly longer effective range and greater accuracy, but the lighter missile would have lessened their impact. In fact, both the central Mexicans and the conquistadors found that quilted cotton body armor was usually effective at stopping them. There is no established information on the rate of fire of a spear-thrower, but it must be lower than that of a bow.

  The hand-thrown javelin was commonly used as an auxiliary weapon by many nonstate groups and was important in that role even in ancient civilized armies. Although its force on impact is superior to that of the arrow (because of its greater mass), its range is very short.21 Mae Enga warriors could cast them to a maximum distance of only 50 meters and were accurate to only 30 meters; the range at which javelins are deadly must thus be less than
30 meters. The Roman legions launched their iron-tipped javelins (pilae) at just that distance when charging, but their purpose was more to distract foes and to immobilize their shields in the few seconds before the Roman charge arrived than to inflict substantial injury.

  The sling was also used as an auxiliary fire weapon by some tribes—especially in South America—as well as by ancient civilized armies.22 Although some modern experiments have cast doubt on the efficacy of this weapon, both biblical and classical accounts testify to its effectiveness. For example, plummet-shaped shots could penetrate flesh, and Roman slingers were recruited into service only if they could hit a man-sized target at 185 meters. The sling’s status as an auxiliary weapon was probably due to its low lethality; only a direct hit on an unprotected head would be likely to kill the person struck, and it was inaccurate except in the hands of the most skilled users. But an enemy stunned or knocked down by a shot could be dispatched with a war club or lance, as was done in Polynesia.

  Missile weapons were all clearly derived from those used in hunting. Those employed in war were often exactly the same as those used in the chase, although some models for warfare were deadlier than the corresponding hunting versions.23 Points of war projectiles were commonly weakened or hafted in such a way that when the shaft was extracted, the point or some part of it would remain in the wound. For example, the Wintu and several other tribes in California used tightly hafted side-notched arrowheads on hunting arrows but loosely bound stemmed points in war (Figure 3.2). Similarly detachable projectile heads were recorded as being utilized in warfare by numerous South American tribes. Marquesan war spears had weakened tips that were designed to break off in the wound, as did those of the Guanche tribesmen of the Canary Islands. The Mae Enga sheathed their war arrows and spear points with a hollow cassowary claw that would remain in the flesh after extraction of the main projectile point and cause the wound to fester. The war arrows of the Dani of highland New Guinea, unlike the arrows they used to kill pigs or to hunt game, were barbed to increase the difficulty of extraction, daubed with mud or grease to enhance infection, or wrapped near the tip with orchid fibers to contaminate the wound. Poisoned arrows were employed in warfare by many African groups—for example, the Meru of Kenya, the San of southern Africa, and the Tiv of Nigeria (although the Tiv used them only when fighting non-Tiv enemies). A large number of North and South American groups poisoned their war arrows, as well. The South American poisons included plant alkaloids (of which curare is the best known) and were also used in hunting. In North America and among the ancient Sarmatians of the Russian steppes, snake venom was a common ingredient in arrow poisons; other constituents were sometimes crushed red ants, spiders, scorpions, and poisonous plants such as hemlock. Still other “poisons” could have acted only by inducing infection, since they consisted entirely of putrefied flesh or blood. For example, some Nevada Sho-shoneans drained blood from the heart of a mountain sheep, placed it in a section of intestine, and buried it in the soil to rot before smearing it on their arrowheads. Septic poisons of this type, unlike the toxic ones, were used exclusively in warfare. No advantage would be gained from inducing death in a prey days or weeks after it was initially wounded; the same was not true, however, with regard to human enemies. The widespread use of such nasty weapons directly contradicts the commonly held idea that primitives took pains to ameliorate the deadliness of their combat.

  Figure 3.2 Stemmed war points (left and middle) and side-notched hunting point (right) of Wintu tribe, northern California. (Redrawn after DuBois 1935: 124)

  It is difficult to document the use of poisoned arrows in prehistory because poisons tend not be preserved for very long in most soils. In certain special circumstances where traces of poison might survive, such as in dry caves, no oneseems to have tested for it. Some Chinese archaeologists have argued, based on circumstantial evidence involving one male skeleton, that poisoned arrows were in use in the Chinese Neolithic period. This particular middle-aged male appears to have been killed by a minor wound in the thigh, implying that the arrow that wounded him was unusually potent.24 This conclusion would be more convincing if many similar cases could be identified. At any rate, some prehistoric parallels for the “improved” projectiles noted by ethnographers do exist, and many others may well have been overlooked by archaeologists oblivious to prehistoric violence.

  Primitive fire weapons were almost as effective at killing as most modern hand-held weapons and, as we saw earlier, were more effective than earlier gunpowder arms. In a recent comparison of casualty rates from ancient and modern battles, it has been calculated that an average of 70 percent of men engaged in ancient battles were killed or wounded, whereas only 60 percent of combatants in the bloodiest modern battles have become casualties.25 Since the weapons used in ancient civilized battles (except perhaps the sword) were the same devices as were used in primitive and prehistoric combat (sling-stones, spears and arrows), the effects of the latter were probably equally severe.

  This is not to argue that muskets had no advantages over bows and slings, but their advantages were in very narrow areas. Initially, the musket’s great advantage over the bow was that, once drilled volley fire was instituted, it required less skill, briefer training, and little strength to use. The smooth-bore musket also delivered a missile with greater impact force, which at short range inflicted very damaging wounds. But its effective range was no greater than the bow (80 to 100 yards), it had a slower rate of fire, and it was incredibly inaccurate. Indeed, the command given to infantry until the rifled musket appeared in mid-nineteenth century was “Level!” and not “Aim!” because aiming was useless. And one late-eighteenth-century viceroy of New Spain ordered that Indians be given muskets and provided with plentiful ammunition so that they would “begin to lose their skill in handling the bow,” which he recognized as being a more effective weapon than the contemporary musket.26 The decisive advantage of hand-held gunpowder weapons over the bow came only with the breech-loading rifle, which added tremendously increased accuracy, range, and rate of fire to the musket’s capacities. Until the late nineteenth century, civilized soldiers were at a slight disadvantage in fire weaponry when facing primitive bowmen.

  With regard to prehistoric fire weapons, archaeologists have seldom considered whether any of the point types they study might originally have functioned as war points.27 One case in eastern North America involves an uncommon type of Archaic (ca. 4,000 to 5,000 years ago) flint projectile point with a short stem that would have been able to slip easily from its haft. This almost certainly represents a specialized war point because it is primarily found embedded in the bones, chest cavities, and skulls of homicide victims from several Archaic cemeteries in Kentucky and Alabama. The Danubian point used by colonizing farmers of the Linear Pottery culture of northwestern Europe (ca. 5000 B.C.) may be another such example. It has a triangular shape and would easily have slipped from its haft when the latter was withdrawn from a wound. Its makers apparently rarely hunted, judging from their food refuse, so it was probably not used in the chase. Danubian points are common only in areas where some villages were fortified; they are rare where settlements were undefended. In the Talheim mass grave and in a nearby Linear Pottery cemetery, several male skeletons bear wounds from such points. In fact, there is no evidence to suggest that Danubian points were anything other than war points.

  As in civilized warfare, aside from incendiary devices such as torches and fire-arrows (which were used mostly against structures and not against people), chemical weapons seem to have been rarely used in prestate warfare.28 A few South American groups poured or threw boiling water on their foes, invariably in siege situations. In a few areas of South America, chili powder was thrown into pots containing burning coals to produce a noxious smoke that the wind carried to the enemy. But there was a difficulty with all such weapons: they either could be used only at very close range from fortifications or had to be delivered by an undependable means (such as the wind) that did not disc
riminate between friend and foe.

  Artillery is usually a great killer on modern battlefields and had no counterpart on primitive ones. But until the latest generation of electronically assisted artillery, its poor accuracy has demanded enormous expenditures of shells per casualty. The accuracy problem was only exacerbated when rifled cannon moved the effective range beyond the sight of gunners. For example, during the battle of Verdun, the greatest artillery battle of artillery-dominated World War I, approximately 200 artillery rounds were fired for every casualty inflicted.29 Besides fortification, the best defenses against artillery are dispersion and mobility, two of the primary characteristics of primitive warfare. As a matter of fact, in the fights with western Indians, the U.S. Army was able to employ artillery very rarely, for the simple reason that the Indians refused to concentrate or stay put long enough for it to be used. In many instances where it was employed, as in the Modoc War battles in the lava beds or at the Grattan fight, it was singularly unsuccessful. The narrowness of the conditions under which artillery is genuinely lethal were well observed by a party of Sioux visiting Washington, D.C., in 1870. To emphasize the White Father’s might, government officials took them to see a huge coastal artillery gun firing into the Potomac. The Sioux were unimpressed: it was a monstrous weapon, all right, but “nobody with any brains would sit on his pony in front of it.”30 Artillery, even of the ancient catapult type, was not used by tribes and bands because it works only against large fixed targets, such as fortifications or large compact formations of enemies. Artillery also demands highly skilled specialists to construct and operate it and prodigious quantities of special ammunition, both of which were beyond the social and economic capacities of tribal societies. As the Sioux understood, artillery also depends on considerable cooperation from its victims to be effective—the kind of cooperation that tribal warriors were unwilling to provide.

 

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