Humankind
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18. In north-eastern Louisiana is an archaeological site with finds dating back 3,200 years in terrain filled with mounds that can only be manmade. The largest, Bird Mound, is seventy-two feet high and would require eight million baskets of sand weighing fifty-five pounds each to create. Archaeological research has shown that its construction took no more than a few months and was the concerted labour of at least ten thousand workers. See Anthony L. Ortmann, ‘Building Mound A at Poverty Point, Louisiana: Monumental Public Architecture, Ritual Practice, and Implications for Hunter-Gatherer Complexity’, Geoarcheology (7 December 2012).
19. Jens Notroff, Oliver Dietrich and Klaus Schmidt, ‘Building Monuments, Creating Communities. Early Monumental Architecture at Pre-Pottery Neolithic Göbekli Tepe’ in James F. Osborne (ed.), Approaching Monumentality in Archeology (New York, 2014), pp. 83–105.
20. Erik Trinkaus et al., The People of Sunghir: Burials, Bodies, and Behavior in the Earlier Upper Paleolithic (Oxford, 2014).
21. David Graeber and David Wengrow, ‘How to Change the Course of Human History (at Least, the Part That’s Already Happened)’, Eurozine (2 March 2018).
22. The term ‘snuggle for surival’ was coined by biologist Martin Nowak. See Martin Nowak, ‘Why We Help’, Scientific American (No. 1, 2012), pp. 34–9.
23. Van Schaik and Michel, The Good Book of Human Nature, pp. 44–5.
24. Ibid., pp. 48–9.
25. Gregory K. Dow, Leanna Mitchell and Clyde G. Reed, ‘The Economics of Early Warfare over Land’, Journal of Development Economics (July 2017). The second section of this article contains a good overview of the archaeological evidence.
26. Douglas W. Bird et al., ‘Variability in the Organization and Size of Hunter-Gatherer Groups. Foragers Do Not Live in Small-Scale Societies’, Journal of Human Evolution (June 2019).
27. Turchin, Ultrasociety, p. 163.
28. R. Brian Ferguson, ‘Born to Live: Challenging Killer Myths’, in Robert W. Sussman and C. Robert Cloninger (eds), Origins of Altruism and Cooperation (New York, 2009), pp. 265–6.
29. Genesis 3:19–24. See also Van Schaik and Michel, The Good Book of Human Nature, pp. 44–5.
30. Ibid., pp. 50–51.
31. Jared Diamond authored the classic article about how we screwed up by inventing agriculture. See Jared Diamond, ‘The Worst Mistake in the History of the Human Race’, Discover Magazine (May 1987).
32. James C. Scott, Against the Grain. A Deep History of the Earliest States (New Haven, 2017), pp. 104–5.
33. Jean-Jacques Rousseau, A Dissertation On the Origin and Foundation of The Inequality of Mankind and is it Authorised by Natural Law? Originally published in 1754.
34. Van Schaik and Michel, The Good Book of Human Nature, pp. 52–4.
35. Hervey C. Peoples, Pavel Duda and Frank W. Marlowe, ‘Hunter-Gatherers and the Origins of Religion’, Human Nature (September 2016).
36. Frank Marlowe, The Hadza. Hunter-Gatherers of Tanzania (Berkeley, 2010), p. 61.
37. Ibid., pp. 90–93.
38. Quoted in Lizzie Wade, ‘Feeding the gods: Hundreds of skulls reveal massive scale of human sacrifice in Aztec capital’, Science (21 June 2018).
39. Quoted in Richard Lee, ‘What Hunters Do for a Living, or, How to Make Out on Scarce Resources’, Man the Hunter (Chicago, 1968), p. 33.
40. James C. Scott, Against the Grain, pp. 66–7.
41. Turchin, Ultrasociety, pp. 174–5.
42. Scott, Against the Grain, pp. 27–9.
43. For an extensive historical overview, see David Graeber, Debt. The First 5,000 Years (London, 2011).
44. Scott, Against the Grain, pp. 139–49.
45. Ibid., p. 162.
46. Owen Lattimore, ‘The Frontier in History’, in Studies in Frontier History: Collected Papers, 1928–1958 (London, 1962), pp. 469–91.
47. Quoted in Bruce E. Johansen, Forgotten Founders (Ipswich, 1982), Chapter 5.
48. James W. Loeven, Lies My Teacher Told Me. Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong (2005), pp. 101–2.
49. Quoted in Junger, Tribe, pp. 10–11.
50. Ibid., pp. 14–15.
51. Iconic in this genre is Edward Gibbon’s book The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1776). A modern-day bestseller is Collapse (2005) by Jared Diamond.
52. Some scholars question whether the Iliad and the Odyssey should be attributed to an individual at all, suggesting the name Homer should be seen as a label attached to a good Greek tale. This would mean Homer never existed as such.
53. Adam Hochschild, Bury the Chains: Prophets and Rebels in the Fight to Free an Empire’s Slaves (Boston, 2005), p. 2.
54. Max Roser and Esteban Ortiz-Ospina, ‘Global Extreme Poverty’, OurWorldInData.org (2018).
55. This is the opening sentence of Rousseau’s book The Social Contract (originally published in 1762).
56. Bjørn Lomborg, ‘Setting the Right Global Goals’, Project Syndicate (20 May 2014).
57. Max Roser and Esteban Ortiz-Ospina, ‘Global Extreme Poverty’.
58. Quoted in Chouki El Hamel, Black Morocco. A History of Slavery, Race, and Islam (Cambridge, 2013), p. 243.
59. Mauritius in West Africa was the last country in the world to abolish slavery, in 1981.
60. In Persian and Roman times, state expansion was already making the world incrementally safer. Though it sounds like a paradox, there is a logical explanation. As countries and empires grew, more of their citizens lived further away from borders. It was at borders that wars were fought; life was more peaceful in the interior. Illustrative of this is the Pax Romana (Roman Peace), a long period of stability secured by the great campaigns of the mightiest Leviathans. In this sense, at least, Hobbes was right: better one all-powerful emperor than a hundred frustrated petty kings. See Turchin, Ultrasociety, pp. 201–2.
61. José María Gómez et al., ‘The Phylogenetic Roots of Human Lethal Violence, Supplementary Information’, Nature (13 October 2016), p. 9.
62. In 2017, 2,813,503 deaths were registered in the United States. According to the National Violent Death Reporting System, 19,500 of these were victims of homicide. That same year, 150,214 deaths were registered in the Netherlands, of which 158 were homicides.
63. This story is probably apocryphal. ‘Not letting the facts ruin a good story’, South China Morning Post (29 September 2019).
6 The Mystery of Easter Island
1. My account of Roggeveen’s life and expedition is based on the excellent biography by Roelof van Gelder, Naar het aards paradijs. Het rusteloze leven van Jacob Roggeveen, ontdekker van Paaseiland (1659–1729) (Amsterdam, 2012).
2. F. E. Baron Mulert, De reis van Mr. Jacob Roggeveen ter ontdekking van het Zuidland (1721–1722), (The Hague, 1911), p. 121.
3. H. J. M. Claessen, ‘Roggeveen zag geen reuzen toen hij Paaseiland bezocht’, NRC Handelsblad (18 April 2009).
4. This Swiss hotel manager was Erich von Däniken, and his book was titled Chariots of the Gods? Unsolved Mysteries of the Past.
5. Lars Fehren-Schmitz, ‘Genetic Ancestry of Rapanui before and after European Contact’, Current Biology (23 October 2017).
6. Katherine Routledge, The Mystery of Easter Island. The Story of an Expedition (London, 1919).
7. Reidar Solsvik, ‘Thor Heyerdahl as world heritage’, Rapa Nui Journal (May 2012).
8. Quoted in Jo Anne Van Tilburg, ‘Thor Heyerdahl’, Guardian (19 April 2002).
9. William Mulloy, ‘Contemplate The Navel of the World’, Rapa Nui Journal (No. 2, 1991). Originally published in 1974.
10. Jared Diamond, Collapse. How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed (New York, 2005), p. 109.
11. J. R. Flenley and Sarah M. King, ‘Late Quaternary Pollen Records from Easter Island’, Science (5 January 1984).
12. Diamond owes a debt to historian Clive Ponting, who wrote about Easter Island in his book A Green History of the World (1991). On the first page, Ponting describes the island as Roggeveen found it: ‘about 3,000 peopl
e living in squalid reed huts or caves, engaged in almost perpetual warfare and resorting to cannibalism in a desperate attempt to supplement the meagre food supplies available on the island’.
13. Paul Bahn and John Flenley, Easter Island, Earth Island (London, 1992).
14. Jan J. Boersema, The Survival of Easter Island. Dwindling Resources and Cultural Resilience (Cambridge, 2015).
15. Carlyle Smith, ‘The Poike Ditch’, in Thor Heyerdahl (ed.), Archeology of Easter Island. Reports of the Norwegian Archaeological Expedition to Easter Island and the East Pacific (Part 1, 1961), pp. 385–91.
16. Carl P. Lipo and Terry L. Hunt, ‘A.D. 1680 and Rapa Nui Prehistory’, Asian Perspectives (No. 2, 2010). Also see Mara A. Mulrooney et al., ‘The myth of A.D. 1680. New Evidence from Hanga Ho’onu, Rapa Nui (Easter Island)’, Rapa Nui Journal (October 2009).
17. Caroline Polet, ‘Indicateurs de stress dans un échantillon d’anciens Pascuans’, Antropo (2006), pp. 261–70.
18. See Vincent H. Stefan et al. (ed.), Skeletal Biology of the Ancient Rapanui (Easter Islanders), (Cambridge, 2016).
19. Carl P. Lipo et al., ‘Weapons of War? Rapa Nui Mata’a Morphometric Analyses’, Antiquity (February 2016), pp. 172–87.
20. Quoted in Kristin Romey, ‘Easter Islanders’ Weapons Were Deliberately Not Lethal’, National Geographic (22 February 2016).
21. Terry L. Hunt and Carl P. Lipo, ‘Late Colonization of Easter Island’, Science (17 March 2006).
22. Ronald Wright, A Short History of Progress (Toronto, 2004), p. 61.
23. Hans-Rudolf Bork and Andreas Mieth, ‘The Key Role of the Jubaea Palm Trees in the History of Rapa Nui: a Provocative Interpretation’, Rapa Nui Journal (October 2003).
24. Nicolas Cauwe, ‘Megaliths of Easter Island’, Proceedings of the International Conference ‘Around the Petit-Chausseur Sit’ (Sion, 2011).
25. The archaeologists Carl Lipo and Terry Hunt think some statues were ‘walked’ vertically into place using ropes, not trees, the same way you might move a refrigerator or washing machine. This method also requires fewer people. See Carl Lipo and Terry Hunt, The Statues that Walked. Unraveling the Mystery of Easter Island (New York, 2011). Lipo and Hunt’s story was popular in the media, but Jan Boersema still believes most of the statues were rolled on tree trunks by big groups of people, because efficiency was not the motivating factor behind such collective work events.
26. E. E. W. Schroeder, Nias. Ethnographische, geographische en historische aanteekeningen en studien (Leiden, 1917).
27. S. S. Barnes, Elizabeth Matisoo-Smith and Terry L. Hunt, ‘Ancient DNA of the Pacific Rat (Rattus exulans) from Rapa Nui (Easter Island)’, Journal of Archaeological Science (Vol. 33, November 2006).
28. Mara A. Mulrooney, ‘An Island-Wide Assessment of the Chronology of Settlement and Land Use on Rapa Nui (Easter Island) Based on Radiocarbon Data’, Journal of Archaeological Science (No. 12, 2013). Didn’t the rats pose a problem for farming on the island? Boersema thinks not. ‘Most food crops were tubers,’ he explains, ‘which grow beneath the soil. And the bananas grew on small trees which made them less appealing to rats.’
29. Quoted in ‘Easter Island Collapse Disputed By Hawaii Anthropologist’, Huffington Post (6 December 2017).
30. Jacob Roggeveen, Dagverhaal der ontdekkings-reis van Mr. Jacob Roggeveen (Middelburg, 1838), p. 104.
31. Bolton Glanvill Corney, The Voyage of Captain Don Felipe González to Easter Island 1770–1 (Cambridge, 1908), p. 93.
32. Beverley Haun, Inventing Easter Island (Toronto, 2008), p. 247.
33. James Cook, A Voyage Towards the South Pole and Round the World, Part 1 (1777).
34. Henry Lee, ‘Treeless at Easter’, Nature (23 September 2004).
35. The book in question is Thor Heyerdahl et al., Archaeology of Easter Island. Reports of the Norwegian Archaeological Expedition to Easter Island and the East Pacific (Part 1, 1961), p. 51.
36. Thor Heyerdahl, Aku-Aku: The Secret of Easter Island (1957).
37. Carl Behren’s account is included as an appendix to Glanvill Corney, The voyage of Captain Don Felipe González to Easter Island 1770–1, p. 134.
38. Cook, A Voyage Towards the South Pole and Round the World, Chapter 8.
39. Some scientists believe the statues fell down during an earthquake. Others think some moai were laid down over the graves of deceased chieftains. See Edmundo Edwards et al., ‘When the Earth Trembled, the Statues Fell’, Rapa Nui Journal (March 1996).
40. This also gave rise to the ‘Birdman Cult’, an annual competition between young men representing different tribes to snatch the first sooty tern (a seabird) egg of the season. Exactly when this tradition arose is unknown, but it was probably before Roggeveen’s arrival. This cult was also linked to the moai. After the competition, the newly elected leader went to live in a house outside the stone quarry where the statues were carved. When Roggeveen arrived in 1722, the moai still had a definite ceremonial function, even if it was no longer possible to transport them (using trees) and even though the Birdman Cult probably already existed.
41. Josh Pollard, Alistair Paterson and Kate Welham, ‘Te Miro o’one: the Archaeology of Contact on Rapa Nui (Easter Island)’, World Archaeology (December 2010).
42. Henry Evans Maude, Slavers in Paradise: The Peruvian Labour Trade in Polynesia, 1862–1864 (Canberra, 1981), p. 13.
43. Nicolas Casey, ‘Easter Island Is Eroding’, New York Times (20 July 2018).
7 In the Basement of Stanford University
1. Quoted in Ben Blum, ‘The Lifespan of a Lie’, Medium.com (7 June 2018).
2. Craig Haney, Curtis Banks and Philip Zimbardo, ‘A Study of Prisoners and Guards in a Simulated Prison’, Naval Research Review (1973).
3. Malcolm Gladwell, The Tipping Point. How Little Things Can Make A Big Difference (London, 2000), p. 155.
4. Haney, Banks and Zimbardo, ‘A Study of Prisoners and Guards in a Simulated Prison’.
5. Muzafer Sherif, Group Conflict and Co-operation. Their Social Psychology (London, 2017), p. 85. Originally published in 1967.
6. Muzafer Sherif et al., The Robbers Cave Experiment. Intergroup Conflict and Cooperation (Middletown, 1988), p. 115.
7. Ibid., p. 98.
8. Quoted in Gina Perry, The Lost Boys. Inside Muzafer Sherif’s Robbers Cave Experiment (London, 2018), p. 39.
9. Ibid. p. 138.
10. Ibid. p. 139.
11. Ibid. p. 146.
12. In the Stanford Prison Experiment twelve students were assigned the role of prisoner (nine plus three stand-ins), and twelve that of guard (nine plus three stand-ins).
13. Quoted in Blum, ‘The Lifespan of a Lie’.
14. Philip Zimbardo, The Lucifer Effect. How Good People Turn Evil (London, 2007), p. 55.
15. Peter Gray, ‘Why Zimbardo’s Prison Experiment Isn’t in My Textbook’, Psychology Today (19 October 2013).
16. Quoted in Romesh Ratnesar, ‘The Menace Within’, Stanford Magazine (July/August 2011).
17. Dave Jaffe, ‘Self-perception’, Stanford Prison Archives, No. ST-b09-f40.
18. ‘Tape 2’ (14 August 1971), Stanford Prison Archives, No. ST-b02-f02.
19. A. Cerovina, ‘Final Prison Study Evaluation’ (20 August 1971), No. ST-b09-f15.
20. ‘Tape E’ (no date), No. ST-b02-f21, pp. 1–2.
21. Quoted in Blum, ‘The Lifespan of a Lie’.
22. Blum, ‘The Lifespan of a Lie’.
23. Ibid.
24. Ibid.
25. Quoted in Alastair Leithead, ‘Stanford prison experiment continues to shock’, BBC (17 August 2011).
26. For many years, psychologists used Zimbardo’s ‘experiment’ to spark students’ enthusiasm for the field. Thibault Le Texier spoke to a number of lecturers who said they liked discussing the Stanford Prison Experiment because it at least got students to look up from their phones. In response to my question whether it should still be taught in classrooms today, Le Texier answered dryly, ‘The Stanford Exp
eriment is a pretty good overview of all the errors you can make in scientific research.’
27. Quoted in: Kim Duke and Nick Mirsky, ‘The Stanford Prison Experiment,’ BBC Two (11 May 2002). Dave Eshelman’s full quote in this documentary is: ‘It would have been interesting to see what would have happened had I not decided to force things. […] We’ll never know.’
28. Emma Brockes, ‘The Experiment’, Guardian (16 October 2001).
29. Ibid.
30. Graeme Virtue, ‘Secret service; What happens when you put good men in an evil place and film it for telly? Erm, not that much actually’, Sunday Herald (12 May 2002).
31. Blum, ‘The Lifespan of a Lie’.
8 Stanley Milgram and the Shock Machine
1. ‘Persons Needed for a Study of Memory’’ New Haven Register (18 June 1961).
2. Stanley Milgram, Obedience to Authority. An Experimental View (London, 2009), pp. 30–31. Originally published in 1974.
3. Stanley Milgram, ‘Behavioral Study of Obedience’, Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, Vol. 67, Issue 4 (1963).
4. Walter Sullivan, ‘Sixty-five Percent in Test Blindly Obey Order to Inflict Pain’, New York Times (26 October 1963).
5. Milgram, Obedience to Authority, p. 188.
6. Milgram said this in an interview on the television programme Sixty Minutes on 31 March 1979.
7. Quoted in Amos Elon, ‘Introduction’, in Hannah Arendt, Eichmann in Jerusalem. A Report on the Banality of Evil (London, 2006), p. xv. Originally published in 1963.
8. Arendt, Eichmann in Jerusalem.
9. Quoted in Harold Takooshian, ‘How Stanley Milgram Taught about Obedience and Social Influence’, in Thomas Blass (ed.), Obedience to Authority (London, 2000), p. 10.
10. Quoted in Gina Perry, Behind the Shock Machine. The Untold Story of the Notorious Milgram Psychology Experiments (New York, 2013), p. 5.
11. Ibid., p. 327.
12. Ibid., p. 134.
13. Gina Perry, ‘The Shocking Truth of the Notorious Milgram Obedience Experiments’, Discover Magazine (2 October 2013).
14. Milgram, ‘Behavioral Study of Obedience’.