Did war exist in the Palaeolithic Age ?

Conference

Published on

23 October 2014

Updated on

19 June 2017

Colloquia

The Archaeology of Violence

International colloquium organized by Inrap and the Museum of Louvre-Lens.
October 2, 3 and 4, 2104 at La Scène du Louvre-Lens

The archaeology of violence: wartime violence, mass violence
by Marylène Patou-Mathis, CNRS, Prehistory Department of the Museum of Natural History

Some researchers believe war is inherent to human communities. Our forebears, then, were neither more nor less violent than we are. But historian Jean Guilaine thinks that the indigenous wars ethnologists describe cannot be considered the perpetuation of ancestral traditions (J. Guilaine and J. Zammit, 2001, The Path of War. Faces of Pre-Historic Violence, Du Seuil). Only archaeological data can make it possible to prove the existence of acts of violence and determine their origin. What do they teach us?

Marylène Patou-Mathis who has a Ph.D. in prehistoric studies (HDR), is a Research Director at the CNRS affiliated with the Prehistory Department of the National Museum of Natural History (MNHN). She is also Vice-President of the MNHN Scientific Council and head of the "Behaviour of Neanderthals and Anatomically Modern Man in their Palaeo-Ecological Context” team at UMR 7194 of the CNRS. She specialises in the behaviour of pre-historic men, especially Neanderthals and the earliest modern men in Europe.

Bibliography

2013, « Préhistoire de la violence et de la guerre » (Eds Odile Jacob),
2010, « Neanderthal une autre Humanité » (Ed. Perrin, Collection Tempus)
2009, « Mangeurs de viande. De la préhistoire à nos jours », (Ed. Perrin).
2000. "Neandertal subsistence behaviours in Europe". In John Wiley et Sons Ed, International Journal of Osteoarchaeology, 10, 5, 379-395.

Transition