Fight or Flight: The archaeology of space, mobility, and violence

BMSAP, 2014

The European Archaeologist, 73 Summer, 2022

This is a report on an all-day seminar held at the Department of Archaeology and Classical Studies at Stockholm University on June 3rd, 2022. Organized and chaired by: Rolf Warming. Overall, the papers presented during the all-day seminar (and the many thought-provoking discussions that followed) highlighted the value of studying conflict in relation to social context. The papers showcased the number of vantage points from which conflict can be studied, as well as the rich understandings that can be generated from them. More importantly, as a whole, the seminar demonstrated the chief strengths of historical and archaeological perspectives in studies into conflict, namely their capacity to illuminate (1) the different conditions and practices that are interconnected with interpersonal violence and (2) the role of material culture in conflicts, especially from a long-term and broad comparative perspective. The importance of studying these aspects goes beyond academic theorising and discussions within the humanities, especially in light of the potential to make valuable and meaningful contributions to modern-day issues. Through these studies we can gain deeper insights into the social and cultural dimensions of conflicts and, in the process, approach a humanistic and humanising understanding of its participants. While the results may not necessarily be directly applicable to modern military studies, they can be a point of departure for further reflection and debate.

Public Anthropologist

Editorial and opinion pieces speculate (or proclaim) about the foundations of war, the curse of humanity. Here is another perspective, backed by forty years of anthropological research, on origins, causes, variations, and meanings of war, and their contemporary implications.

Culture The customary way in which groups organize and understand their behavior in relation to others and to their environment. Language A flexible complex system of communication that incorporates structure, sound, meaning, and practice and which can be used to describe conditions internal or external to people. Meaning Systems The process, signs, and symbols used to create a coherent picture of reality.

2015

This research establishes that the emergence, prevalence, recurrence, and severity of intrastate conflicts in the modern era reflect the long shadow of prehistory. Exploiting variations across national populations, it demonstrates that genetic diversity, as determined predominantly during the exodus of humans from Africa tens of thousands of years ago, has contributed significantly to the frequency, incidence, and onset of both overall and ethnic civil conflict over the last half-century, accounting for a large set of geographical and institutional correlates of conflict, as well as measures of economic development. Furthermore, the analysis establishes the significant contribution of genetic diversity to the intensity of social unrest and to the incidence of intra-group factional conflict. These findings arguably reflect the contribution of genetic diversity to the degree of fractionalization and polarization across ethnic, linguistic, and religious groups in the national populatio...

2008

Lecture 2 Prof. Sharon TRAWEEK University of California at Los Angeles "Cultures & Histories in Conflict Formation, Maintenance, and Resolution" Thank you very much. it is difficult to follow such an important talk in discussing such disturbing issues but again that is why we have come together to try to think more fundamentally about conflict and cultures, so we were presented just now with a very dramatic and sad case and I think it's a useful reminder for us. My talk of course will be a transition into