The prehistory of violence and war: Moving beyond the Hobbes–Rousseau quagmire
| Published date | 01 July 2023 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/00223433221090112 |
| Date | 01 July 2023 |
| Subject Matter | Review Essay |
Review Essay
The prehistory of violence and war:
Moving beyond the Hobbes–Rousseau
quagmire
Tibor Rutar
Department of Sociology, University of Maribor
Abstract
This article presents and critically assesses the latest anthropological and archaeological rese arch on the chronology,
lethality, and frequency of violence and war in human history. Stepping back from the rhetorically polarized
dispute between ‘Hobbesians’ and ‘Rousseauans’, the article examines the methods and findings of the latest
research in a conceptually novel way, i.e. by dropping the existing and widely used polarized terms that have
inevitably framed the literature so far. The article demonstrates that multiple sources of evidence point more in the
direction of the modal human prehistoric social organization, i.e. nomadic hunter-gatherers, likely having warfare
only in a minority of cases, or war even being virtually non-existent (with interpersonal violence being more
common). The dispute over this claim so far is found to stem, at least in part, from the varying definitions of war
and the grouping together of nomadic with complex foragers. More significantly, the disagreement is due to
different sampling and sourcing techniques of different researchers, the biggest divide being between self-selection/
systematic sampling and first-best/second-best sources. Important potential warlike exceptions are also noted
and discussed in the article from multiple angles (Jebel Sahaba, Nataruk, Aboriginal Australia, etc.), as are the
discovered precursors and enabling conditions of war, such as the complexification of (nomadic) hunter-gatherer
societies with the transition to settled life.
Keywords
Hobbesians, hunter-gatherers, origins of violence, origins of war, Rousseauans
Introduction
A decade ago, Gat (2012) published an influential
review of the recent ‘decline-of-war’ literature (LeBlanc,
2003; Gat, 2006; Pinker, 2011) in the Journal of Peace
Research, taking into account the level of violence
both during prehistory and more modern times. His
assessment was unequivocal: ‘Hobbes was right, and
Rousseau was wrong’ about both the chronology and
the lethality of violence in human history. Like Pinker’s
(2011) popular book on the topic, Gat’s review (see also
Gat, 2015) has ostensibly demonstrated violence to be
quite prevalent in the human state of nature, declining
only later with the rise of states, and declining further
even later with the emergence of capitalism and democ-
racy. In the last decade since Gat’s review, new studies
on the topic have emerged and past scholarly rivalries
have reignited, further shedding light on this interest-
ing and important question. Drawing on some of them,
historians, biologists and psychologists have again
published popular books on the topic. The general
rhetorical stakes of the debate, again invoking Hobbes
and Rousseau, remain the same as before. Interestingly,
however, the conclusions of this most recent literature –
contra Gat’s declaration of victory for Hobbes and
defeat for Rousseau – seemingly fluctuate wildly
between both.
Corresponding author:
tibor.rutar@um.si
Journal of Peace Research
2023, Vol. 60(4) 720–726
ªThe Author(s) 2022
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DOI: 10.1177/00223433221090112
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