To defend their views, Rousseauians resort to a variety of tactics to diminish the apparent frequency & intensity of hunter-gatherer warfare (redefine war, censor ethnographic accounts of warfare, misconstrue archaeological evidence)

Pacifying Hunter-Gatherers. Raymond Hames. Human Nature, April 5 2019.https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12110-019-09340-w

Abstract: There is a well-entrenched schism on the frequency (how often), intensity (deaths per 100,000/year), and evolutionary significance of warfare among hunter-gatherers compared with large-scale societies. To simplify, Rousseauians argue that warfare among prehistoric and contemporary hunter-gatherers was nearly absent and, if present, was a late cultural invention. In contrast, so-called Hobbesians argue that violence was relatively common but variable among hunter-gatherers. To defend their views, Rousseauians resort to a variety of tactics to diminish the apparent frequency and intensity of hunter-gatherer warfare. These tactics include redefining war, censoring ethnographic accounts of warfare in comparative analyses, misconstruing archaeological evidence, and claiming that outside contact inflates the intensity of warfare among hunter-gatherers. These tactics are subject to critical analysis and are mostly found to be wanting. Furthermore, Hobbesians with empirical data have already established that the frequency and intensity of hunter-gatherer warfare is greater compared with large-scale societies even though horticultural societies engage in warfare more intensively than hunter-gatherers. In the end I argue that although war is a primitive trait we may share with chimpanzees and/or our last common ancestor, the ability of hunter-gatherer bands to live peaceably with their neighbors, even though war may occur, is a derived trait that fundamentally distinguishes us socially and politically from chimpanzee societies. It is a point often lost in these debates.

Keywords: Hunter-gatherers War Chimpanzees Peace Comparative research

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In 1997 Lawrence Keeley coined the phrase “pacifying the past” as a critique of scholars who took what one might call a Rousseauian view of conflict in small-scale societies that predated the advent of the state. Along with such notions as living in harmony with the environment (Hames2007) and primordial sexual equality and promiscuity (Ryan andJetha2012 ), Rousseauians believed that war and lethal violence were rare or absent in
small-scale societies and did not become widespread and intense until settled agricultural life when war was “invented” and then elaborated and intensified with the development of the state. Keeley’s direct experience with this perspective stemmed from his research grants being rejected by funding agencies because he sought to investigate what he hypothesized to be defensive fortifications and other forms of archaeological evidence of warfare in non-state societies. Although his War before Civilization (Keeley1997) made a significant impact, those who hold the Rousseauian position have responded, and a major target has revolved around the intensity and frequency of warfare and lethal violence among mobile hunter-gatherers. The terms “Hobbesians” and “Rousseauians” have gained some currency (Gat2015), although alternative contrasts such as Hawks and Doves (Otterbein2004 ) or warfare having a “long chronology” or “short chronology”(Allen and Jones2014 ) make similar distinctions (see Allen2014afor a review of these positions). However, I will use theHobbesian/Rousseauian distinction following the penetrating analysis by Gat (2015) wherein he uses the Australian hunter-gatherer material to clearly expose conceptual and empirical problems for those who would pacify hunter-gatherers. Oddly, Douglas Fry, one of the Rousseauian leaders of this conservative counter, claims that the “pervasive intergroup hostility model”is somehow the main orientation held by many researchers (2006 :10) who investigate hunter-gatherer warfare. Although this allegedly pervasive model includes such things as hunter-gatherer patrilocality and the closed nature of residential bands, the key claim he seeks to refute is that warfare has a deep history and was common among mobile hunter-gatherers. How one demarcates “common” from “rare”is not defined by Fry, even though comparative researchers have created measures of both warfare frequency, or how often it occurs (e.g., Ember and Ember1992a), and warfare intensity, or the probability of an individual being killed by another human through war or homicide (Wrangham et al.2006).
This Rousseauian perspective runs parallel to scholars who cast doubt on the causes,adaptive nature, and intensity of chimpanzee coalitionary violence. A number of researchers, most prominently Power (2005 ), claim chimpanzee violence is not “natural”or adaptive and is largely the consequence of outside factors such as research team presence and disruptions (e.g., feeding stations) or disturbances by farmers or the bush meat trade (Sussman and Marshack2010). Such claims have been empirically discounted through a comparative analysis of 22 chimpanzee communities with and without significant contact (Wilson et al.2014 ). Similarly, as applied to hunter-gatherers, tribal zone theory (Ferguson and Whitehead1991 ) makes a parallel claim: tribal warfare was frequently initiated or intensified as a consequence of colonial invasions. 
The goal of this paper is to assess and critique a variety of positions put forward by Rousseauians to diminish the frequency and intensity of warfare among hunter-gatherers. These tactics include the following: misrepresenting evolutionary theory, reclassifying hunter-gatherers; redefining warfare; censoring ethnographic accounts on hunter-gatherer violence; overemphasizing the role of colonial activities in increasing warfare; and questionable use of archaeological evidence and time lines. Finally, and most importantly, I will also argue that although coalitionary violence is a primitive feature of human life that is likely a continuation of the chimpanzee pattern of intergroup relations, the ability to have peaceful relations with neighboring bands is a unique derived trait that fundamentally distinguishes chimps from humans and may have been partially responsible for our rapid cultural evolution.