Therein lies the problem though. Even if we take the numbers from the linked article (whose starting point was... Steven Pinker!):
- the "ethnographic evidence", which I accept you're not defending, largely features indigenous peoples during an active genocide.
- the archaeological evidence is, naturally and obviously, extremely few and far between. Much of it doesn't relate to hunter-gatherers at all. As for the rest? Taking one at random: the 12% violent death share at Ile Téviec. Read the sources and this is extrapolated from three (3!) bodies. Two of which were apparently not violent deaths after all. The remaining body? We have no clue if the incoming arrowhead was from warfare or a hunting accident. How unfortunate if a single 6,000 year old hunting accident is labeling entire peoples violent and uncivilized. Either way, it's nonsense all the way down.
What was the historical rate of violence amongst, say, the Zo'é people? They are very isolated today and violence is apparently unheard of, but what happened in the past? We can't possibly know. What of the Awá? No hint. The Sentinelese, even? Who knows?
My point is that all of these data are so limited, so compromised and often so cherry-picked it's revealing nothing very helpful. What little we do know is that rates of violence amongst different hunter-gatherer peoples today, despite them all being under immense outside pressures, are extremely variable... as it is between all other different groups of humans. That observation doesn't sell books, though.
> the "ethnographic evidence", which I accept you're not defending, largely features indigenous peoples during an active genocide.
Incorrect. Plenty of hunter gatherer societies are highly isolated and are not experiencing active genocide or displacement. Even ignoring those outliers that are in such a situation, they still exhibit rates of violence many times greater than modern societies.
> - the archaeological evidence is, naturally and obviously, extremely few and far between. Much of it doesn't relate to hunter-gatherers at all. As for the rest? Taking one at random: the 12% violent death share at Ile Téviec. Read the sources and this is extrapolated from three (3!) bodies. Two of which were apparently not violent deaths after all. The remaining body? We have no clue if the incoming arrowhead was from warfare or a hunting accident. How unfortunate if a single 6,000 year old hunting accident is labeling entire peoples violent and uncivilized. Either way, it's nonsense all the way down.
Correct, no sane anthropologists would use a single sample to draw conclusions. But there are many such sites and estimates are drawn across a wider body of samples.
> What little we do know is that rates of violence amongst different hunter-gatherer peoples today, despite them all being under immense outside pressures, are extremely variable... as it is between all other different groups of humans
For the third time, no, this is incorrect. Rates of violence among hunter gatherers, even among those highly isolated from other societies, is much greater than modern societies. You're probably reading sources that claim that few death occur due to war. But that's because the authors of these papers just categorize the motivation for killing as something else, like revenge. The rate of death is usually in the 10-15% range.
The data you've presented just don't allow us to make those claims, and fall apart at the gentlest interrogation:
- much doesn't relate to hunter-gatherers at all
- some is a tiny sample size (in the only case I dug into, n<=1!)
- the bulk of it involves peoples under pressure from encroachment (and worse)
- by its nature it's woefully incomplete, some of it cherry-picked, and ignores the majority of hunter-gatherer peoples
It's a fascinating and important question, though.
- the "ethnographic evidence", which I accept you're not defending, largely features indigenous peoples during an active genocide.
- the archaeological evidence is, naturally and obviously, extremely few and far between. Much of it doesn't relate to hunter-gatherers at all. As for the rest? Taking one at random: the 12% violent death share at Ile Téviec. Read the sources and this is extrapolated from three (3!) bodies. Two of which were apparently not violent deaths after all. The remaining body? We have no clue if the incoming arrowhead was from warfare or a hunting accident. How unfortunate if a single 6,000 year old hunting accident is labeling entire peoples violent and uncivilized. Either way, it's nonsense all the way down.
What was the historical rate of violence amongst, say, the Zo'é people? They are very isolated today and violence is apparently unheard of, but what happened in the past? We can't possibly know. What of the Awá? No hint. The Sentinelese, even? Who knows?
My point is that all of these data are so limited, so compromised and often so cherry-picked it's revealing nothing very helpful. What little we do know is that rates of violence amongst different hunter-gatherer peoples today, despite them all being under immense outside pressures, are extremely variable... as it is between all other different groups of humans. That observation doesn't sell books, though.