Walker’s (2001) article outlining a bioarchaeological view of violence in the past provides a good general overview of the work that had been completed prior to this point regarding bioarchaeological interpretations of skeletal evidence for interpersonal violence. Walker (2001) expresses the opinion that bioarchaeologists are in an ideal position to be able to examine potential causes for violent behavior in the past, given the strength of skeletal remains as a more “direct” source of evidence that is not subject to the authorial biases of historical and ethnographic sources. Despite this somewhat optimistic picture of the potential contributions of bioarchaeological evidence, however, the author does outline many of the limitations that affect and limit the observation and interpretation of traumatic injuries in ancient skeletal material. One of the strengths of this review is the cautious and population-based approach Walker (2001) advocates for recognizing interpersonal violent actions in the past, as well as for interpreting the ultimate causes of this behavior.
The review is organized in a way that first sets the scene by outlining the major methodological issues in defining violence and interpreting skeletal injuries. Walker (2001) provides an overview of clinical and forensic evidence for modern interpersonal violent behavior and patterns of modern assault injuries, and describes the major difficulties in applying this data to archaeological injuries. The author then tackles the major question underlying his review, namely the issue of what can be said regarding the prevalence of violence in past populations based on the available skeletal evidence, given the methodological issues outlined in the first sections of the paper. The review outlines the evidence available for traumatic skeletal injuries in the past, along with both the original interpretations of these lesions and those suggested by subsequent researchers who have re-examined many of the collections in question; this type of overview is provided for samples of early hominids, as well as for modern human populations in Africa, Europe, and North America. This is an excellent review of the literature that provides a comprehensive picture of trends within the field, although the regional foci are chosen based on the author’s work and could be more inclusive of areas outside of Europe and North America.
Walker’s (2001) presentation of the modern clinical comparative data on interpersonal violence and patterns of violent injury, as well as his discussion of the many limitations inherent in the recognition and interpretation of skeletal evidence for interpersonal violent behavior in the past is thorough and relatively straightforward. It is in the second half of the paper, which reviews the contributions made by paleopathologists to the understanding of violent behavior in the past, that the structural and organizational decisions made by the author become much more important. Walker’s (2001) presentation of the established evidence for violent injury in the past is structured both temporally and spatially. Data from Old World and New World sites are presented in two separate sections, and within each section the evidence for violent injury is organized chronologically beginning with the earliest available evidence from the region, this being early hominid remains in the Old World and the Kennewick material in the New. The development of patterns of interpersonal violence in the past therefore unfolds through time in a linear manner, following a narrative structure organized around Western conceptions of chronological progression. Walker (2001) does take care to avoid over-generalizing these patterns, and stresses that there is significant temporal and regional variation in patterns of violent injury, even between sites in relatively small geographic areas.
This literature review is organized in a comparative manner designed very much to highlight similarities and differences between categories that may be extremely relevant to predominantly Western bioarchaeologists. Distinctions are made between the patterns of violent injury likely to be experienced by different species of early hominid, individuals living in different regions of the world both between the Old and New Worlds and within them, and individuals living in different time periods. However, there is no discussion of whether or not the categories used would have been relevant in the past. This relates to a trend observed within the review more generally, in that it is oriented very much toward the perspective of a Western bioarchaeologist. Patterns of violent injury in the past are presented as progressing toward the patterns observed in modern Western societies, especially given the advancement of various technologies used to inflict violent injuries. There is also significant emphasis placed on questions of origins within the review; in several sections special mention is made of the first evidence for a particular type of injury or behavior in a given region. This focus on finding the earliest known incidence of a particular phenomenon has been relatively common in archaeology and in bioarchaeology, and reflects the importance of concepts such as linear chronology and the progression of ideas and practices to bioarchaeological thought and theory. The orientation of the review toward a Western social scientific perspective is not unexpected or debilitating, as this is the article’s primary audience. However, the potential relevance of the categories used in bioarchaeological analyses to the populations from which the individuals being analyzed derived is a relevant issue that should be discussed. Potential divergences in meaningful categories due to alternative understandings of concepts such as time, what constitutes violence or warfare, and the relations of “self” and “other” between sites within a region are worth mentioning in the context of discussing how differences between these categories illustrate the development of behavioral patterns.
The main conclusion of this review is the culmination of a thread of reasoning that runs throughout its discussion, this being the refutation of the “myth of our pacifistic past” (Walker 2001: 584) or the previously prevalent idea that interpersonal violent behaviors are the hallmark of a modern Western society. Walker (2001) uses evidence from paleopathological studies of violent injury to highlight that both kindness and cruelty have always existed in human societies, and that incidences of warfare and violence can be observed in all areas of the world during all time periods, from modern societies back to our early hominid ancestors. His most important message is that despite the many differences between modern and ancient patterns of violent skeletal injury, “there are no forms of social organization, modes of production, or environmental settings that remain free from interpersonal violence for long” (Walker 2001: 590).
Walker PL. 2001. A bioarchaeological perspective on the history of violence. Annual Review of Anthropology 30: 573-596.
Hello Laura,
I thoroughly enjoyed reading your review of this article — it was quite detailed. I am curious, do you feel this article is accessible to a broader audience outside of this particular subfield? Second, you critiqued that this article was an excellent review of the literature on the bioarchaeological view of violence in the past, did the author utilize a specific guiding framework or approach to organize the article? (i.e. macro-micro).
Hi Priscilla,
Thank you very much for your comments. I do feel that the article is accessible to a broader audience. The author begins by providing a very basic overview of the types of questions that paleopathologists ask in evaluating evidence for violence in the past, and the language used is relatively simple and terms are well explained. I think that the main points of the article would be easily understood by someone outside the subfield.
I am not entirely sure how to answer your second question. The author discussed evidence for violence at a specific site (micro) and then related implications of the interpretations for this site to its fit in broader regional and temporal patterns (macro). In this way, he used evidence from different sites as examples to build and illustrate the larger trends developing through time and over geographic space.
Hi Laura,
A very nice job here, particularly in highlighting the thread that runs through this literature review. You also seem to be highlighting, in essence, a “chronotope” that is running through his narrative. Does he drop any hints in the first page or so that that is going to be his “so what”? As an Andeanist (where violence has been debated from the bioarchaeological record for many years), I wondered whether he discussed sacrifice and other forms of more culturally inflected violence? And, to follow up on the previous comment, what does a quick scan of the bibliography tell us (i.e. pretty good variety of old and new articles? Only literature from within archaeology and bioarchaeology?).
Hi Dr. Roddick,
Thank you for your comments. I think that there are definitely some hints in the first page or so of the introduction revealing what the take home message is likely to be. Fairly early on in the introduction, the author discusses different views regarding the effects of Western expansion and contact with non-Western societies, and the potential changes in patterns of warfare that this led to. I think that this discussion presages his later points on the ubiquity of both peaceful and violent periods throughout human history.
The author does discuss one example of more culturally inflected violence, choosing to focus on evidence for cannibalism. He uses the example of evidence for cannibalism in the skeletal record not only to demonstrate an example of culturally inflected violent practices but also to showcase changes in bioarchaeological interpretations. Some of the sites that he discusses with regard to evidence of cannibalism were excavated earlier and have been more recently re-analyzed, with subsequent reconsideration of the original interpretations and the strength of the evidence for cannibalism.
With respect to the bibliography, it does contain a fairly good variety of old and new articles. There are fewer articles written before the late 1980’s, however this is to be expected as the majority of trauma analyses that are more than just case studies have been written since this time period. Much of the literature cited is from within archaeology and bioarchaeology, but there is also a significant proportion of the bibliography devoted to clinical and other biomedical sources. This literature is very common comparative material for paleopathological articles.
Hello Laura!
I know we briefly discussed your post yesterday, and that you really enjoyed this article. You had mentioned that this article is very ‘big’ within the field of skeletal trauma. Do you feel that his experience with the subject may have impacted the quality of his review? I know that with my article it was two big names that there were both positives and negatives to this approach based on their past experience with the literature. You yourself are very well versed in this topic and I am curious if you felt that someone who was not as familiar with the topic (such as myself, or even someone who is not as familiar with skeletal material) would be able to comprehend all of the beneficial aspects of this review? I know this taps onto what Priscilla was discussing, but I am curious if this was an issue related to the author himself. Thanks for posting!
Hi Kat,
Thanks for your comments! I feel that the author’s familiarity with the material definitely affected the review, both positively and less positively as you thought with the review that you looked at. The positive effect is that he is able to tie evidence from different sites, regions, and time periods together into clear trends and patterns that will be interesting to other paleopathologists. On the less positive side, though, I think that the specific regions highlighted in the article may have been very different given a different author. I say “less positive” because the areas he chose to discuss provided great examples, but likely not the full picture. Another author may have chosen to highlight different regions or concepts, such as sacrifice or trophy-taking, resulting in a review that was no better or worse but simply different.
As I posted in response to Priscilla’s comment above, I think that the author provides enough background information for non-specialists to easily understand the evidence he discusses as well as his take-home message. The review covers broad concepts and the types of questions that paleopathologists are attempting to ask and answer, rather than technical information about skeletal injuries themselves. I find Dr. Walker’s writing style to be consistently clear and concise, and I think that the way he writes helps to make his content easy for any scholar to understand. The cautious approach to the interpretation of skeletal evidence is also easy for someone coming in from outside of the sub-discipline to understand, because it prizes logical thought.
Hi Laura,
Thanks for an interesting article! Compliments on your writing style; you always seem to manage to write very clearly and simply about complex ideas.
I’m really interested in your discussion of the different categories through which this analysis could have accounted for patters of violent trauma. For instance, you mention the importance of considering the different ways of determining “what constitutes violence or warfare” that might be used by different groups of people. It’s an important point to keep in mind; do you also have ideas about how you would go about doing a study that accounted for those differences?
Out of curiosity, are histories of intra-familial and intimate partner violence addressed anywhere in the literature?
Does refutation of myth of Pacific past have theoretical implications? Do you expect this refutation to generate specific kinds of reactions/follow-up research?
Hi Ani,
Thank you so much for your feedback; I apologize for the tardiness of my response, but you have given me a lot to think about!
I do think that it is important to consider what a given society or population may have considered to be violent behaviour when examining trauma related to interpersonal violence. This would definitely be specific to the group under study, and so the ways in which a researcher may or may not be able to examine this could differ greatly. Some of the work that has been done in the American Southwest I believe has used ethnographic and ethnohistorical accounts documenting ritualized warfare to examine potential differences in the intentions of violent behaviours between various contexts, and how this affects the injuries produced. It is likely that accounting for differences like this would rely on the presence of contextual information such as ethnographic or historical documentary evidence.
I have not read many articles that address intra-familial or intimate partner violence in archaeological populations. Several studies have examined juvenile remains for evidence of child abuse, although I don’t recall any that felt they had uncovered evidence for this practice. Debra Martin has done some work on violence against women in the American Southwest, although this was focused more on women as victims of raiding and slavery practices who may have been abused by both men and women of the abductors’ society rather than specifically by an intimate partner.
I think that refuting the myth of a Pacific past does have significant implications for the conceptualization of Native American societies as well as of colonialization and how the “contact” event may have played out in various areas of North America. Representing Native American groups as active conflict participants rather than passive victims of colonizers’ violent practices is suggested to attribute a much larger degree of agency to these groups; this idea has also been related to other processes in which Native American societies have traditionally been viewed as passive recipients, such as in the transfer of diseases between the Old and New Worlds. Your question of what kinds of specific reactions this change in attitudes may generate is very interesting, and I’m not sure that I have an answer for it. This may be a point at which primatological research could intersect with bioarchaeology; I know that there have been several studies of traumatic injuries within non-human primate groups, but I am unsure whether violent behaviours have been studied in our closest primate relatives. If so, I am sure that researchers in paloanthropology will have something to say about violent behaviours in our common ancestors, and how far back this predilection for violence may extend.