Violence trends in the ancient Middle East between 12,000 and 400 BCE

So it's the variance of finds by violence-related bone/burial evidence, across time. I worry that confounding practices (ritual dismemberment) and the rise and fall of cremation (eg of your enemies, to deny them a resting place, or of your heroes to ensure their swift arrival in heaven) would be an issue.

I can't find references to cremation in the article. I guess, if you consider it equally likely to distribute across the regions at a given time, it can be ignored.

I struggled with the idea of paleology 'holotypes' and definitions of dinosoria at uni, years ago. The field basically relies on an archetype being the most likely find. It's all you've got. But, as the numbers of finds rise, you get outbreaks of sub-speciation, and then re-unification in the light of changes in the interpretation of evidence.

I think the same thing is going to happen here: If ritualised disposal of weapons means you find aggregations of weapons across time, it doesn't necessarily mean higher or lower rates of community violence because the ritual may outweigh the use value of the edge. Bone evidence on the other hand is pretty unequivocal, but it then becomes material if people were slaughtered for their land and posessions, or taken away as slaves: Is the rise of slave economies not a consideration?

So this is a quantitative study which is going to be weighed up against other forms of evidence. It's going to swing back and forward.