> overturning previous assumptions that competition and conflict were absent in hunter–gatherer societies
Chimps have competition, conflict, some even call it ‘warfare’ between neighbouring troops. Groups of human teenagers in modern societies have conflict. But somehow Stone Age humans must’ve lived in some pre-historic la-la-land until some form of modernity spoiled us.
You also see this line of thinking extend to the idea of hierarchy, with limited archaeological evidence for primitive hierarchies being taken to imply the absence of hierarchy, in spite of hierarchy and status existing among modern day hunter gatherers and other primitive groups.
In about '04 or '05 one of my poli sci classes assigned War Before Civilization: the Myth of the Peaceful Savage (OUP, 1996, Keeley) and the professor spent much time debunking the notion of the peaceful savage or a time before war, but already then, almost two decades ago, it seemed like a weird thing to focus on because none of the students were aware this was a myth that needed debunking because we hadn't encountered it until that class. I assume it seemed important to the professor because some little academic war (ha, ha) over the issue had wrapped up in the recent past.
Chimp warfare isn't particularly well understood and looks most similar to the warfare that extant tribes participate in, which is symbolic tit-for-tat, not the societal warfare that reached its peak with the Ancient empires like Egypt, Greece, Rome, etc. The conflict informs migration patterns but it doesn't lead to tribe-ending battles.
Groups of human teenagers live and go to school with groups that are easily ten to a hundred times the size of an ancient tribe so it's not really comparable. It's like comparing the behavior of a wild wolf to a dozen held in a small cage in a zoo. They're going to behave completely differently in both scenarios.
Jane Goodall observed exactly that in Gombe, as described in 'Through a Window'. I believe it was something of an eye-opener for primatology at the time.
Worth mentioning "Chimp Empire" at Netflix. Interview with the director James Reed at Joe Rogan #1988 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ab7j5Ffb4ZE
This article is an example of land capital (prime fishing spots) being useful for a non-agricultural society.
Everywhere we go or went to, people already had weapons, and knew how to use them against other humans. Everywhere the first thing to get their hands on were better weapons to gain the upper hand over some pre-existing enemies. With the exceptions, such as Moriori, being few and far between. And killed.
The continuity of inter-group violence throughout pretty much any known culture is so strong, that I really find the notion that it somehow suddenly appeared out of nowhere because ‘farming’ really weird.
But personally I know nothing about Australian aboriginal societies and that might be complete rubbish. In any case of doesn't seem likely to be representative of cultures living in areas that would support a denser population.
https://quadrant.org.au/opinion/aborigines/2022/07/truth-tel...
There isn't archeological evidence because the violence would be done with stones and sticks, which tend to not preserve very well, as opposed to later conflicts, fought with metal weapons and armor.
It's another compounding factor to the lack of physical evidence in addition to far lower population density (population bottleneck during the ice age and probably several millennia after)
The issue is the relative lack of signs of bone injury that is obviously from axes or piercing weapons (as opposed to falls and blunt force trauma). Archaic humans have had hand axes capable of very obvious damage for over a million years, spears for half a million, and they wouldn't have had anything resembling armor until about 200k years ago.
There was certainly competition but if warfare was particularly common, we should have seen more evidence. We probably weren't "peaceful," though, just smart enough to realize that conflict avoidance is usually the optimal strategy.
This also follows the general pattern we observe in the transition from hunter-gatherer to agriculture: The hunter-gatherers weren't really killed until the imperialism of the common era, they were absorbed or just out competed by the agriculturalists. Lots of their remnants survive ranging from the Bedouin to Namibian pastoralists to the jungle dwellers of Papua New Guinea.
IMO any culture that participated regularly in warfare would have figured out that sharp spears with long reach are far more effective than clubs unless that combat was largely symbolic. Clubs would make sense because they're not as lethal.
[1] https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12110-023-09445-3
If people spread out, they're more likely to run into other people's territories. Which is how you get conflict.
"Nomadic" didn't mean people just aimlessly wandered and sustained off of whatever they chanced upon that day. You can't go just anywhere and expect to feed your family off of what you find. When you found some place or something good, you tried to claim it and defend it from those who encroached on it. You moved on under your own volition only when the resources were depleted/left.