Why Did the Rise of Agriculture Over 10,000 Years Ago Lead to Unprecedented Large-Scale Warfare? — Here’s What Researchers Found

Over 12,000 years ago, humans were still hunter-gatherers before they transitioned to farming. At this time, they foraged, scavenged, hunted, and gathered resources in their natural habitats, and then they moved on to the next environment if the old one could no longer support them.

However, around 12,000 to 10,000 years ago, human groups shifted to agriculture. This change in lifestyle brought them many benefits, such as a more reliable food supply and less need for migration to another habitat, but it also gave rise to bigger problems. One of those is the increase in unprecedented large-scale warfare and conflicts.

But how exactly does a lifestyle shift from hunting and gathering to farming fuel such a violent turn in human history? And what are the reasons or factors that could have made them fight each other in higher scale and intensity? In this article, let’s look back at our past and explore these questions.

Land and Resource Pressures

When humans were still hunter-gatherers, they didn’t have as many ties to the land as it is with farming. They could simply move or migrate to another environment if there is already an established human population in that habitat, or if climate change caused the resources there to be depleted. Although it is not always the best choice, it is still an option for them.

However, when agriculture came, more human groups had to stay settled in one place to be able to tend to their lands, crops, and livestock. Moreover, this change in lifestyle allowed them to support a higher population and increase their birth rates, as there was less need to move often or none at all, and they had a reliable food supply. Their survival became dependent on the farming lands and their fixed territory.

This is one of the reasons why large-scale warfare could have happened in the early agricultural communities. A good farming land became valuable as it is now directly tied to the survival of a large group of humans living together, so competition for it increased.

In other words, the ability to grow your own food in a limited territory allowed humans to grow their population to the level that the hunting and gathering lifestyle would not be capable of supporting. So, if they lost access to that good farming land, it would directly threaten their survival as a population.

This also means that the more their numbers as a group grow, the higher the pressure and need for expansion of the farming lands to be able to support them. This could have given them another reason to invade neighboring farms and communities, because their survival is at stake.

Read more: Science Direct

Social Complexity, Inequality, and Hierarchy

Prehistoric Warfare and the Origins of Conflict

Large-scale warfare not only happens externally, but could also occur internally. After the shift to farming, and as their population grew, the more complex their societies became. Because there was a reliable food supply, which led to a surplus of resources, not everyone in the group needed to work in food production.

This resulted in the creation of specialized roles in order for individuals to provide value to the community in other important ways. For example, there would be builders creating permanent settlements, or tool-makers who would refine stone tools to increase the efficiency of planting and harvesting crops. Soon, different people in the community were perceived with different social standings depending on the value they could provide or the responsibility they had.

Additionally, the need for managing the surplus of resources created managerial and organizational roles. Then the individuals who were viewed as competent enough to do the job became early leaders of the society. They manage the distribution of resources, and over time, they were able to establish authority, power, and status. Then they would pass this role and prestige to their children, giving rise to the concept of inheritance.

The history of how all of these scenarios could have unfolded is much more complex, but the key point is that when some people control more resources than others, it breeds inequality and social hierarchy. With these leadership structures, you may also have elites who own the surplus of resources and command over the groups of humans who were tasked with defending and expanding their farming lands and territory. In other words, the structure they had allowed for formal organizations of armies and warriors was a key component of large-scale warfare.

Before, hunter-gatherers were believed to have a mostly egalitarian society whose leadership roles differed based on the job. The good hunters will lead the hunt, the best collectors of wild plants will head this responsibility, and so on. But, with farming giving rise to a more complex social hierarchy, it meant that some people gained more power, and to stay in that position, sometimes a conflict involving warfare with their own group could happen.

Technology, Surplus, and the Means to Fight

What hunter-gatherers do not have that farming provides is a surplus of food and resources. Even if some groups were able to manage preserving their scavenged or hunted meat and edible plants, it could only last for so long. But the rise of agriculture also led to a technological revolution that allowed humans to make better storage systems for their food supply.

With extra food stored, communities began trading with each other to obtain other valuables, or they used these resources to support more non-farmers whose work or responsibility is just as important. The surplus of food allowed societies to grow and maintain their warriors who would defend their lands, builders who could create homes and even walls to deter invaders, and even invest manpower and time in the improvement of their weaponry.

With a settled life and an increase in specialized roles that are not just about food production, they had more opportunities to craft better tools, weapons, and defensive structures like walls. With their newfound wealth and labor, they advanced these technologies on unprecedented scales. In due time, the farming communities began to have the means and the motive to launch warfare never seen before.

Read more: PNAS

Population Growth, Settlement Density & Conflict

The Origins of War (500,000 BC–3,000 BC)

Agriculture did not just support the increase in people, but it also led to a gradual explosion of the population. There were many people living together in one place. Soon, their farming lands became dense, and the individual settlements were much closer to each other. This scenario may have created increased competition even for smaller but nearby resources, such as a water supply.

Over time, the settlements that have stored more surplus of food and other resources like tools and seeds to plant, became the primary targets. But in a settled community, the cost of moving is greater, so even if things went pretty badly, they would often choose to protect their belongings and territories instead of leaving, like a forager would normally do.

This need and desire to protect what they have has triggered a higher necessity to form a group of defenders, warriors, and armies. This created the conditions for large-scale warfare, where one group is trying to defend their farming lands, owned assets, and territories, while the other is trying to expand theirs in response to increasing pressure from population growth.

Author's Final Thoughts

The transition to farming over 10,000 years ago led to the conditions, means, and motives for large-scale warfare to happen. But one of the factors we have not yet discussed is their increased ability to cooperate and work together in much larger numbers.

Since farming allowed specialized roles, social hierarchies, and technological advances, the different communities were able to build larger projects like irrigation systems and tall walls. These cooperative skillsets and leadership structures would have also been necessary for armies and warriors to be able to plan their defense or their invasion.

Understanding just how complex agriculture led our societies to be would highlight how these massive conflicts arise. The same system that provides humanity with a reliable food supply, permanent homes, a more stable sedentary lifestyle, and population growth, also created new kinds of problems, such as large-scale warfare, the likes of which early humans had never seen before.

Read next: How Did the Transition to Farming Over 10,000 Years Ago Affect Human Lifespan? — Here’s What Scientists Suggest

References & Further Reading

Meyer, C., et al. (2015). The massacre mass grave of Schöneck-Kilianstädten reveals new insights into collective violence in Early Neolithic Central Europe. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1504365112

Golitko, M., & Keeley, L. H. (2007). Beating ploughshares back into swords: Warfare in the Linearbandkeramik. Antiquity. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0003598X00095211

Turchin, P., et al. (2013). War, space, and the evolution of Old World complex societies. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1308825110

Carneiro, R. L. (1970). A theory of the origin of the state. Science. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.169.3947.733

Mirazón Lahr, M., et al. (2016). Inter-group violence among early Holocene hunter-gatherers of West Turkana, Kenya. Nature. https://doi.org/10.1038/nature16477

Crevecoeur, I., et al. (2021). New insights on interpersonal violence in the Late Pleistocene based on the Nile valley cemetery of Jebel Sahaba. Scientific Reports. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-89386-y