Réflexions sur les débuts de la guerre au Néolithique en Europe occidentale

Abstract

The emergence of war during prehistoric times is a recurrent subject that has often been treated in archaeological literature. The present publication, in the light of a synthetic analysis of traces of violent death observed in Neolithic graves in France and completed by new data information obtained from excavations in Germany, in Austria and in Iberian Peninsula, raises the issue of emergence of a real climate of collective violence in the first farmer communities in Europe. From that moment on, violence ascent during Neolithic times can be reported to several factors: factual causes in relation to disputes over territorial boundaries, economic motivations to permit forcible seizure of wealth or valuable objects by incursions, raids and razzias, and to finish social reasons because victorious conflicts are a demonstration of strength of one community against another and they confirm the prestige of the group or the chief. However, the recognized or established examples of violent death and slaughter remain very few in the end within the first farmer and peasant communities in western Europe. They don’t justify the hypothesis of armed disputes on a large scale. We cannot speak of “war”. Actually, this collective violence is the early beginning of real war in this definition, that is to say an aggressiveness organized, managed, socialized and used for the group at the expense of a neighbouring group, referred to other implications. War is established notably by specific armaments adapted to hand-to-hand fight and to collective fight. Moreover, a society dedicated or consecrated to war includes a military caste or a military aristocracy. Once again, the appearance of a warlike elite is not discernable before the beginnings of the Bronze Age.