War, Peace, and Marital Residence in Pre-Industrial Societies

Abstract

Tefft and Reinhardt recently reported that peacemaking mechanisms and periods of stable peace are associated with internal warfare, while peacemaking mechanisms are absent and peace is unstable in societies with external warfare. We suggest an explanation for these findings based on the argument that in pre-state level societies internal and external war are entirely different types of conflict. Internal war (conflict between communities of the same society) is part of a system of population control in pre-state level societies which also involves female infanticide, polygyny, and patrilocal residence. Internal war is thus a regulatory type of warfare requiring several mechanisms to initiate and inhibit it. In contrast, external warfare among pre-state level societies occurs between societies which have recently migrated to their locales and adopted matrilocal residence. External war is thus an intense struggle for survival between two or more societies trying to occupy the same niche in an ecosystem that cannot support all of them. There can be no regulation of this type of warfare–only victory–and hence there can be no peacemaking mechanisms.