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downforpot
Stranger

Registered: 06/25/01
Posts: 5,715
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Brutal lives of Stone Age Britons
#5621880 - 05/12/06 04:58 PM (17 years, 8 months ago) |
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BBC NEWS Brutal lives of Stone Age Britons By Paul Rincon BBC News science reporter
A survey of British skulls from the early part of the New Stone Age, or Neolithic, shows societies then were more violent than was supposed.
Early Neolithic Britons had a one in 20 chance of suffering a skull fracture at the hands of someone else and a one in 50 chance of dying from their injuries.
Details were presented at a meeting of the Society for American Archaeology and reported in New Scientist magazine.
Blunt instruments such as clubs were responsible for most of the traumas.
This is not the first time human-induced injuries have been identified in Neolithic people; but the authors say it is the first study to give some idea of the overall frequency of such traumas.
Rick Schulting of Queen's University Belfast and Michael Wysocki from the University of Central Lancashire looked at 350 skulls spanning the period from 4000 BC to 3200 BC.
"We generally think of Neolithic people as living peaceful lives - they were busy looking after cereal crops and rearing livestock," Mr Wysocki told the BBC News website.
"But it was a much more violent society."
Mortal wounds
Nearly 5% of the skulls showed healed depressed fractures. They found unhealed injuries in 2% of the sample, suggesting these individuals died from their wounds.
But the true scale of the violence still remains unclear due to the nature of the evidence, say the authors. In other simple, small-scale societies, the incidence of death as a result of violence ranges from 8-33%.
"Our data shows 2% lethal cranial injuries, but these are just cranial. The data for other societies is for all lethal injuries, but ours is limited so we can't compare it," Mr Wysocki said.
"A lot of lethal injuries will be to soft tissues and that needn't affect bone."
The researchers suspect that what they are seeing is violence at the local and regional level rather than large-scale warfare involving large sections of the country.
"We could also be seeing raiding parties, cattle rustling, somebody suspecting the other tribe across the hill is practising witchcraft," the University of Central Lancashire forensic anthropologist explained.
"Some of the violence may be domestic; some of it may even be ritualised."
The majority of the traumas were caused by blunt instruments which may have included improvised clubs. But a handful of fractures look like they have been inflicted by flint arrowheads and spearpoints. One of the females in the sample appears to have been the victim of a brutal attack with a stone axe.
Another individual with a suspected projectile fracture appears to have had their ears slashed off - a possible instance of trophy-taking, the researchers speculate.
The research originally appeared in the Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society journal.
Paul.Rincon-INTERNET@bbc.co.uk Story from BBC NEWS: http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/science/nature/4757861.stm
Published: 2006/05/11 10:41:04 GMT
© BBC MMVI
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http://www.myspace.com/4th25 "And I don't care if he was handcuffed Then shot in his head All I know is dead bodies Can't fuck with me again"
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RandalFlagg
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Registered: 06/15/02
Posts: 15,608
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Re: Brutal lives of Stone Age Britons [Re: downforpot]
#5621994 - 05/12/06 05:42 PM (17 years, 8 months ago) |
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Man is inherently violent and selfish??? Say it ain't so!
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barfightlard
tales of theinexpressible



Registered: 01/29/03 
Posts: 8,670
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Re: Brutal lives of Stone Age Britons [Re: downforpot]
#5622406 - 05/12/06 07:28 PM (17 years, 8 months ago) |
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Angels on the sideline, Puzzled and amused. Why did Father give these humans free will? Now they're all confused.
Don't these talking monkeys know that Eden has enough to go around? Plenty in this holy garden, silly monkeys Where there's one you're bound to divide it Right in two
Angels on the sideline, Baffled and confused. Father blessed them all with reason, And this is what they choose?
Monkey killing monkey killing monkey over pieces of the ground. Silly monkeys give them thumbs they forge a blade And where there's one they're bound to divide it Right in two
Monkey killing monkey killing monkey over pieces of the ground. Silly monkeys give them thumbs they make a club, And beat their brother down. How they survive so misguided is a mystery. Repugnant is a creature who would squander the ability, To lift an eye to heaven, conscious of his fleeting time here.
[Cutting it all right in two / Cut it all right in two] / Cutting our love right in two]
Fight over the clouds, over wind, over sky Fight over your lie, over blood, over anything Fight over love, over sun, over nothing Fight till they die, (Ahhh!) over what? for their ending
Angels on the sideline again, [Mixing love / Benched along] with patience and reason. Angels on the sideline again, Wondering where this tug of war will end.
[Cutting it all right in two / Cut it all right in two] / Cutting our love right in two]
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"What business is it of yours what I do, read, buy, see, say, think, who I fuck, what I take into my body - as long as I do not harm another human being on this planet?" - Bill Hicks
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bukkake


Registered: 05/28/05
Posts: 2,764
Loc: Classified
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Re: Brutal lives of Stone Age Britons [Re: RandalFlagg]
#5623160 - 05/12/06 10:38 PM (17 years, 8 months ago) |
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Based on evidence from 6,000 years ago, while man has been around more then one hundred times that amount?
http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=logic
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Alex213
Stranger
Registered: 08/22/05
Posts: 1,839
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Re: Brutal lives of Stone Age Britons [Re: RandalFlagg]
#5623629 - 05/13/06 01:43 AM (17 years, 8 months ago) |
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Man is inherently violent and selfish??? Say it ain't so!
Do you find that to be the case Randall? I don't know what the area you live in is like but a guy collapsed in the street in town the other day and a dozen people instantly rushed over. And they didn't kick him or rob him - they helped him.
Like Bukake says I think that million years where we lived in mutually supportive groups has had more effect on us than a few thousand years of war and capitalism.
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Redstorm
Prince of Bugs



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Re: Brutal lives of Stone Age Britons [Re: Alex213]
#5624279 - 05/13/06 11:25 AM (17 years, 8 months ago) |
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I think that humans are inherently cooperative because of self-interest. You can't get very far if you try to do everything by yourself. Everyone gets a bigger piece of the pie when we work together. This isn't always the case, though, since people will throw cooperation out the window when they feel they are better off going it alone.
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Baby_Hitler
Errorist



Registered: 03/06/02
Posts: 27,587
Loc: To the limit!
Last seen: 8 hours, 10 minutes
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Re: Brutal lives of Stone Age Britons [Re: downforpot]
#5627169 - 05/14/06 12:58 AM (17 years, 8 months ago) |
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This is why they invented tea time... so they could rest their clubbin' arm.
-------------------- Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ (•_•) <) )~ ANTIFA / \ \(•_•) ( (> SUPER / \ (•_•) <) )> SOLDIERS / \
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