Thousands of Skeletons Reveal Most Violent Period in Ancient Middle East

An analysis of thousands of ancient skeletons has revealed intriguing details about the history of violence millennia ago, specifically in the Middle East.

A study published in the journal Nature Human Behavior documents evidence showing that interpersonal violence in the region during the pre-Classical period (around 12,000 to 400 B.C.) fluctuated over time, peaking roughly between 4,500 and 3,300 B.C.

The study authors came to their conclusions after studying more than 3,500 individual human remains from the Middle East's pre-Classical period. The findings of the research shed new light on the question of how violence developed over long periods of time in early human history.

"Our research fills a huge gap in knowledge since so far, no comparable large-scale/long-term analysis has been available for the pre-Classical Middle East," Giacomo Benati, a researcher at the University of Barcelona and study author, told Newsweek.

"This was a major obstacle for correctly understanding the role that violence played in the historical evolution of the Middle Eastern societies. In fact, many narratives depict these societies as constantly engaged in fighting, we demonstrate that this is not always the case since violence fluctuates over time," he said.

It has often been claimed that interpersonal violence—which includes assault, killing, slavery, torture, punishment, feuds, and so on—has declined over millennia globally and more rapidly since the Age of Enlightenment in the 17th and 18th centuries.

This idea has been challenged, although so far no consensus has been reached among scholars. Given that homicide statistics are available only for recent historical periods, and because conflict records are often subject to biases, the understanding of long-term violence trends remains limited the further researchers look back in time.

"This situation has generated highly polarized narratives about the early history of violence," the study's authors wrote. "Indeed, the scholarship on the origins of warfare split into two major factions: the so-called 'pacified past' group or 'doves'—thinking that violence in human history picked up only after the Agricultural Revolution and the rise of states; and the other viewing warfare as pervasive in prehistory, that is the 'hawks.'"

"Although the hawks/doves division fueled much debate between the 1990s and early 2000s, nowadays a more nuanced picture is emerging," the authors said.

In the latest study, Benati and colleagues put together a dataset detailing skeletal remains from 3,539 individuals dated to 12,000 to 400 B.C. These remains were found in seven Middle Eastern countries: Turkey, Iraq, Iran, Syria, Lebanon, Israel and Jordan.

The researchers used the database to assess the amount of interpersonal violence across the period by documenting the proportion of skeletons that showed evidence of trauma to the skull or weapon-related wounds, excluding any damage that had occurred after death. In historical populations, cranial traumas and weapon injuries were often the results of interpersonal violence.

"The most common traumas associated with weapons are undoubtedly those that occur to the skull," Benati said. "In particular, we have followed the 'hat brim line' rule to distinguish cranial fractures that were most certainly caused by violent blows to the head (those located above the hat brim line) and potentially accidental [ones], those found below.

"There is substantial evidence from later times to suggest that a blow to the head was the most common way to commit murder in the pre-modern world. Then we analyzed the data statistically, and we attempted to assess, as much as possible, whether population dynamics, climate shocks or military innovations had an impact on such trends," he said.

The results suggest that interpersonal violence in the pre-Classical Middle East reached a maximum between 4,500 and 3,300 B.C. during the Chalcolithic period. The authors then observed a steady decline in violence during the Early and Middle Bronze Ages (3300 to 1500 B.C.) before it increased again from the Late Bronze Age to the Iron Age (1500 to 400 B.C.).

The researchers propose that the spike in violence during the Chalcolithic period may be connected to the emergence of the first centralized proto-states in the region and a shift from occasional feuding to large-scale, organized conflict.

The result that interpersonal violence peaked during the Chalcolithic period was not necessarily surprising, Benati said.

"Among the archaeologists focusing on this crucial historical period there is a broad consensus on the fact that the emergence of states and cities brought about increasing stresses on the Middle Eastern populations, but the impacts of such stresses on human welfare were never demonstrated before," he said.

The fact that violence then appeared to decline during the Early and Middle Bronze Age could have been the result of states developing the means to limit it, according to the researchers.

"We believe that the most likely explanation is that in this important historical juncture, states begin to develop the capacity to effectively constrain intra-societal violence through peaceful means, such as by developing legal systems and property rights and by organizing large-scale cooperation in economic activities, which created a civic culture," Benati said.

"Indeed, the fact that violence steadily declined during the Bronze Age is our most surprising result. Although most narratives based on historical sources stress that Bronze Age Middle Eastern societies were constantly engulfed in conflict led by the expansionary dynamics of early states, the skeletons tell otherwise."

In the latter period, the entire region witnessed an intense crisis related to a 300-year drought that triggered increased competition for scarce resources, forced migrations, and large-scale conflicts between empires, which may have had a role in the levels of violent incidents.

"This, again, was not unanticipated but we are able for the first time to document that this crisis had profound repercussions on the standards of living of the whole region," Benati said.

Update 10/11/23, 12:31 p.m. ET: This article was updated with comment from Giacomo Benati and additional information.