War is hell. Yet according to a new analysis of human history, it may also prod the evolution of certain kinds of complex societies.
War is hell. It breaks apart families, destroys natural resources, and drives humans to commit unspeakable acts of violence. Yet according to a new analysis of human history, war may also prod the evolution of certain kinds of complex societies. The twin developments of agriculture and military technology—especially cavalries and iron weapons—have predicted the rise of empires.
“The majority of archaeologists are against the warfare theory,” says Peter Turchin, an evolutionary anthropologist at the University of Connecticut, Storrs, and the new study’s lead author. “Nobody likes this ugly idea because obviously warfare is a horrible thing, and we don’t like to think it can have any positive effects.”
Two factors stood out. Unsurprisingly, the longer a region had been practicing agriculture, the more likely it was to be socially complex. But Cavalry surfaced as a particularly dependable sign of imminent empire. In each Eurasian region Turchin and colleagues examined, megaempires emerged 300 to 400 years after the appearance of cavalry. The Achaemenid Empire, for example, which occupied much of modern-day Iran, acquired both ironworking and cavalry around 900 B.C.E.; in 500 B.C.E. its territory eclipsed 3 million square kilometers.
The Inca Empire, Turchin notes, is something of an outlier. It needed neither iron nor horses to develop a massive population and complex governance. It did, however, have llamas, and using them as transport animals would have given the empire a competitive advantage over rivals, he says.
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