|
Article Excerpt
Abstract
This paper puts forward the premise that fortifications are uniquely suited to addressing questions of climatic variation and human response, as they are large, permanent repositories of human history, and also reflect behaviors directly associated with conflict, territorialism, and the limits of local environments. A revision of theoretical perspectives and a model of conflict derived from human behavioral ecology can better direct future research. In application, this model outlines a program of research for fortifications, which can be used to more critically assess the impact of paleoclimatic change on human prehistory.
Keywords: fortifications, paleoclimates, conflict, human behavioral ecology
**********
There have been a number of books produced in recent years that focus on the human responses to climate change in prehistory (Caviedes 2001; Fagan 2001). There have also been a number of studies that have sought to detect human responses to climate change via changes in diet, subsistence, and settlement patterns (Gamble 2005; Jousse 2006; Turney, et al. 2006). These studies have piqued the interest of archaeologists around the world, and ushered in a renewed emphasis on the study of ecology, geography, and the complex system of our oceans and atmosphere. These studies elicit a direct question: how can we detect the pulse of paleoclimatic variation when it is just one factor among many that shape human prehistory? Other issues such as population size, environment, and social conditions are also known to influence human strategies to varying degrees. As our knowledge of earth's climatic history grows, we have an ever increasing need for a mode of inquiry that can measure the effects of climate change on a prehistoric populations. Equally, we must be able to exclude alternative explanations.
Fortifications have the potential to fill this role. They have been found in association with early agricultural and foraging societies, and they are also ubiquitous, occurring on most continents and across the islands of the Indo-Pacific. Significantly, they are the product of group investment, and usually the locus of occupation for at least part of the population. Thus, they can have long histories, and record within their deposits periods of abandonment, reoccupation, and refurbishment. Most importantly, fortifications can be theoretically linked with models of human conflict and territoriality. Their use for defense, control of home territories, and also expansion into new territories is well known from both historical and anthropological accounts. Consequently, the construction of fortifications has often been linked to external influences that spur on human conflict, such as periods of environmental change or disasters (Arkush and Allen 2006; Bawden and Reycraft 2000; Kuckleman 2002; Lekson 2002).
Given the level of interest in prehistoric climate in the Indo-Pacific, and also the common conceptual linkage between environmental degradation and the emergence of conflict and territoriality, this is an appropriate time to reassess and revamp the theoretical perspectives that have directed archaeological research into fortifications. This paper outlines a theoretical perspective, and also advocates a specific program of study for fortifications within larger studies that include paleoclimatic research. It utilizes an evolutionary model of conflict and territorialism, and emphasizes the contextualization of settlement and subsistence strategies within high-resolution ecological data. It also advocates the use of paleoenvironmental data from the local area, and demands evidence for a direct linkage between environmental change and human reactions. The goal of this program of study is to connect human conflict to the wide range of ecological variables that influence the human condition, and to parse out instances in which climates or climate change played a major role in the emergence of competitive and territorial strategies. Archaeologically, this is equivalent to processes that result in the emergence and persistence of settlement patterns that include fortifications. This program of study can be used to exclude climate change as a causal mechanism, or illuminate areas that need further study.
Understanding Conflict
The conceptual linkage between fortifications and conflict comes from ethnography and history, and also the early writings of socio-cultural anthropologists. Although societies in conflict need not have produced or utilized fortifications, the presence of fortifications has been regularly equated with conflict at some level of the society. Whether warring groups, territorialism, or the expansion of an empire, conflict is thought to have simple goals: capturing resources, driving away rivals, and revenge (Chagnon 1968, 1979; Divale 1974; Ember and Ember 1992; Ferguson 1984; Ferrill 1997; Haas 1990; Heider 1979; LeBlanc 1999; Otterbein 1970, 1973, 1985). Environmental and population stress is regularly posited as a primary causal factor in the development of conflict, especially within circumscripted environments (Carneiro 1970; Cohen 1977). In addition, competition for power and control within state-level societies has been documented to result in conflict, and in some instances the establishment of social hierarchies (Boone 1983; Boone 1992; Carneiro 1978, 1981; Ehrenreich 1997; Otterbein 1977, 1999). Moreover, this perspective suggests that conflict rarely exists in the absence of cooperative agreements and alliances, and both can occur simultaneously at different scales, such as social grouping for defense involves networks of cooperation that have competitive oriented goals (Gumerman 1986).
Conflict in the natural world is readily explained via evolutionary models, and it falls under the umbrella of human behavioral ecology. In this manner conflict is treated as a strategy that has both costs and benefits, which has as its goal the maximization of fitness, or the reduction of risk (Boyd and Richerson 1985; Smith and Winterhalder 1992). Significantly, evolutionary ecologists have identified the ability of organisms to behave 'optimally' as an evolutionary stable strategy. In most cases, the conception of optimizing refers to foraging strategies that maximize food returns and minimize harvest time, but in more general terms it suggests that individuals select strategies that are the most effective. Human behavioral ecology models are also designed to be testable; they define a set of alternative strategies, as well as a currency such as time or energy that can be directly measured. In archaeological applications, human behavioral ecology models have been used to explain changes in foraging and diet as well as the adoption of domesticates (Broughton 1994, 1997; Gremillion 2006; Kennett, et al. 2006). These studies have utilized rich archaeological data sets, and compared changes over time to expectations outlined by evolutionary theory.
The recent emphasis on understanding the effects of climate change on human prehistory calls for the generation of models that focus on human-environmental interaction. As a body of theory, human behavioral ecology is well designed to meet this need; as a set of principles and hypotheses, it has the potential to explain how and why populations adapt to instances of environmental change. It also can also be formulated to address specific issues, such as when and where conflict would have been not only a viable strategy, but a choice that would have had long-term benefits for the population.
A model for the development and persistence of fortifications
In explaining the development of competition and cooperation in human societies, human behavioral ecology has drawn heavily from sociobiological and evolutionary biological models of the formation of groups, the development of social hierarchies, and the establishment of settlement strategies and territoriality. These models can be used to generate hypotheses for the investigation of the emergence and persistence of fortifications in prehistory. Fundamentally, they identify the individual as the unit of study, and also the level at which selection operates (Smith and Winterhalder 1992). Like biology, human behavioral ecology also suggests that individuals employ strategies that optimize their own reproductive success, and in most circumstances behave in ways that benefit themselves. Perhaps most importantly, it identifies social groups as aggregates of individuals, and as such the rules and practices of social institutions are the result of collective behavioral strategies. Although selection fundamentally acts at the level of the individual, field studies suggest that selection at the level of the group can occur, especially if strategies benefit groups of closely related individuals (e.g. kin selection) (Hamilton 1964).
The emergence of competition
Durham (1976), Smith (1983), and Boone (1992) posit that the size and structure of human social groups can be explained in terms of the aggregate consequences...
|
