Interpersonal violence among the prehistoric hunter-gatherers of Cis-Baikal, southern Siberia

Summary

The large number of mid-Holocene cemeteries from Lake Baikal and its surrounding river valleys provide an unrivalled archaeological resource for the study of northern Eurasian hunter-gatherers. In this paper we present an overview of the skeletal evidence for interpersonal violence, comparing the Early Neolithic (7550–6800 cal BP) and Late Neolithic/Early Bronze Age (5700–3700 cal BP), two broad periods exhibiting different mortuary traditions and subsistence practices. Despite the nomenclature, which refers to material culture, these societies relied entirely on hunting, gathering, and especially fishing. Evidence for conflict takes the form of cranial trauma and projectile injuries. With the exception of a probable massacre event in the Early Bronze Age at the site of Shamanka II, levels of violence are not particularly high, and likely relate to both occasional disputes within communities, and to sporadic conflicts between communities. The latter are not unusual among semi-sedentary hunter-gatherers, and could relate to contestations over the control of particularly productive fishing and sealing locations.

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This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 80th Annual Meeting, San Francisco, CA (2015)

Keywords

Spatial Coverage