The origin of war
The question of how, why, when, and where warfare began is a complicated one that is frequently burdened by many uncorroborated assumptions; proposed answers are sometimes blissfully unhindered by evidence. Even asking the very question begins to limit the possible range of answers, since asking “when did war begin” implies that there was a time when there was no war. In theory we must allow for the possibility that warfare has always been known among humans. Attempts to answer this question are also intimately connected to assumptions about human nature – are humans (or more specifically male humans) inherently violent? – which are beyond the purview of historians.1 Asking these questions also implies that we know what war “really” is, and that we have sufficient evidence from the past to allow us to clearly identify its presence or absence. Both of these assumptions are dubious. As discussed in the introduction, I doubt an objective and universally applicable definition of war can be formulated. Rather, the nature of war has varied from culture to culture throughout history, with war meaning different things to different people at different times and places.
What war meant to a Paleolithic forager, an Egyptian pharaoh, or a modern politician, may be quite different things, but that is not to say that those phenomena should not all be seen as warfare. The mother whose son died in a cattle raid in Neolithic Anatolia undoubtedly grieved just as much as the mother of an Iraqi or American soldier killed in the Gulf War; the fact that some modern scholars might be unwilling to say that “primitive” Neolithic raids are “real” war hardly changes the poignancy of the mother's grief (WBC 3–24). But the debate over what “real” war is misses the real point that should be the focus of our attention. Although, using historical methods, we may not be able to answer questions concerning when, where, why, and how war began, we can contribute to the discussion by instead asking: “by what types of evidence can we know that war occurred in the past?” In reality all that we are actually able to discuss is our first evidence for war, not the actual origin of war. The Near Eastern evidence discussed below indicates that war probably existed millennia before the first surviving written texts that describe war. War was already commonplace by the time the first writing appears. Some of our earliest writing describes a mythic or legendary past in which warfare was present, which may thus serve as possible evidence for prehistoric warfare.
We are therefore left with four types of archaeological evidence which may point to the existence of prehistoric war: martial art, weapons, human skeletons with weapon trauma, and fortifications (WBC 36–9). Two of these forms of evidence are not, in fact, helpful in trying to identify the origins of war. Weapons are a dubious indicator, since almost all Neolithic weapons – axe, dagger, spear, javelin, bow, and sling – were also used in hunting and other non-military activities. Thus the presence of a bow may indicate hunting rather than war. (The mace, as discussed below, may be a uniquely militant tool.) A skeleton with weapon trauma is also not conclusive evidence for warfare, since the person may be a victim of murder rather than war. However, the presence of a large number of skeletons with weapon trauma in mass or simultaneous burials is probably conclusive evidence that they died in warfare, though even here it could point to mass execution or ritual human sacrifice. Practically speaking, this leaves us three types of archaeological evidence that can point to the existence of war: art depicting conflict, mass burial of skeletons with weapons trauma, and fortifications. Near Eastern examples of each of these types of evidence will be discussed below. It must be emphasized that, while the presence of these types of evidence should be sufficient to demonstrate that war occurred, their absence does not necessarily demonstrate that war did not occur. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. Many, if not most, wars in ancient Near Eastern history have left no archaeologically discernable evidence that they were fought. Artistic evidence for archaic warfare found in early cave paintings from Late Epipaleolithic or early Neolithic Spain {10,000–6000} show organized humans fighting and killing each other with bows (FA 52–5; OW 20–3). Likewise some Epipaleolithic or early Neolithic mass burials with skeletons with weapon trauma have been found in Germany and at Jebel Sahaba in the northern Sudan (FA 52–3; OW 23–4). Overall, however, such archaeological evidence is quite sparse for periods before the late Neolithic. Warfare clearly existed, but there is no evidence to show it was endemic.
Most arguments for warfare in the Epipaleolithic and early Neolithic periods are in fact based on anthropological analogy. The assumption here, and it is only an assumption, is that human societies go through a sort of evolutionary progress from “bands” of foragers to “tribes”, then “chiefdoms” and finally “states”.2 This is essentially an anthropological model for the evolution of human social and political organization in which it is assumed that human social groups that modern anthropologists classify in certain categories will behave in similar patterns, even though they may be separated by thousands of years or tens of thousands of miles, and have completely different languages, cultures, and religions. Thus, if one finds evidence for warfare in a thirteenth-century CE chiefdom in North America (WBC 68–9), it is seen as evidence that warfare would have similarly occurred in “chiefdoms” in the Near East in 6000 BCE or Africa in 500 CE. Likewise the fact that some twentieth-century CE tribal groups in the Amazon or New Guinea fight wars (FA 56–60), is viewed as evidence that ancient human groups classified by anthropologists as tribes should also have fought wars.3 The problem with this approach is that, while some tribal groups clearly engage in warfare, others do not. Some human groups resolve conflict through arbitration and mediation, others through violence. And the same group might negotiate in one circumstance and fight a war in another. Thus, while anthropology can tell us a great deal about the range of possible human social behavior, it cannot tell us that a specific tribe or town in Anatolia in 5000 BCE did or did not engage in warfare.
My suspicion – and it is only a suspicion – is that war began at least in the Paleolithic times when different foraging clans first began to interact (CB 55–127). Much of this interaction was undoubtedly peaceful and friendly, such as the exchange of goods or intermarriage. If anthropological analogy is any guide, however, it seems likely that conflicts would also have occurred, be it competition for food or other resources, kidnapping women, or personal offense taken for a petty insult. In such circumstances conflict could turn to fighting, and as groups rallied to support and defend their clansmen, fighting could turn into tribal war. A death or injury needed revenge; stolen property or kidnapped women needed to be recovered. This is not to say that wars always occurred between different foraging clans, only that competition and conflict between rival clans created the social circumstances in which tribal wars could occur.
The “military threshold”
Rather than attempting to answer the question of when and why war began through anthropological models, I will take an historical approach and ask two questions: what is our earliest archaeological evidence of warfare (artistic, skeletal, or fortification); and, when do the various regions of the Near East cross what I will call the “military threshold”? By military threshold, I mean the point at which warfare has essentially become endemic in a region, and at which all peoples in a region are forced to militarize their societies to one degree or another. In the Near East this seems to have first occurred as early as the sixth millennium in Anatolia, and is closely related to the culmination of a process we call the Neolithic Revolution.
The Neolithic Revolution4
Epipaleolithic {c. 18,000–8500} human hunting bands had low population density and were scattered in small clans of a few dozen people living in temporary camps and wandering in seasonal migration patterns; as time progressed some of these seasonal camps in ideal ecological zones with plentiful food had the capacity to develop permanent villages with populations in the low hundreds. Anthropological analogy would suggest that Epipaleolithic hunting clans were territorial and could have had periods of competition and conflict with other clans, possibly creating flashes of tribal warfare (AS 39–40; CB; WBC). However, there is little evidence for Epipaleolithic warfare in the Near East.
The Neolithic period in the ancient Near East {c. 8500–4500} witnessed a number of fundamental technological, social, and economic developments which laid the foundation for the eventual crossing of the military threshold. These include the development of the domestication of plants and animals, metallurgy, boats, social stratification, the development of large cities with the capacity for monumental building, the worship of militant gods, and the foundation of warlike royal dynasties. Evidence for the crossing of the military threshold as early as the sixth millennium can be found in weapons, art, and fortification, as well as mythic recollections written down in later periods. Each of these developments was a slow process, taking centuries if not millennia. Some developments occurred earlier or more rapidly in one area than another, but the increasing network of international trade and cultural contacts – developed largely in pursuit of rare and valuable resources such as metal, precious stones, and building wood – meant that developments in one region of the Near East were eventually copied in all others. The cumulative effect was the formation of new human social structures based on the city-state, and the crossing of the military threshold.
Domestication of plants and animals
A fundamental development of the Neolithic period is the domestication of plants and animals. The move from hunting and foraging to domestication seems to have emerged from both ecological and demographic factors. Ecologically there seems to have been an increasing desiccation in the Near East during the Neolithic period, forcing more people to live in progressively smaller regions with the best water and food resources. At the same time we see a rise in population, bringing increasing competition for decreasing resources.
Domestication of plants and animals emerged as strategies to bring greater control and security to food resources, and to intensify the amount of food that could be produced from a given tract of land. Domestication of plants, including wheat, flax, barley, beans and peas, allowed increasing sedentarization in the Near East, with villages becoming permanent sites of habitation and slowly growing in size. Domestication of animals such as cattle, sheep, goats, pigs, and dogs increasingly supplanted hunting and fishing as a major source of food. Initially these developments occurred in upper Mesopotamia, Syria, and Anatolia, where these plants and animals were indigenous in the wild. Eventually these domestication practices moved into the river valleys, where irrigation techniques were first practiced. In the long run, irrigated agriculture in the great river valleys of the Near East would prove far more productive, giving those regions significant agricultural surpluses and laying the foundation for the rise of the large city-states of the late fourth millennium.
A related important development during the early Neolithic that was to have crucial impact on military history was the formation of two symbiotic systems of food production, agricultural and pastoral, which in turn would create two differing social systems: farmers and nomads (AS 68–79, 126–31). Although today nomads as a significant military force in world history have essentially disappeared – largely due to the development of the airplane, motorized transportation, and food and water preservation and storage technologies – the complex interrelationship of cycles of cooperation and conflict between nomad and city formed a constant theme in the military history of the Near East and the world until as late as the early twentieth century CE, when Arab nomads participated in the liberation of Damascus and the fall of the Ottoman Empire in World War One.5
Domestication had a number of significant indirect effects on the military potential of human societies. First, increasing competition for dwindling resources could lead to conflict and, potentially, to militarism. Second, domestication of plants required the new farmers to remain in a single location. Their survival depended on retaining control of their farms. If a forager or nomad band was threatened it could migrate. When a sedentary band was threatened, it could not flee; it had to submit or fight. This basic fact laid the foundation for the eventual development of fortifications and siegecraft. From the military perspective the domestication of the donkey, for which we have evidence by at least the early fourth millennium (EA 2:255), also came to play a significant role in military logistics. As a pack animal the donkey would prove invaluable for collecting and moving surplus resources, trade goods, and for campaign logistics. The full military impact of the domestication of animals will be discussed in Chapter Five.
Agricultural surpluses
Whereas nomads were restricted as to the maximum size of their herds (and hence food surplus) by the carrying capacity of their grazing land, agriculturalists could create large food surpluses simply by planting and harvesting more food than they needed for their families. The ability to produce food surpluses created the possibility for both increasing population and, more importantly, for some of the population to specialize in non-food-producing activities, including warfare. The major problems for agricultural food surpluses were storage and spoilage. These problems were resolved by the development of pottery {seventh millennium}, which, when properly sealed and stored, could preserve grains and other food products for years. The development of pottery permitted storage and transportation of surplus food supplies. Militarily the combination of agricultural surpluses and pottery storage systems laid the foundation for the rise of a specialized warrior class who could control and gather much of a region's food surplus. This, in combination with using donkeys, boats, and eventually carts for transport, created military logistics, with the potential for the extension of military operations in time and space.
Boats
Our earliest evidence for boats comes from Syria in the Upper Euphrates around 5000, where small model boats were discovered at Tell Mashnaqa. These earliest boats were reed canoes covered with pitch and propelled by paddling or punting. Similar models have been discovered at a number of other sites from Iraq in the fifth millennium (AS 167–8; EA 5:30–4). River craft developed on the Nile at roughly the same time. From the military perspective boats facilitated transportation and communication in the two great river valleys, the Nile and Mesopotamia. The ability to move men, supplies, and equipment more easily and cheaply along these great river systems meant that it was easier to exercise military power within the river valleys than outside them. As we shall see, river transportation facilitated the formation of larger, more powerful, and longer lasting military states in the river valleys than outside them. The eventual development of sea-going vessels will be discussed later.
Increasing population
Agricultural surpluses allowed for an increase in both the number and the size of settlements in the Near East throughout the Neolithic period. Rising populations brought increased contact between various Neolithic clans and villages. Contact could be peaceful, involving trade, intermarriage and cultural exchange. On the other hand, competition for resources could create rising tensions, possibly leading to war. Rising population naturally created the possibility for increased army size, and thus larger and more complex campaigns.
Monumental building and fortifications
The development of monumental building in the Neolithic had three components: the ability to mobilize enough manpower to erect monumental buildings; the development of the engineering skills necessary to do so; and a cultural impetus creating the desire to build large communal structures. The earliest form of monumental building in the Near East was the temple, but militarily the building of fortifications is most important. The earliest evidence we have for fortifications will be introduced later, but, generally speaking, fortification building is our clearest indicator that a society has crossed the military threshold. The fact that a people are willing to spend the time and resources necessary to build fortifications implies that they perceive a serious and long-standing military threat, transcending low-level feuding, raiding, or brigandage.
Weapons and the origin of metallurgy {9000–2000}6
There are several important military implications of the development of weapons during the Neolithic period. First, all ancient Near Eastern weapons – with the probable exception of the mace – originated as Neolithic tools. During the Neolithic, weapons and tools were generally made of flint, chert, or obsidian. Basic hunting weapons of the Neolithic – axe, javelin, sling, bow and arrow, dagger, and spear – are found in numerous Neolithic camps and burials. However, each of these tools had both peaceful and military uses: axes for chopping and shaping wood, projectile points for hunting, and knives for domestic cutting of food or other materials. The mere presence of these tools alone is thus not necessarily a clear archaeological indicator of warfare.
All metal weapons were based on stone prototypes. Metal weapons developed different forms during the Bronze Age, but the basic prototypes for Bronze Age metal weapons can be found in Neolithic hunting weapons. The origin of metal-working was one of the most momentous developments in military history, leading ultimately to metal weapons. Although this process originated in Neolithic times, developments continued for several millennia. The earliest evidence for the use of metal dates to the early ninth millennium at Cayonu in Anatolia, in the form of drilled and polished malachite (copper) as ornamental beads. Copper was the early metal of choice because it exists abundantly as a metal in its natural geological context, is easy to polish and drill, and can be hammered into different shapes. For the next three millennia {9000–6000} the only known copper objects continue to be native copper beads and pins; a small four-centimeter awl is the largest known metal object from this period. This type of small ornamental metal-working is sometimes called “trinket metallurgy”. By the sixth millennium this type of trinket copper-working had spread into northern Mesopotamia, Iran and Baluchistan (south-west Pakistan). Additionally, the technique of annealing – heating native copper at low temperatures to facilitate hammering and prevent cracking – also developed during this period, laying the foundation for the eventual smelting of metal. From the perspective of military history, metal-working was irrelevant during the early Neolithic, since all weapons in that period continued to be made of flint, chert, or obsidian (CAM 34). This was to change in the city of Can Hasan in southern Anatolia, however, where a copper shaft-hole mace-head was discovered dating to the sixth millennium, the earliest known metal weapon, and the earliest large metal object in the world (EA 4:5b; CANE 3:1503b; ET 125). It was probably made in imitation of a stone mace. Furthermore, it was found with the skeleton of a man in a house in a level of the city that was destroyed by fire, presumably in war. The mace wielding warrior apparently died in battle defending his doomed home (CAM 46).
The fact that the earliest discovered large metal object was a mace is significant, for the only purpose of a mace is to kill. The mace may be a Neolithic weapon uniquely developed for warfare. The antecedents to the mace are both the club and the axe. The club, in its simplest form of a heavy stick, is probably the earliest human weapon. The Paleolithic axe was formed from binding a sharpened rock to the club. A Neolithic mace is distinguished from the axe in that there is generally no cutting edge on a mace; it is simply a rounded heavy weight fastened to a wooden shaft. In theory a mace could be used for hunting – for dispatching a wounded prey, for example. In practice, however, a knife or an axe would do just as well, for if a hunted prey is already disabled by archery, then any weapon could be used to kill it. Uninjured animals, on the other hand, are generally too fast to be caught and injured by a man with a mace. There is no real reason to design a mace to complement the axe in the Neolithic hunting arsenal. Even if it eventually came to be used by Neolithic hunters, the question is: why make a mace in the first place? Whereas an axe can have a non-military use – chopping wood – the only purpose of a mace is to kill. The mace is specifically designed for smashing things, specifically skulls and bones.
The next phase in Near Eastern metallurgy {5000–3000} was the development of smelting and casting (EA 4:6; CANE 3:1503–6). Copper smelting is first in evidence at Catal Hoyuk in Anatolia in the early sixth millennium, and later at Tall-i-Iblis {c. 5000} and Tepe Ghabristan in Iran {c. 4500}, where a smelting workshop was discovered including crucibles, molds, a furnace and twenty kilograms of copper ore. The oldest known metal spearhead was found in Mesopotamia dating to the early fifth millennium (EA 4:3b). During this period the main metal used for weapon-making was copper or arsenic-copper. Burials at Susa in south-western Iran from the late fifth millennium included 55 copper axes. By the fourth millennium copper smelting and casting was known in Syria, Canaan (Nahal Mishmar), and Mesopotamia as well, where weapons included largely axes, maces, and spearheads. In other words, logically enough, copper smelting and casting began in Anatolia and Iran, where copper was abundant and where earlier copper trinket metalworking had existed for several millennia. Although some early copper objects could have been traded into Mesopotamia and Egypt, copper metallurgy was transmitted as an already fully developed technology into metal-poor Mesopotamia and Egypt, whose new metal industries were completely dependent on imports for their raw materials.
The development of metal weapons is another sign of a probable movement towards the military threshold. For ordinary hunting and household activities, stone tools probably served nearly as well as metal tools. Given the relative expense of the earliest metal objects the average householder would probably not be able to afford a metal axe for chopping household firewood, or a metal tipped javelin for hunting antelope. Eventually, of course, metal tools became common and inexpensive enough that they could be owned by ordinary householders. But initially, metal weapons were rare and expensive, and affordable only by the elites. While an aristocrat might have used a metal javelin for hunting, there seems to be little need for a metal axe, since aristocrats did not cut their own wood. Although it cannot be known for certain, the earliest metal axes, spearheads, and daggers were probably used only by the elites specifically for warfare; the appearance of metal weapons is thus most likely a sign of militarism.
The need for access to metal mines and markets by the emerging metal industries of Egypt and Mesopotamia was one of the driving factors behind Chalcolithic and Bronze Age imperialism (CAM 35). Once a society became dependent on copper, it found itself increasingly drawn to securing access to the needed ores. In Anatolia where there is ample copper ore, this did not create a serious problem. But in Mesopotamia and Egypt, with limited copper resources, the search for metal became an impetus to imperialism, leading emerging city-states to explore and trade to obtain copper and, later, tin. When these peaceful methods proved insufficient or unstable, they would move to raiding, controlling, or conquering metal resources. The search for metal became a spur to imperialism, and the possession of metal-armed armies likewise maximized the possibility for military success in that imperialism.
The third phase in Near Eastern weapon metallurgy is the development of bronze {3000–2000} (EA 4:8–11; CANE 3:1506–7). Copper is a relatively soft metal which doesn't hold an edge well. While useful for making large heavy objects such as maceheads and heavy axes, it is less effective with thinner spearheads, knife blades or projectile points. Alloying roughly 10 percent tin with 90 percent copper created bronze, a much harder alloy that holds a sharpened edge nicely and thus was more useful for bladed weapons and projectile points. The actual tin content of the earliest Near Eastern bronze varied from 2–15 percent. The earliest known bronze objects date to about 3000 in Syria – hence the beginning of the Bronze Age. Bronze was used in Mesopotamia by the twenty-eighth century and in Egypt by 2700. However, throughout the period we call the Early Bronze age {3000–2000}, most metal weapons continued to be made from arsenic-copper rather than tin-bronze (MW 1:182–3). Copper ores with trace elements of arsenic create a melted copper that is less viscous, and hence easier to cast with superior results. Although there are some rare examples of the tin-copper alloy we call bronze, most of the weapons in the Near East during the Chalcolithic and Early Bronze age are in fact arsenic-copper weapons (CANE 3:1505–6). For example, a hoard of metal objects found in Susa dating to roughly 2500 contained forty-eight copper objects, of which six (12 percent) had 2 percent tin, and four (8 percent) had 7 percent tin; none had the 10 percent tin content traditionally associated by modern scholars with true tin-bronze. In other words, four-fifths of the copper objects found in this hoard contained no tin at all, and those with tin were weak bronze alloys.
Another important thing to note is that, throughout the Chalcolithic and Early Bronze ages, stone weapons continued to be used alongside metal weapons. At first metal weapons were undoubtedly rare and precious, used only by the elites – they were weapons for gods and kings. As time progressed, however, the proportion of metal to stone weapons steadily increased, culminating in the Middle Bronze age when we begin to see the overwhelming predominance of metal weapons. Since Near Eastern martial art is nearly entirely the product of the royalty and nobility, depictions of weapons probably tend to show elite rather than common armament. Another characteristic of the Bronze Age weapons industry that may distort our data is the fact that metal was quite valuable and invariably taken as plunder and recycled when damaged. Our finds of metal weapons are not statistically random, but are significantly skewed by the fact that most of them are intentionally buried, either in tombs (generally of the elites), in votive offerings to temples, or in hoards buried for hiding and eventual recovery (EA 4:1–5). The fundamental problem with early bronze-making was that there were no good tin sources in the Near East that were accessible to ancient mining technologies (DANE 292). One source may have been available in the Taurus Mountains, but if it was exploited it produced only a small quantity of tin that was insufficient for the burgeoning demands of the Near East bronze industries. The main source for tin throughout the Early and Middle Bronze ages was Afghanistan (known to the Sumerians as Aratta or Tukrish), which also supplied all of the Near East's lapis lazuli, a highly valued semi-precious stone (EA 4:8–9; CANE 3:1507–9). From the Near Eastern perspective, tin, lapis lazuli and gold were all of roughly equal value. One of the reasons metal armor was not used extensively in the Early and Middle Bronze periods was that it was inordinately expensive. But whereas lapis lazuli and gold were used purely for ornamental purposes, tin had a crucial military purpose as well, being the key ingredient in making superior bronze weapons. The “Tin Road” trade route from Afghanistan to Elam and Sumer thus became a key strategic artery, and by the middle of the third millennium had been firmly established with regular trade. From Mesopotamia tin was shipped, with at least a 100 percent markup in value, to Anatolia, Syria, and ultimately Egypt. The best-documented example of this tin trade is the Assyrian Middle Bronze merchant colony at Kanesh (Nesha) in Anatolia {2000–1750}, where a surviving merchant archive describes shipping 80 tons of tin over a fifty-year period to the city-states of Anatolia from Assyria and originally from Afghanistan (see Chapter Eleven). Throughout the Bronze Age Near East, tin was the strategic resource that was as vital to ancient military systems as oil is to modern armies.
Because of the relative scarcity of tin supplies it was not until the Middle Bronze age {2000–1600} that true tin-bronze became the predominant metal alloy for weapon making. Thus, in a sense, true Bronze Age warfare begins only in the Middle Bronze age. This increase in the overall bronze supply also allowed, for the first time, armies to be equipped entirely with bronze weapons – although the use of non-metal arrowheads seems to have continued, probably because shooting an arrow often meant losing the arrow and bronze arrowheads were still too expensive to lose. By the end of the Middle Bronze period bronze body armor was beginning to appear, but only for the elite chariot warriors. The specific details of the impact of metal weapons on different regions of the Near East will be discussed in subsequent chapters.
Militant gods
The precise nature of the gods worshipped in the Neolithic period is uncertain because of lack of any textual evidence. What is clear, however, is that when writing first appears in the Near East, war-gods were already well established and widely worshipped, as discussed in the following chapters. Given the conservative though syncretistic nature of ancient Near Eastern religions, it is quite likely that the worship of war-gods antedates their first appearance in iconography and texts by at least several centuries. This would place the worship of war-gods in the Near East no later than the mid-fourth millennium in both Egypt and Mesopotamia, and probably much earlier. It is unclear if the worship of militant gods increased militarism among the worshippers, or if a warlike people naturally gravitated towards worshipping warlike gods. Most likely the relationship was symbiotic. However that may be, it is probable that those groups worshipping warlike gods developed militant social institutions and engaged in a higher frequency and greater intensity of warfare. However the worship of militant gods may have first originated, their worship is another sign that a people have probably crossed the military threshold.
Warlike royal dynasties
The creation of a military aristocracy centered around a warlord-king – a ruler with the economic, ideological, and coercive power to mobilize the entire society for war – was a crucial step in the movement to cross the military threshold. Rulers for whom warfare was a means of ideological legitimization, personal aggrandizement, and increasing wealth were rulers who would be more likely to bring cities into war. The alliance of warlord-kings with priests was a key ingredient in the crossing of the military threshold. Priests, speaking in the name of the gods, could legitimize or even command the military endeavors of kings, while plunder from victory in battle would be shared with the gods by donations to the priest-controlled temple institutions.
All of these developments – social, economic, political, technological, and religious – had their origins in the prehistoric Neolithic and Chalcolithic period. By the time writing first appears in Egypt and Mesopotamia, both of those societies had already crossed the military threshold. As Arther Ferrill aptly put it: “as soon as man learned how to write, he had wars to write about” (OW 31). The following sections in this chapter will examine the specific evidence for warfare and militarism in the major regions of the Neolithic Near East.
Neolithic Anatolia {to 11,000–5500}
The early Neolithic in Anatolia {11,000–6500} broadly parallels similar developments throughout the Near East: shift from hunting to village-farming economies, domestication of plants and animals, and development of pottery by around 6500. Most of the Early Neolithic settlements of Anatolia are similar to other contemporary villages in the Near East: small sites with a mixed food-collecting and hunting economy, and no fortifications. Some, like Cayonu {8250–5000} (EA 1:444–7) and Nevali Cori {8300–5000} (EA 4:131–4) in south-eastern Turkey, had monumental communal and religious buildings, indicating that they had sufficient population and social organization to have built fortifications if they had been needed. Their absence implies the lack of a serious and sustained threat. At the early Neolithic site of Hallan Cemi Tepesi a triangular stone mace head was discovered, possibly a war weapon (ET 87).
Fortifications
The famous wall and tower at Jericho {c. 7000} are often considered the oldest fortifications in the world (see p. 29). Jericho, however, was essentially an isolated example of fortress-building designed to respond to a serious but isolated military threat. In Anatolia, on the other hand, we find a cluster of fortified or quasi-fortified sites – Catal Hoyuk (Catal Höyük), Asikli Hoyuk (Asikli Höyük), Kurucay Hoyuk (Kurucay Höyük), and Hacilar – all with fortifications dating to the mid-to-late Neolithic period. The site of Asikli Hoyuk {seventh millennium} in central Anatolia has closely packed houses and a defensive wall of mud brick (EA 1:123–4; PA 187–9). Kurucay Hoyuk {6000–5500} has a late Neolithic fortified stone wall with projecting semi-circular towers (PA 166–72).
Catal Hoyuk (Catal Huyuk) {6500–5500}7
The site of Catal Hoyuk is one of the best preserved in the Neolithic Near East. For the military historian it is notable for both its walls and its wall paintings. The walls at Catal Hoyuk are rather peculiar, and could perhaps be described as protofortifications. Most of the houses are built adjoining one another, sharing walls with other houses, but with no doors between dwellings. The outer walls of the outermost houses of the village thus formed a solid wall surrounding the entire complex (CH 68–9). Individual houses were entered by ladders through holes in the roof, while entry into the village as a whole was made by ladders which were leaned against the outside walls, or through a fortified gate (CH 70). What this effectively created was a walled city which could be defended from the rooftops on the outer perimeter. The outer walls, while certainly a barrier to occasional raiders and brigands, were not much thicker than the interior walls, and would not have offered a serious obstacle to a determined enemy. None the less, an enemy breaking through an outer wall would have access only to a single dwelling. To get to the next dwelling he would have to break through another wall, or climb a ladder up through the roof-door. Catal Hoyuk probably represents a transitional phase in fortification; a first effort to protect a city with minimal additional expenditure of resources and labor. Weapons found at Catal Hoyuk include stone daggers, spearheads, arrowheads, and maces (ET 101; CH 209, 213, §13–15, xiv); although copper trinket metallurgy was known at Catal Hoyuk, all weapons in the late Neolithic were from flint or obsidian.
The earliest substantial Neolithic art of Anatolia – the wall paintings at Catal Hoyuk – do not show explicitly military themes. We do have scenes of men hunting with bows and perhaps slings, weapons which would eventually be turned to warfare.8 Another scene shows a deer hunt with bows and lassos (CH §62). Most of the hunters wear a flowing leopard-skin kilt and are armed with a bow or a club/mace. Between the two hunting scenes is a third scene, which has been interpreted as a hunting dance (CH 174, §61), which is certainly an excellent possibility. It may also, however, represent a war dance or victory celebration, or even a battle. Twelve men are shown in running postures but are facing in different directions. Seven are armed with bow and/or club/mace, five are unarmed. No animals are present, but none of the men seem to be directly confronting each other. What points to a possible military context is that three of the men are headless, and one of the headless men is armed with a bow. One unarmed man stands in the middle, tied to two of the headless men. If the painting represents a hunting dance, as Mellaart believes, why are there headless men, and why are some men tied together? An alternative interpretation is that the scene shows an after-battle victory celebration in which bound prisoners are brought forward and decapitated.
From the military perspective another intriguing wall painting of Catal Hoyuk comes from Room 7, which shows carrion birds hovering over headless bodies (CA 169, §45–9). This has been interpreted as representing the exposure and excarnation of bodies before burial (CH 167–8). The decapitation of the bodies may also relate to the preservation and veneration of ancestral skulls (CH 65–6, 84) such as are found at the “skull house” at Nevali Cori (Nevali Cori) (EA 4:133). On the other hand, the painting in Room 7 may depict the decapitated bodies of enemies killed in battle and left to be devoured by vultures, a military practice memorialized in very early martial art in both Mesopotamia (Stele of Vultures, AFC 190–1, cf. FI §887), and Egypt (Battlefield Palette and Narmer Palette, EWP 29). A different vulture scene shows a man with a bow or sling in one hand and a mace or club in the other standing over a headless body flanked by two vultures (CH §46). Mellaart believes the standing man is “ward[ing] off the two vultures from the small headless corpse” (CH 166), although this runs counter to his overall interpretation of people intentionally exposing the dead to be eaten by vultures (CH 167–8) – why chase the vultures away if you intentionally expose the corpses? A very fragmentary scene shows a man who seems to be carrying a human head, perhaps a war trophy (CH §51). If this military interpretation is correct, the 8000-year-old murals of Catal Hoyuk would be the oldest military victory memorial in the world.
Unfortunately, all of the evidence at Catal Huyuk which I have interpreted from a military perspective is ambiguous. The overlapping exterior walls may be intended for protection, but might also simply be a quirky way to save building materials and time. The mace may be a war weapon, or might be used to dispatch a deer wounded by arrows on a hunt. The headless corpses amid the vultures may be war dead, or may be a form of exposure of the dead known anciently in the Near East, most closely associated with Zoroastrianism and Tibet.9 Dancing armed men may be preparing for the hunt or celebrating victory in battle. These ambiguities make certainty of interpretation impossible.
Hacilar {5700–4800}10
The military interpretation of Catal Hoyuk, given above, is strengthened by the fortifications and destruction levels of the late contemporary site of Hacilar. The originally unwalled village was destroyed around 5500, and rebuilt with a defensive wall 1.5–3 meters thick. It was destroyed again in 5250, and rebuilt with stronger “fortresslike characteristics” (EA 2:449b). It was destroyed again and abandoned around 4800. Can Hasan was also destroyed by fire at roughly the same time (ET 125), leading some to postulate a period of significant military upheaval in the late sixth millennium. In other words, expanding from the proto-fortifications of Catal Hoyuk, true fortified cities appear in Anatolia by the mid-sixth millennium, suffering destruction in war and rebuilding in an even more strongly fortified condition. This is strong evidence that Anatolia had crossed the military threshold at this time.
Warfare in Neolithic Syria {10,000–4000}
The Early Neolithic Period {10,000–6800}11
As elsewhere in the Near East, the Neolithic period in Syria was one of transition from foraging to farming and nomadism through the domestication of plants and animals, presumably in response to ecological change at the end of the Pleistocene period. There are a few surviving signs of militarism in the Syrian Neolithic. Neolithic weapons – flint arrowheads, javelins, knives, and stone axes (AS 19–20, 26–7, 79–80; ED 67, 71, 74) – all had hunting or other domestic functions and are not sure indicators of war. None the less, the discovery of a number of skeletons with embedded projectile points, as well as a burned house with a number of skeletons inside, indicate that violence, and probably warfare, was present in the Neolithic (AS 76–7). An international “arms trade” also makes its first appearance in the early Neolithic, with the development of obsidian trade over hundreds of miles from the volcanic regions in eastern Anatolia into Syria (AS 82). Obsidian creates a finer and sharper edge for tools, and was highly prized by Neolithic peoples. Although most Neolithic obsidian projectile points or blades were not primarily intended for military purposes in the Neolithic, the search for such scarce resources created international trade and contact between scattered groups; competition for these resources was one of the key factors contributing to inter-clan tension, potentially leading to tribal warfare.
As time progressed the number and size of Neolithic villages expanded, increasingly engaging in food production (farming and herding) rather than food gathering. The size of early Neolithic villages in Syria ranged from 1 to 12 hectares, with a population of the largest of these Neolithic villages, such as Abu Hureyra (12 hectares) perhaps reaching 1000 people; the population of most settlements, however, numbered in the hundreds (AS 59). Neolithic villages had enough manpower and social organization to begin to undertake monumental building, such as rough stone walls several meters high and terraced platforms for ritual purposes at Halula and Tell Sabi Abyad {c. 7000} (AS 63–5), roughly contemporary with Catal Hoyuk in Anatolia and Jericho in Palestine. Despite possessing the logistical and organizational capability to build such large stone walls, however, none of these early Neolithic sites seem to have been fortified, pointing to a lack of serious and sustained military threat in the early Neolithic; by 6000 Syria had not yet crossed the military threshold.
Late Neolithic Syria {6800–4000} (AS 99–180)
By around the sixth millennium spreading Neolithic Syrian farming villages began to be integrated into a the broader regional Mesopotamian cultural and agricultural system of the Late Neolithic, subdivided into the Halaf Period {5900–5200} and the Ubaid Period {5200–4000}.12 This phase is characterized by the development of pottery, increasing similarities of material culture throughout different regions (indicating ongoing interregional contacts), numerous scattered small villages, as well as the development of a few large villages of over 1000 people. Some sites, like Bouqras, show signs of organized uniform village planning, perhaps pointing to the beginnings of social hierarchy and emerging elites. Overall, however, the Late Neolithic is characterized by egalitarian, self-sufficient, and autonomous communities.
Like the early Neolithic, the late Neolithic archaeological data presents little evidence of extensive militarism. As its name indicates, the “Burnt Village” level at Tell Sabi Abyad was destroyed by fire around 6000, possibly indicating destruction in military conflict. However, the fire has also been interpreted as a ritual act of destruction; bodies found inside the burned homes had died before the conflagration (AS 112–14, 148). Unfortunately, a burn level at an archaeological site is not certain evidence of warfare, since fires may be started accidentally or even intentionally in non-military contexts. A burial pit at Tepe Gawra contained 24 bodies which seem to have been “thrown into the pit without any attendant ritual” (AS 148); they may have been victims of warfare.
There is evidence of some changes in the nature of archery in the Syrian late Neolithic. It has been suggested that the expanding use of smaller projectile points may represent some type of change in bow technology. The decline in frequency of projectile point finds during the Late Neolithic is probably due to the spread of agriculture leading to the decreasing importance of hunting as a source of food, and therefore a decrease in the practice of archery (AS 128, 132–3). Two Late Neolithic Syrian pots have paintings of archers with quivers in a hunting context (AS 133). We also have the first evidence of the sling in the form of thousands of clay sling bullets (AS 128,132). In the seventh millennium we also find the first evidence of the use of copper in Syria, harbinger of the later development of metal weapons; however, at this period metal objects are only small ornamental objects such as beads (AS 133).
The last phase of the Late Neolithic is known as the Ubaid period {5200–4000} (AS 154–80; M = CAM 53), known for increasing uniformity of pottery styles, housing structure and other aspects of material culture between Mesopotamia and Syria. It has been speculated in the past that this uniformity may be related to migration or even conquest (AS 154), but it must be emphasized that uniformity of material culture does not demonstrate shared ethnicity nor the existence of a single political entity – the existence of Japanese cars in the United States, for example, is not evidence that Japan conquered the United States. It does indicate, however, that the Ubaid was a period of increasing long-distance social and economic contacts. At Ubaid-period Tell Mashnaqa two small clay miniatures of boats were found, the first evidence of riverine sailing on the Upper Euphrates. The actual boats were apparently bundled reed canoes coated with bitumen, similar to those used until recently by the Marsh Arabs of southern Iraq (AS 16–78). The ability to move men and supplies up and down the Tigris and Euphrates rivers would become important factors in later Mesopotamian warfare. The first signs of the use of copper for tools rather than ornamentation also appear; a copper axehead was made in the late Ubaid period, transitional with the following Chalcolithic period (AS 169). Signs of warfare during the Ubaid period in Syria are still relatively rare. None the less, by about 4000 a number of key technologies and practices are in place that will allow the eventual transition across the military threshold.
Neolithic Canaan {8500–4300}13
Before 8500 Syria and Canaan were inhabited by Epipaleolithic hunting and foraging bands known by archaeologists as the Natufian culture. The ecology of the region was wetter then, allowing human occupation of areas which are now deserts. The region was sparsely populated, with humans organized into small kinship-based bands not much larger than a hundred people. There is no evidence of warfare before the Neolithic period, although small-scale tribal conflicts undoubtedly occurred. Hunting technologies developed during the Epipaleolithic {10,500–8500}, which would lay the foundation for warfare in the following millennia. These included the bow and arrow and javelin, with flint or bone projectile points (THL 42). Likewise flint axes and daggers were in use for hunting and domestic purposes, which could also double as weapons if needed.
The beginning of the pre-pottery Neolithic period {8500–6000} is characterized by the transition from food gathering to food production, the rise of permanent dwellings, and new burial practices. It is during this early Neolithic period that the first signs of fortification in the Near East, and indeed the world, appear at the site of Jericho (Tell el-Sultan) in modern Palestine.14 Human settlement at Jericho was based on the perennial springs of the region. Initially foragers were attracted to the rich plant and animal life at the springs, where they built a small shrine and dwelling huts in the Epipaleolithic. By the eighth millennium, however, the development of agriculture had transformed this foraging settlement into a city with a population between 1000 and 3500 (depending on presumed density), which was continuously occupied for nearly 2000 years. During this period the people of Jericho built a massive defensive wall of large unhewn stones, almost three meters wide and four meters high. A deep dry moat eight meters wide was cut in the rock, and a round tower was constructed, measuring 8.5 meters in diameter and 7.7 meters high (FA 76; AW 1:115; THL 45).
The appearance of such massive fortifications a thousand years before fortification in other regions has led some to question their purpose, claiming the walls were designed to protect the community from flash floods out of the wadis to the west. However, it seems dubious that protection from flash floods would require such a massive four-meter-high wall – indeed the ditch alone should have proved sufficient for flood control. The stronger interpretation is that the wall and tower had a military purpose. It is possible that these defensive walls were designed to protect Jericho against rival proto-towns in the region – nearly two dozen proto-towns are known in Canaan and Jordan during this period. But it seems more likely that the walls were designed to defend the community from local raiders who were attracted to the rich springs at Jericho and the food surpluses collected there from their early Neolithic agriculture. Such walls would have been an insuperable barrier to hunting or nomadic clans bent on a quick plundering raid at the oasis. It is likely that the Neolithic fortress of Jericho was built in response to a very specific, local, but ongoing threat, rather than reflecting a rise in regional militarism.
Tools with a possible military function – such as flint axes, knives, and projectile points – are found throughout the region (ALB 46, 50, 52), but no other certain signs of militarism are known in the Neolithic period {8500–4300}. The archaic walls of Jericho remained in use throughout this period, however, and were rebuilt twice; a similar, though less massive wall was found at Beidha (ALB 45). We have no evidence of other fortification building at other Neolithic sites.
Based upon anthropological analogy we can perhaps assume that conflicts arose between rival proto-towns, and between sedentarists and hunting nomads, but such claims remain nothing but assumptions. There was increasing desiccation of the region throughout the Neolithic period. Many sites in the Sinai, Negev (southern Israel), and Jordan, which had flourished in the early Neolithic period, show either significant occupational gaps or complete abandonment during parts of the later Neolithic (ALB 48–9). Whatever the ultimate cause of such declines in settlement – probably a combination of ecological degradation due to both desiccation and overuse of resources – such stress would create the conditions for increasing conflict over decreasing resources, and warfare may have been a catalyst in the abandonment of some of these Neolithic sites.
Neolithic Elam and Iran {7000–3400}15
Only 10 percent of Iran is arable, the rest being mountain, steppe, or desert. Throughout the Neolithic outside of Elam there were only sparse settlements leaving limited archaeological remains. Ancient Elam was roughly coterminous with the modern province of Khuzistan in south-western Iran, a region of flat terrain watered by tributaries of the Tigris with good agricultural potential. The modern province of Fars was also the center of another zone of city building which would give rise to the ancient city-state of Anshan. The mountains of the Zagros, running from north-west to south-east, were home to highland pastoral tribes who would on occasion play an important role in the military history of Mesopotamia. As with the rest of the Near East, evidence for militarism in early Neolithic Iran is slight. It is not until the late fifth millennium that we begin to see sure signs of warfare.
Susa {4300–3400}
The major site showing military activity in Elam was Susa. The region of Susa had been occupied by small Neolithic villages since the eighth millennium. In the late fifth millennium, some of the surrounding Neolithic villages, such as Chogha Mish, were abandoned, perhaps due to warfare. The population seems to have migrated towards larger centers, perhaps for protection, with Susa being adopted as a new regional ceremonial center around 4300.16 The “Apadana” section of Susa I {4300–3800} included a 2.1-meter-thick mud brick wall – four times as thick as the usual walls of the period; this may have served as a citadel for the ruling elite (PAE 46–7). The city had a population of only a few thousand people, serving as a ceremonial center for at least forty surrounding villages. At some point it was destroyed by fire, presumably in warfare, and partially abandoned. Arsenic-copper was smelted during this period, with metallurgical technology stimulated from the Fars highlands (PAE 50). Burials at Susa from the late fifth millennium included 55 copper axes, possibly for elite warriors. On the other hand, military images are notably absent from the seals of Tal-i Bakan during this period (PAE 53).
During the Susa II period {3800–3100}, Susa shows strong cultural relations with Sumer and the city-state of Uruk in Mesopotamia. Political power in Elam was no longer centralized in Susa, but diffused among smaller towns such as Chogha Mish and Abu Fanduweh, each with a population of several thousand. The exact nature of the relationship between Sumer and Elam during this period is a subject of strong debate (PAE 52–67). In the absence of historical documents, the military implications of this relationship cannot be determined, but it is certainly possible that Sumerian military power was exerted in some form in Elam during this period (see pp. 37–9). The abrupt appearance of Uruk-style pottery and proto-writing system at Susa, and more broadly in Elam as a whole, strongly suggests the migration of people from Sumer to Elam – whether as merchants, the courtiers of a married princess, peaceful colonists, or military conquerors is not clear. The question of the overall significance of the “Uruk expansion” will be discussed in Chapter Two.
Anshan (Tel Malyan)17
Anshan, near modern Shiraz in Fars province, had been occupied since 6000 BCE, but the region was sparsely populated before the late fourth millennium. It became a major center of military power during the Proto-Elamite period {3400–2800}, when the city served as the administrative center of the region with a large copper smelting installation, and a probable population of several thousand. Militarily, it is most notable for its massive city walls. Built on a stone foundation and protected by a mud-plaster glacis, the main wall is some five kilometers long, made from brick on a stone foundation. There are two parallel inner walls, indicating an emerging understanding of concentric fortifications. The innermost wall is made of brick and is five meters thick. The walls enclosed an area of 200 hectares, although only a portion of this was occupied. These fortifications made the city the most powerful military bastion east of Mesopotamia. It is unclear if the enemies of Anshan were local nomads and highlanders from within Fars, or outside invaders, but it seems that such massive and sophisticated fortifications would be excessive to deal with occasional bedouin raids.
Neolithic Egypt {to 3500}18
Our understanding of the origins of warfare in Egypt must take into account the ecological transformation of the Sahara from savannah to desert which had occurred by the fourth millennium BC. In the past few decades the emergence of the science of climatology and the history of climates has allowed scholars to more fully understand how past environments differed, often dramatically, from current ecological conditions. Temperature, rainfall and other ecological conditions have fluctuated during the past 20,000 years. During this period the Sahara region has oscillated between dry and wet phases. During the wet phases the Sahara received sufficient rainfall to create a savannah ecology, with a wide range of animals flourishing there (EAE 1:385–9; GP 60–1). Between 7000 and 3500 (late Epipaleolithic and Neolithic) the regions surrounding the Nile Valley that are currently desert were much like the current Sub-Saharan savannah, home to large herds of antelope, ibex, elephant, giraffe, ostrich, and cattle, and to lions (GP 83–112). During this period Egypt and the Sahara were also home to semi-nomadic foragers congregating in seasonal camps following the migration of animals and the natural cycles of the maturation of plants used as food; these foragers also availed themselves of food and other resources from the Nile valley.
Thus, for several thousand years, hunting and herding bands lived seasonally in the savannah surrounding the Nile Valley, and within the Nile Valley itself. Humans in Egypt lived in small hunting and fishing camps, mixed with some proto-agriculture – as witnessed by grinding stones and the microlithic sickles used for harvesting grains. Human settlements in this period were generally temporary seasonal camps. Population was small and societies were probably organized into kinship-based clans.
Although few details are known, it seems probable that these seasonal foragers engaged in tribal warfare. The oldest discovered cemetery in the Nile Valley at Gebel Sahaba in Nubia (northern Sudan) – broadly dated to roughly 12,000–9000 – provides the earliest evidence of tribal warfare, for roughly half of the 59 skeletons at site 117 had flint projectile points among the bones, probably indicating death in battle; some had evidence of multiple healed wounds, perhaps indicating repeated fighting.19 An extended period of drought beginning in the sixth millennium led to the desiccation of the Sahara savannah, stimulating increased migration into the Nile Valley as well as a transformation from food gathering to food production through the domestication of plants and animals {6000–4000}. The hunters and herders who had formerly roamed the once fertile savannah were forced by this desiccation to slowly congregate in the Nile valley, causing mounting competition for increasingly scarce resources. A number of new ideas, technologies, and domesticated plants and animals developed during this period, laying the foundation for Egyptian civilization and its military system.
Rock art from herders in the Eastern Desert also provides evidence of warfare in Egypt by at least the fourth millennium, and probably earlier. A recently discovered vase from Abydos Tomb U–239 {early fourth millennium} depicts four mace-armed warriors with ostrich feathers and animal-tail loincloths executing a band of prisoners (GP 79). A similar mace-armed warrior in a boat is depicted in rock art from near contemporary Wadi Abu Wasil (GP 79). These figures are dressed and armed quite similarly to the figures on the famous “Hunter's Palette”, dating from a few centuries later (GP 96), indicating a widespread use of a common set of tribal military equipment: loincloth, feathered headdress, tails of bulls or other animals as belts, with weapons including spears, bows, maces, and axes, and a tribal banner or totem. All of this evidence implies that low-level tribal warfare was at least occasionally a part of the life of Egyptian hunting clans, an interpretation bolstered by anthropological analogy.
Neolithic Mesopotamia {9000–3500}20
As with the rest of the Near East, there is little evidence for warfare in Neolithic Mesopotamia. The Epipaleolithic period {16,000–9000} is characterized by small foraging bands scattered unevenly throughout the region. The standard tool kit included obsidian blades acquired from eastern Anatolia, indicating some longdistance contacts and exchanges, even if indirect. Most of the excavated sites from this period are in the uplands or highlands. In part this may be because the earliest agriculture developed around the regions where wild wheat and barley grew naturally with normal rainfall. On the other hand, the earliest sites and settlements in the river valleys are buried in three meters or more of silt accumulated over the past eight thousand years, are now beneath the water table (CAM 51–2), and are thus largely inaccessible to archaeologists.
The development of incipient agriculture and domestication in the Early Aceramic Neolithic {9000–7000} began in northern Mesopotamia, Syria, and Anatolia, where wild wheat, barley, goats, and sheep facilitated the transition. Small Neolithic agricultural villages of the period, such as Jarmo (EA 3:208–9), had only a few hundred people, practicing a mixture of herding (sheep and goats), farming (wheat, barley, lentils), and hunting with both flint and imported obsidian weapons.
A number of developments occurred during the Pottery Neolithic phase {7000–5000}. As discussed on p. 18, pottery allowed storage of food surpluses, allowing people more easily to remain at a single site all year, along with increasing the population. Agriculture was becoming more prominent as a source of food, but hunting was still widely practiced. A number of important sites such as Tell Halaf (EA 2:460), Tepe Gawra (EA 5:183–5), and Samarra {6000–5000} (EA 4:472–3) have been excavated from this period, revealing small villages of a few hundred people. In the sixth millennium we see the beginnings of monumental building, mainly small temples. During this period we also see the development of several zones with distinctive pottery styles (CAM 49, 53). The military implications of this fact are unclear, since pottery styles cannot be translated with confidence into either ethnic or political boundaries. None the less, it is clear that during this period there are ongoing contacts throughout Mesopotamia and Syria.
It is during this late Neolithic period that we begin to see the first evidence of warfare in Mesopotamia. Most prominent is the fortification of the site of Tell al-Sawwan near modern Samarra, where around 6000 a thick brick wall and a three-meter-wide moat were constructed to defend the settlement (EA 4:473). Clay sling bullets were discovered at Hassuna, but these could have been used for hunting rather than war. Trinket metallurgy begins to be seen in Mesopotamia in this period.
Ubaid {5000–4000} and early Uruk {4000–3500} periods
The final phase of the Neolithic era in Mesopotamia is called the Ubaid period, after a shared style of pottery and material culture that spreads throughout much of Mesopotamia and Syria. Ubaid-style pottery was also discovered on the north-east coast of Arabia, and in Qatar and Bahrain, indicating that ocean-going vessels existed during the period, initiating the Persian Gulf trade which would culminate in the military expeditions discussed in Chapters Two and Three. This period shows clear evidence of increasing settlement size, social stratification, interregional contacts, and monumental building. The impressive temple complex at Eridu in Sumer shows that communities had the capacity for monumental building during this period (EA 2:258–9; CAM 52), as do the large buildings at Arpachiyeh with stone walls 1.5 meters thick.
None the less, there is still sparse evidence for either fortification or war during this period. Despite its magnificent temple complex, Eridu seems to have been unfortified in the fifth millennium. Eridu may have been a sacrosanct ceremonial center during this period, supported by many surround villages and towns, rather than a politically oriented city-state. Some have suggested that some of the legendary prediluvian kings of the Sumerian Kinglist may have been associated with Eridu in this period (C1/2:107). There is some evidence of war: at the end of the Ubaid period the “Round House” at Tepe Gawra, which seems to have served as a citadel, was destroyed by fire, possibly in war (EA 5:184b). By around 4000 we also see the shift to the Chalcolithic period, where tools and other large objects begin to be made from arsenic-copper. A copper spearhead, the oldest yet discovered, was found in Mesopotamia dating to the early fifth millennium (EA 4:3b). A painting on a bowl from Tepe Jowi shows a man with a bow in one hand and possibly a mace in the other; he wears a loincloth and a feather in his hair (AANE §186). Thus in the Early Uruk period there were a number of behind-the-scenes developments which laid the foundation for the crossing of the military threshold in Mesopotamia that occurred in the Late Uruk period {3500–3000}, discussed in Chapter Two.