This slim, attractive volume reproduces the author's Gerrit Heinrich Kroon lecture of the same title, presented in Amsterdam in November 2021. The talk is presented across 39 generously sparse pages, with broad margins, followed by notes and acknowledgements. Included is a short but useful bibliography, reflecting the breadth of the discussion. The volume includes a small number of colour photographs and figures, reflecting the book's simple but elegant aesthetic. Contained within its plain covers is a lively, well-paced and perceptive discussion of the ever-tragic theme of violence, and its evergreen companion, peace. The author presents a concise and critical review of their roles, and a compelling argument for an archaeological perspective on both. This is accompanied by a summation of peace and violence in prehistoric Europe, with a focus on the Neolithic period and Bronze Age. Due to its length, the text is structured into sections, much like a standard, long-form scientific article, rather than chapters.
The text begins with a short, insightful review of how the evidence for prehistoric violence has increasingly been incorporated into broader discussions of violence and peace by scientists of other disciplines, typically with a bent to demonstrating the significance of one or the other, their relationship to present-day society, or as inalienable human traits. Given the significant contribution that archaeological data have made to these discussions, the author rightly wonders how archaeology itself might answer such general questions, given our rather unique temporal and material perspective, and, more critically, whether violence and peace—and their possibly innate nature—are valid or even interesting scientific questions. The remainder of the book concerns two largely self-contained case studies that explore the role of, and relationship between, peace and violence.
The first of these case studies concerns the Linearbandkeramische (LBK) archaeological culture, the peoples of which flourished across Continental Europe during the Neolithic (c. 5500–4900 BC), successfully spreading farming and related aspects from the Middle Danube to Western Europe. The author takes the time to describe LBK subsistence and settlement structure, the possible mechanisms for its success, and its notable archaeological homogeneity across much of Europe. An exceptional long-distance exchange network in stone, shell and other objects is argued to have been central to its operation, creating alliances and defusing competition and rivalry. This is contrasted with the closing centuries of the fifth millennium BC, where significant evidence for inter-group violence appears, such as mass graves, settlement abandonment and the construction of defensive structures, as well as the collapse of exchange networks. This is followed by a short but compelling discussion of how these exchange networks may have been central in mediating the tensions between peace and violence in prehistoric societies. Here, the establishment and maintenance of inter-regional exchange networks is argued to facilitate not only alliances but also the creation of ‘moral communities’ that militate against conflict between groups. In the absence of such networks, any sense of inter-group familiarity may struggle to develop, making violence between unfamiliar peoples more likely.
The second, slightly shorter case study introduces the specialised apparatus for violence that emerged during the ensuing Bronze Age. Of particular note is the development of bronze tools designed specifically for group fighting, such as spears and swords. Whilst the occurrence of violence during this period was not inclusive to their evolution, the emergence of bronze weapons was accompanied by a significant symbolic and social apparatus surrounding their use and display, as part of a so-called pan-European ‘warrior’ identity.
Despite evidence for the operation of similar exchange networks throughout Europe during the Bronze Age, it appears that any imagined ‘moral communities’ were circumvented by the development of specialised warriors, gifted with the cosmological authority to inflict violence on others. As a consequence, alternative mechanisms for de-escalating tensions between groups may have developed, which the author links to the common act of disposing of weapons in special locations across the landscape.
An abundance of grim evidence for violence, of varying kinds and degree, is provided for each of the case studies. Rather than presenting violence (or peace) as comprising a necessarily innate or functional quality in society, however, the author mindfully addresses the issue in terms of a broad moral question: how it is possible that people who are able to live peacefully with each other at one moment, can kill each other the next? This shifts the focus from such things as ‘origins of warfare’ to an essential tension between cooperation and competition, how different societies have struggled to mediate between the two, and tragic instances where such maintenance breaks down. Less a struggle for peace over war, as Lennon would have it, but rather an ever imperfect ‘Tug of War’ between the two, as McCartney sang.
The reality of such breakdowns in this mediation between peace and violence lands with considerable force in respect of the first case study. It does so not because of supposed entrenched views that the Neolithic was a peaceful archaeological period, but because of the emphasis the author places upon describing the day-to-day life and activities of the people involved, marking the emergence of increasing violence—and the form it took—as especially tragic. Had equal space been given to also describing the quotidian life of Bronze Age communities, for which the Netherlands has remarkable evidence, rather than detailing the role of ‘warriors’ and their cosmological significance, the blow would have perhaps landed with a greater ferocity than it does in the second case study.
The author has provided a strong thesis regarding the role that inter-regional interaction likely played in mediating violence in prehistory. This is an excellent contribution to the growing body of literature on the occurrence and role of violence and peace in the past, being both critical and bipartisan, and grounded in two genuinely interesting and well thought-out case studies.
As the book received only a limited print run, the publication can be read and downloaded through the OAPEN foundation's website, and I encourage the interested reader to do so.
