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Science 5 June 2009:
Vol. 324. no. 5932, pp. 1293 - 1298
DOI: 10.1126/science.1168112
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Research Articles

Did Warfare Among Ancestral Hunter-Gatherers Affect the Evolution of Human Social Behaviors?

Samuel Bowles1,2

Since Darwin, intergroup hostilities have figured prominently in explanations of the evolution of human social behavior. Yet whether ancestral humans were largely "peaceful" or "warlike" remains controversial. I ask a more precise question: If more cooperative groups were more likely to prevail in conflicts with other groups, was the level of intergroup violence sufficient to influence the evolution of human social behavior? Using a model of the evolutionary impact of between-group competition and a new data set that combines archaeological evidence on causes of death during the Late Pleistocene and early Holocene with ethnographic and historical reports on hunter-gatherer populations, I find that the estimated level of mortality in intergroup conflicts would have had substantial effects, allowing the proliferation of group-beneficial behaviors that were quite costly to the individual altruist.

1 Santa Fe Institute, 1399 Hyde Park Road, Santa Fe, NM 87501, USA.
2 University of Siena, Siena 53100, Italy. E-mail: samuel.bowles{at}gmail.com

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THIS ARTICLE HAS BEEN CITED BY OTHER ARTICLES:
Cooperative breeding in South American hunter-gatherers.
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Proc R Soc B 276, 3863-3870
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On Becoming Modern.
R. Mace (2009)
Science 324, 1280-1281
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