Archaeological Site of Caral Proves Warfare Theory False

The Nile, Tigris-Euphrates, and Indus valleys in the Old World and the Valley of Mexico and the mountain and coastal valleys of Peru all have circumscribed agricultural land. Therefore the political development associated with these complex organizations was different than complex societies seen in the Amazon basin.

Carneiro explains that Peruvian coastal societies and the political development present there evolved primarily from fishing for subsistence and then agriculture second. He further quotes Lanning who writes: “To the best of my knowledge, this is the only case in which so many of the characteristics of civilization have been found without a basically agricultural economic foundation”. There were vast resources in Peru societies; however they were concentrated on the limited lands.

Restrictions on the food supply led to competition from the rising populations and ultimately the “occupation of exploitable lands”. This pressure for food resource management resulted in the need for political management. Therefore as Carneiro explains, “We can safely add resource concentration to environmental circumscription as a factor leading to warfare over land, and thus to political integration beyond the village level”.

Caral: The archaeology site that disputes the Warfare Theory

© Mario Salazar

Situated in the Supe River valley, Caral has a number of large buildings including the temple and circular sunken courts. Most likely there were irrigation canals enabling them to farm the arid lands around the river. "The inhabitants of Caral, despite living many miles from the ocean, ate an enormous amount of sea food in their diet. They probably traded their agricultural crops for the marine resources obtained by people living in coastal towns and villages. Despite the large buildings and evidence for long-distance exchange in the Preceramic, there are no tombs or even elaborate houses".~Dr. Barber

At the site of Caral in Peru, warfare did not force the inhabitants to “huddle together for protection” in fear of complete political domination. Furthermore, there’s actually no archaeological records which indicate Caral’s people submitted to a dominated authority because migration to another area wasn’t feasible. There are no weapons of war at Caral nor is there any indication there was conflict. This would of course argue Carneiro’s Environmental Circumscription Theory.

According to Charles Stanish, “settlements that have pyramids, courts, walled plazas, and so forth are considered to be organizationally more complex than politically egalitarian villages.” The problem, however, is that there are no walled structures at Caral. Everything about Caral proves the warfare theory and social stratification leading to any conflicts, null and void. Caral sends the message that “warfare had nothing to do with the formation of complex society, here anyway”. Therefore the search for the beginnings of complexity had to start again.

Source

Stanish, Charles. 2001 The Origin of State Societies in South America. Annu. Rev. Anthropol.  http://www.sscnet.ucla.edu/ioa/stanish/pubs/stanish_2001.30:41–64

Carneiro, Robert: http://mason.gmu.edu/~trustici/archive/ORIGIN.pdf