Data from: Violence in the prehistoric period of Japan: the spatiotemporal pattern of skeletal evidence for violence in the Jomon period

Whether man is predisposed to lethal violence, ranging from homicide to warfare, and how that may have impacted human evolution, are among the most controversial topics of debate on human evolution. Although recent studies on the evolution of warfare have been based on various archaeological and ethnographic data, they have reported mixed results: it is unclear whether or not warfare among prehistoric hunter–gatherers was common enough to be a component of human nature and a selective pressure for the evolution of human behaviour. This paper reports the mortality attributable to violence, and the spatio-temporal pattern of violence thus shown among ancient hunter–gatherers using skeletal evidence in prehistoric Japan (the Jomon period: 13 000 cal BC–800 cal BC). Our results suggest that the mortality due to violence was low and spatio-temporally highly restricted in the Jomon period, which implies that violence including warfare in prehistoric Japan was not common.人类是否天生具有从凶杀到战争的致命暴力倾向，以及此类暴力可能对人类演化产生的影响，是人类演化研究领域最具争议的论题之一。尽管近期针对战争演化的研究依托多样的考古学与民族志数据开展，但所得结果莫衷一是：史前狩猎采集群体中的战争是否足够普遍，足以成为人类天性的组成部分，并对人类行为演化构成选择压力，目前仍无明确结论。本研究借助日本史前绳纹时代（Jomon period，公元前13000 cal BC–800 cal BC）的骨骼遗存，对古代狩猎采集人群中暴力致死的死亡率及由此展现的暴力行为时空分布模式进行了分析。研究结果表明，绳纹时代的暴力致死率较低，且暴力行为的时空分布具有极强的局限性，这意味着史前日本地区包括战争在内的暴力行为并不常见。