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.

人类是否倾向于从凶杀到战争的各类致命暴力行为，以及此类行为可能如何影响人类演化，是人类演化研究领域最具争议的辩论议题之一。尽管近期针对战争演化的研究依托各类考古学与民族志数据展开，但所得结果并不一致：史前狩猎采集群体间的战争是否普遍到足以成为人性的组成部分、并对人类行为演化构成选择压力，目前尚无明确定论。本研究以日本史前绳纹时代（Jomon period：公元前13000 cal BC至公元前800 cal BC）的骨骼遗存为证据，分析了古代狩猎采集社会中暴力导致的死亡率，以及由此揭示的暴力行为时空分布模式。研究结果表明，绳纹时代因暴力引发的死亡率较低，且暴力行为的时空分布高度受限，这意味着史前日本境内包括战争在内的暴力行为并不常见。