Steven A. LeBlanc | |
|---|---|
 Steven A. LeBlanc in his office | |
| Born | 1943 (age 80–81) |
| Occupation | Archaeologist |
Steven A. LeBlanc (born 1943) is an American archaeologist and former director of collections at the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology at Harvard University's Peabody Museum. [1]
He is the author a number of books about Southwest archeology and prehistoric warfare. [1]
The primary cause of war, as LeBlanc sees it, is ecological imbalance; humans compete for finite amounts of food when population outstrips supply or when the land becomes overgrazed and deforested. Conflict flash points-the Middle East and the Balkans, for instance-have a "long history of ecological stress and degradation."
LeBlanc argues that ecological balance was rarely the norm, even in pockets of paradise. One might expect, for example, that the inhabitants of Tikopia, a remote island in the South Pacific, would make fine stewards of their natural environs. But even they repeated the historical theme: "A few people occupy the...land, they exterminate many species, they heavily modify the landscape, and their numbers grow. They never remain in anything approaching ecological balance."
And the impulse to conduct warfare goes all the way back to our primate precursors. "Our closest ape relatives," he says, have always engaged in ferocious acts of warfare, chillingly reminiscent of human conflict (as Jane Goodall observed among chimpanzees in the jungles of Tanzania in the 1960s).
As humans evolved, violence was the norm; the myth of the "noble savage", is a distinctly modern invention (first advanced by Jean-Jacques Rousseau and his followers in the 18th century). Skeletal remains of humans from sites all over the world reflect horrific violence. At burial locations of the ancient Aborigines of Australia-hunter-gatherers with no permanent settlements-we find "evidence of violent deaths and even massacres, and specialized weapons useful only for warfare."
The replacement of foraging by farming, a development that occurred sometime around 10,000 B.C. in what is now, ironically enough, Iraq, placed a great many stresses on the environment. As populations began to rise, natural resources were increasingly exploited. Thus warfare, in the age of emergent agriculture, "became more common and deadly than forager warfare."
LeBlanc does not believe that humans are genetically precluded from peaceful coexistence. "As long as resource scarcities continue in many parts of the world," he writes, "I expect conflict based on competition over resources to continue, even if it is sometimes disguised as ideological. This does not doom us to a future of war any more than our past dooms us to a future of heart attacks." But "if we do not strive to understand what we have done in the past and why," he says, "it will only make it harder to get it right in the future." [2]
Azar Gat expresses similar arguments in the first chapters of War in Human Civilization (Oxford UP, 2006). [3]
Adolph Francis Alphonse Bandelier was a Swiss and American archaeologist who particularly explored the indigenous cultures of the American Southwest, Mexico, and South America. He immigrated to the United States with his family as a youth and made his life there, abandoning the family business to study in the new fields of archeology and ethnology.
Mogollon culture is an archaeological culture of Native American peoples from Southern New Mexico and Arizona, Northern Sonora and Chihuahua, and Western Texas. The northern part of this region is Oasisamerica, while the southern span of the Mogollon culture is known as Aridoamerica.
Jesse Walter Fewkes was an American anthropologist, archaeologist, writer, and naturalist.
Alfred Vincent Kidder was an American archaeologist considered the foremost of the southwestern United States and Mesoamerica during the first half of the 20th century. He saw a disciplined system of archaeological techniques as a means to extend the principles of anthropology into the prehistoric past and so was the originator of the first comprehensive, systematic approach to North American archaeology.
The Cochise tradition is the southern archeological tradition of the four Southwestern Archaic traditions, in the present-day Southwestern United States.
Alfred Marston Tozzer was an American anthropologist, archaeologist, linguist, and educator. His principal area of interest was Mesoamerican, especially Maya, studies. He was the husband of Margaret Castle Tozzer and father of figure skating champion Joan Tozzer.
The Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology is a museum affiliated with Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1866, the Peabody Museum is one of the oldest and largest museums focusing on anthropological material, with particular focus on the ethnography and archaeology of the Americas. The museum is caretaker to over 1.2 million objects, some 900 feet (270 m) of documents, 2,000 maps and site plans, and about 500,000 photographs. The museum is located at Divinity Avenue on the Harvard University campus. The museum is one of the four Harvard Museums of Science and Culture open to the public.
Harriet Siliman Cosgrove (1887–1970) was an archaeologist trained in the Southwestern United States. Her fascination for archeology first started when she moved to Silver City, New Mexico, in 1906 with her husband Cornelius.
Cornelius Burton ("Burt") Cosgrove (1875–1936) was a self-trained archaeologist in the Southwestern United States. He was married to Harriet, the other half of the dynamic non-professional Cosgrove archeology unit.
Denver Fred Wendorf was an American archaeologist known primarily for his groundbreaking research in northeast Africa. He also founded the Fort Burgwin Research Center and Department of Anthropology at Southern Methodist University, where he was Henderson-Morrison Professor of Prehistory. He won numerous awards throughout his career and was a member of the United States National Academy of Sciences.
John Otis Brew, was an American archaeologist of the American Southwest and director at the Peabody Museum at Harvard University. Many of his publications are still used today by archaeologists that conduct their work in the American Southwest. J.O. Brew was a titan in the world of archaeology for his attempts to "preserve our archaeological heritage".
Wirt Henry Wills is an American Southwest archaeologist and a Professor of anthropology at the University of New Mexico. He has written numerous papers and books on the archaeology of the prehistoric southwest. He is most notable for investigations and excavations in or near New Mexico, including: the prehistoric site at Bat Cave in Catron County, New Mexico, the Mogollon Su site in western New Mexico and Pueblo Bonito located in Chaco Culture National Historical Park.
War Before Civilization: the Myth of the Peaceful Savage is a book by Lawrence H. Keeley, a professor of archaeology at the University of Illinois at Chicago who specialized in prehistoric Europe. The book deals with warfare conducted throughout human history by societies with little technology. In the book, Keeley aims to stop the apparent trend in seeing modern civilization as bad, by setting out to prove that prehistoric societies were often violent and engaged in frequent warfare that was highly destructive to the cultures involved.
The NAN Ranch Ruin site is a Late Pit-house and Classic Mimbres village located along the Mimbres River, at Dwyer, New Mexico and the NAN Ranch was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1988. It was occupied by Mimbreños from about 600 to 1140 and is considered an early Mogollon culture site.
The Hemenway Southwestern Archaeological Expedition occurred between 1886 and 1894 in the American Southwest. Sponsored by Mary Tileston Hemenway, a wealthy widow and philanthropist, the expedition was initially led by Frank Hamilton Cushing, who was replaced in 1889 by Jesse Walter Fewkes. It was considered to be a major scientific archaeological expedition, notable for the discovery of the prehistoric Hohokam culture.
Swarts Ruin, also known as the Swarts Ranch Ruin, is an archaeological site in New Mexico's Mimbres Valley excavated from 1924 to 1927 by Harriet S. ("Hattie") Cosgrove and Cornelius B. ("Burt") Cosgrove.
Anthony Hanna Berlant is an American artist who was born in New York City. He attended the University of California, Los Angeles, where he received a BA (1961) and MA (1962) in painting and an MFA (1963) in sculpture. He has a large collection of Southwestern Native American art, especially Mimbres pottery and Navajo rugs. He lives and works in Santa Monica, California.
Astialakwa was a prehistoric and historic village built by the ancestral Puebloan people located within the Astialakwa Archeological District, in an area now known as the Jemez Springs area of Northern New Mexico. The archeological area is on the National Register of Historic Places. The location is restricted from access.
Erik Kellerman Reed, was an American archaeologist in the US National Park Service. He conducted his field work in the U.S. Southwest region, and much of his work focused on skeletal remains.
Constant Battles: Why we fight is a book by Steven LeBlanc, a professor of archaeology at Harvard University who specializes in the American Southwest. The book explores the myth of the "noble savage", and demonstrates a long pattern of violence through human history from nearly all parts of the globe.
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