[ExI] Human Warfare is learned behaviour - not evolutionary

[BillK]

On Thu, 20 Aug 2020 at 17:54, Bill Hibbard via extropy-chat
<extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
>
> I'm skeptical. Early humans needed a strong motive to leave
> Africa, where food was plentiful, and travel across and to
> much more difficult environments (deserts, the arctic).
>
> I believe the motive to migrate was to escape warfare,
> especially raids between villages to capture women. I read
> one anthropologist who estimated that primitive men who
> killed had, on average, three times as many children as men
> who did not kill. I believe warfare exists among chimps.
> _______________________________________________


The expansion out of Africa was in prehistory so there is much
speculation about this movement.
Certainly it wasn't one event. Small groups moved over 100,000+ years.
Some people think erratic climate changes may have played a part.
Hunter gatherers have a range of about 5-10 miles, so over thousands
of years they could gradually move out of Africa as their range
changed. Maybe the valley over the hill just looked more attractive?
Warfare wouldn't happen until the population was large enough that one
group wanted to take over an already occupied territory. And anyway
hunter gatherers would probably find better food in an area where
humans were not already present.
For prehistory there is no end to making up stories!  :)


BillK