Dr Hugo Meijer, Honorary Researcher at Lancaster University's Centre for War and Diplomacy (CWD), has recently published a groundbreaking article titled "The Origins of War: A Global Archaeological Review" in Human Nature (Vol. 35, 3, 2024). The article offers an in-depth exploration of one of humanity's oldest and most contentious questions: how old is war?

This article investigates archaeological evidence to evaluate two competing hypotheses regarding the origins of war. The “deep roots” thesis posits that war is an evolved adaptation inherited from our common ancestor with chimpanzees, deeply ingrained in human prehistory. Conversely, the “shallow roots” argument suggests that war is a recent phenomenon arising from the societal changes accompanying the agricultural revolution roughly 12,000/10,000 years ago. Through a comprehensive global review of archaeological records, spanning the emergence of humans in Africa to their dispersal across the Near East, Europe, Asia, Australia, and the Americas, Hugo Meijer provides a nuanced analysis that challenges both extremes.

The findings reveal that neither relentless warfare nor unbroken peace defined prehistoric intergroup relations. Instead, interactions among early human groups displayed remarkable plasticity and variability over time and across regions, posing a significant evolutionary puzzle. This interdisciplinary work invites scholars, policymakers, and the broader public to reconsider entrenched assumptions about the nature of human conflict and cooperation, offering fresh perspectives on one of the most critical debates in the study of human evolution.

Dr Meijer is CNRS Research Fellow, Deputy Director of the Center for International Studies (CERI) at Sciences Po, and founding Director of the European Initiative for Security Studies (EISS). Read more about his work on the CWD's People page.