TPO – Ancient skeletons and mummies left from the Atacama Desert in present-day Chile show evidence of a rise in extremist violence tied to the rise of agriculture, a new study suggests.
The team analyzed the remains of 194 people who lived between 1000 BC and AD 600 in the Atacama Desert, and found that while violence was more common at the time of the transition to agriculture, it persisted even after farming villages had existed for hundreds of years. Violence was directed at both men and women.
A new study of a mummified woman shows signs of torture. The skin on her face was stretched so tight that her “mouth” was pulled up higher than it would have been naturally. The researchers wrote in a study published in the monthly issue of the Journal of Anthropological Archaeology that this may have been a “deliberate act, occurring at the time of death while the skin was still fresh and causing extreme pain.”
The researchers write in this study that it is possible that farming, leading to permanent settlement, population growth, territorial claims, new health problems and social inequalities… completely changed the way communities interacted with each other, causing social tension, conflict and violence.
Before agriculture developed, ancient people along the coast of the Atacama Desert spent about 9,000 years hunting, fishing, and gathering. But about 3,000 years ago, the desert’s inhabitants began growing crops and raising livestock.
While larger settlements took root in some Andean regions around this time, such as at Caral-Supe on the central coast and Chavín in the central sierra, villages in the hyperarid Atacama remained small, possibly because there was not enough fertile land and water to foster more growth.
In addition to competing for limited resources, it is possible that the ancient people of the Atacama Desert engaged in cycles of violence, just as the Hatfields and McCoys did, said James Watson, associate director and curator of bioarchaeology at the Arizona State Museum and professor of anthropology at the University of Arizona.