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The prehistory of warfare and inter-personal violence
| The past two decades have seen significant transformations in the ways in which archaeologists have perceived inter-personal violence in past societies. Prehistoric archaeology in particular provides a unique long-term perspective on the development and institutionalisation of violence in human societies. Evidence can be drawn from a range of sources, including material culture, settlement patterning, iconography and (crucially) patterns of trauma in human remains. The interpretation of such evidence remains inseparable from wider contextual understandings of prehistoric social forms and practices. With regard to studies of violence, archaeological understandings are guided to a significant extent by the work of cultural anthropologists studying more recent non-state societies. This paper considers the specific role of archaeological evidence in establishing a broader historical context for the study of violence.
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