‘Modern humans as violent as their ancestors’

Washington: Modern civilisation has not dulled humankind’s bloodlust or reduced violence, but living in a large, organised society increases the likelihood of surviving a war, scientists say.

While larger, modernday societies may have a larger number of soldiers or combatants who die, they represent a smaller percentage of the total population, researchers said. People who live in modern-day nations are not less violent than their ancestors or people who currently live in smallscale hunting, gathering and horticultural societies. “Rather than being more violent, people who live in small-scale societies are more vulnerable to a significant portion of their community being killed in warfare than those living in states because, as the old saying goes, ‘there is safety in numbers’,” said Dean Falk, from the Washington University Medical School in the US.

“We recognise, of course, that people living in all types of societies have the potential not only for violence - but also for peace,” said Falk.

The study, published in the journal Current

People who live in modern-day nations are not less violent than their ancestors, but living in a large, organised society increases the likelihood of surviving a war Anthropology, found that war deaths for both smallscale and more modern state societies escalate upward with increasing population sizes.

Part of that is because of the innovations in weapons and military strategies associated with modern life.

Instead of stone axes, there are now fighter planes and more sophisticated weaponry.

The findings challenge the idea that as nations and modern societies develop, there is a reduction in violence and war deaths, Falk said.

In this study, researchers analysed data on population sizes and death from intergroup conflicts in 11 chimpanzee communities, 24 human nonstates, 19 countries that fought in WWI and 22 countries that fought in WWII.