Fear of war caused the European Neolithic population to fluctuate

Aug. 28 () –

Indirect impacts of wars could have caused significant and long-term population fluctuations in non-state societieslike Neolithic Europe (between 7000 and 3000 BC).

Wars and conflicts not only cause direct victims, but also create an atmosphere of anguish and fear. This fear, by affecting where and how people settled, could have substantially influenced the way the population developed in Europe, as shown in a study published in the Journal of the Royal Society Interface.

Since the end of the last Ice Age, human population growth has been far from uniform, marked by periods of rapid expansion followed by steep declines. The reasons behind these fluctuations are still partly not understood.

Previous research by CSH (Complexity Science Hub Vienna) scientists Peter Turchin, Daniel Kondor and an international team of collaborators has shown that social conflicts, instead of environmental factors (or in addition to them), could have significantly affected these patternsNow, they add another piece to the puzzle.

“Worldwide, scientists have widely studied and debated the presence and role of conflict in prehistory. However, estimating its effects, such as those affecting population numbers, remains difficult,” explains Daniel Kondor of the CSH. “This is further complicated by possible indirect effects, such as people, out of fear, leave their homes or avoid certain areas.”

“Our model shows that fear of conflict led to population declines in potentially dangerous areas. As a result, people concentrated in safer places, such as hilltops, where overpopulation could lead to higher mortality and lower fertility,” explains Kondor.

The continued threat would prevent settlement of much of the remaining land. Co-author Detlef Gronenborn from the Leibniz Centre for Archaeology (LEIZA) in Mainz, Germany, says: “The results of the simulation studies are in perfect agreement with empirical evidence from archaeological fieldwork, such as the late Neolithic site of Kapellenberg near Frankfurt, which dates to around 3700 BC.

“As there, we have many examples of temporary abandonment of open agricultural land, associated with a withdrawal of groups to well-defendable places and considerable investments in large-scale defense systems such as walls, palisades and ditches.”

“This concentration of people in specific, often well-defended locations could have led to increased wealth disparities and political structures that accounted for these differences,” adds Peter Turchin of CSH. “In that way, indirect effects of conflict could also have played a crucial role in the emergence of larger political units and the rise of early states.”

To simulate population dynamics in Neolithic Europe, researchers They developed a computational modelTo test the model, they used a database of archaeological sites, analysing the number of radiocarbon age measurements from various locations and time periods, under the assumption that this reflects the scale of human activities and therefore, ultimately, population numbers.

“This allows us to examine the typical amplitudes and timescales of population growth and decline across Europe,” Kondor explains. “Our goal was to have our simulation reflect these patterns.”

In the future, the model could help interpret archaeological evidence, such as signs of overpopulation or land-use patterns, which in turn can provide the context and data needed to further improve the model. This is a typical example of interdisciplinary collaboration that CSH aims to foster.

“Using complexity science methods, we develop mathematical models to analyse the rise and fall of complex societies and identify common factors,” Turchin explains. This involves collecting large amounts of historical data, managed in specialised databases such as the Seshat Global History Databank.

“To obtain the most complete picture possible, direct collaboration with archaeologists is of utmost importance. This study is a great example of the potential that such interdisciplinary collaboration can have,” Kondor stresses.