The DOI matches its Crossref record.
The monopolisation of violence: booms and busts of prehistoric violence linked to social inequalities
Abstract
In a study on the occurrence of trauma in prehistoric graves in Central Europe, evidence of violence over a period of more than 6000 years is presented diachronically for the first time. Ups and downs in the trauma sequence are recognisable in over 23,000 graves. Comparing it to our proxies for social organization of prehistoric societies, an inverse relationship appears: the higher the levels of social inequality are the lower are the signals of violence. We interpret this as an expression of a a monopolisation of violence through political power. In addition to fluctuations in the intensity of violence, the long-term trend indicates an overall reduction in violence at least until the early modern period.
Overview
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Verification
Claims the paper makes
Claims other papers make about this one
Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?
Paleopathological data indicate declining per-capita skeletal injury relative to Neolithic peaks associated with enclosure building and the onset of copper metallurgy; injury frequencies drop toward the Late Neolithic and into the Bronze Age even as fortifications increase.
“Although Bronze Age swords proliferate materially, paleopathological data indicate declining per-capita skeletal injury relative to Neolithic peaks associated with enclosure building and the onset of copper metallurgy; injury frequencies drop toward the Late Neolithic and into the Bronze Age even as fortifications increase (Müller et al. 2024).”
From Comparing Connectivity Patterns in Prehistoric Germany by Means of Network Analysis, Artefact and Site Distribution and a Reassessment of Human Mobility ( 87 Sr/ 86 Sr) (2026) · cites this paper as Müller et al. 2024
This decoupling between armed display and bodily trauma suggests changing conflict regimes, deterrence, strategies for conflict resolution ritualized combat, or alliance maintenance, rather than uniformly escalating interpersonal violence.
“This decoupling between armed display and bodily trauma suggests changing conflict regimes, deterrence, strategies for conflict resolution ritualized combat, or alliance maintenance, rather than uniformly escalating interpersonal violence (Kneisel et al. 2024, Müller et al. 2024).”
From Comparing Connectivity Patterns in Prehistoric Germany by Means of Network Analysis, Artefact and Site Distribution and a Reassessment of Human Mobility ( 87 Sr/ 86 Sr) (2026) · cites this paper as Müller et al. 2024
Citations
Cited by
Sorted by citations
Schjerven, N., Bilotti, G., Kempf, M., & Reiter, S. S. (2026) · OPEN Archaeology · doi:10.1515/opar-2025-0077
Self-citation
Metadata
- Authors
- Müller, J., Bilotti, G., Skorna, H., Wilkes, F., Kruckenberg, C., Duffy, P., Hofmann, R., & Kneisel, J.
- Affiliations
- Institute of Prehistoric and Protohistoric Archaeology, Kiel University
- Kiel University
- Published
- 2024-08-16
- Cited by
- 2
- References
- 0
- Type
- Preprint
- Funders
- Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (EXC 2150 - 390870439, CRC 1266)
- European Research Council (9120 41)
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review
