[lbo-talk] War (was Conservatism)

c b cb31450 at gmail.com
Sun Sep 20 09:59:59 PDT 2009


Chris Doss -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Is there any evidence that there has ever been a pre-war society? As opposed to particular societies of various forms that did not engage in war? Switzerland hasn't had a war in hundreds of years, whereas the Inuit exterminated the skraelings.

^^^^^

CB: Yes. War is something states do. Pre-state societies have fighting , but not war.

This article doesn't seem to agree with you about the Inuit exterminating the Skraelings/Thule people. Rather it says the Thule are the Inuit's ancestors.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thule_people

Skræling
>From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Skræling (plural skrælingar) is the name the Norse Greenlanders used for the Thule people whom they encountered in Greenland. When they traveled to present-day Newfoundland ("Vinland"), the Norse used the same term for the inhabitants (possibly the ancestors of the later Beothuk) of North America.

Thule people

The Thule (pronounced /ˈtuːliː/) or proto-Inuit were the ancestors of all modern Inuit. They developed in coastal Alaska by AD 1000 and expanded eastwards across Canada, reaching Greenland by the 13th century.[1] In the process, they replaced people of the earlier Dorset culture that had previously inhabited the region. The appellation "Thule" originates from the location of Thule (in 1953 relocated to Qaanaaq) in northwest Greenland, facing Canada, where the archaeological remains of the people were first found at Comer's Midden. The links between the Thule and the Inuit are biological, cultural, and linguistic.

[edit] History

Thule archaeological siteThere is good evidence to support the idea that the Thule (and the Dorset, but to a lesser degree) were in contact with the Vikings, who touched the banks of what is now modern Canada in roughly AD 1000. Some Thule migrated southward, in the "Second Expansion" or "Second Phase". By the 13th or 14th century, the Thule had occupied an area currently inhabited by the Central Inuit, and by the 15th century, the Thule replaced the Dorset culture. Intensified contacts with Europeans began in the 18th century. Compounded by the already disruptive effects of the "Little Ice Age" (1650-1850), the Thule communities broke apart, and the people were henceforward known as the Eskimo and, later, Inuit.

[edit] Culture

Inuk pointing out Thule site, 1995Known for using slate knives and toggling harpoons, the Thule subsisted primarily on marine animals—especially large sea mammals—and resources.

Thule winter settlements usually had one to four houses with around ten people. Their houses were made of whale bones from summer hunts. Other structures included kill sites, food caches, and tent encampments. Some major settlements may have had more than a dozen houses, although not all were inhabited at the same time by the fifty residents.



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