Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-fbnjt Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-14T04:35:35.507Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Nineteenth-Century Arrow Wounds and Perceptions of Prehistoric Warfare

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

George R. Milner
George R. Milner*
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology, Pennsylvania State University,University Park, PA 16802
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

In recent years, prehistoric warfare has increasingly attracted the attention of archaeologists in North America, much like other parts of the world. Skeletons with several forms of trauma, including arrow wounds, are often used as evidence of intergroup conflict, although opinion is divided over what these casualties might mean in terms of the effect of warfare on everyday life. Information on 191 patients from the nineteenth-century Indian Wars in the American West indicates that only about one in three arrows damaged bone, and as many as one-half of wounded lived for months or years following their injuries. Arrow wound distributions vary among Indian Wars cases, modern Papua New Guinea patients, and prehistoric skeletons from eastern North America, in large part because of differences in how fighting was conducted. Despite arguments to the contrary, it is reasonable to infer that even low percentages of archaeological skeletons with distinctive conflict-related bone damage indicate that warfare must have had a perceptible impact on ways of life.

Résumé

Résumé

En años recientes, el interés de los arqueólogos en Norte América por la guerra prehistórica se ha incrementado gradualmente, al igual que lo ha hecho en otras partes del mundo. Con frecuencia se utilizan esqueletos con diversas formas de trauma, incluyendo heridas de flecha, como evidencia de conflicto intergrupal, aunque se expresan distintas opiniones con respecto a lo que tales víctimas pueden representar en términos del efecto de la guerra en la vida diaria. Información procedente de 191 pacientes de las Guerras Indias del siglo XIX en el Oeste Americano, indica que sólo una de tres flechas llegaba a dañar el hueso y que cerca de la mitad de los heridos sobrevivía a sus lesiones. Las distribuciones de heridas de flecha varían entre los casos de las Guerras Indias, los pacientes de la moderna Papua Nueva Guinea y los esqueletos prehistóricos del este de Norte América, debido en gran parte a la manera en que los enfrentamientos eran conducidos. A pesar de los argumentos que apoyan lo contrario, resulta razonable inferir que incluso bajos porcentajes de esqueletos arqueológicos que presentan daño óseo relacionado a conflicto, indican que la guerra debe haber tenido un impacto sensible en sus modos de vida.

Type
Reports
Information
American Antiquity , Volume 70 , Issue 1 , January 2005 , pp. 144 - 156
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for American Archaeology 2005

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

References Cited

Anonymous, n. d. Named Campaigns—Civil War. Center of Military History, United States Army, Washington, D. C. Electronic document, www.army. mil/cmh-pg/reference/cwcmp.html, accessed December 23, 2003.Google Scholar
Anonymous, 1989 American Military History. Center of Military History, United States Army, Washington, D. C. Electonic document, www.army.mil/cmh-pg/BOOKS/amh/amh-toc.html, accessed December 23, 2003.Google Scholar
Anonymous, 2003 America's Wars. Office of Public Affairs, Department of Veterans Affairs, Washington, D. C. Electronic document, www.1.va.gov/Pressrel/amwars.htm, accessed December 23, 2003.Google Scholar
Bill, Joseph H. 1862 Notes on Arrow Wounds. American Journal of the Medical Sciences 88:365–387.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bill, Joseph H. 1882 Sabre and Bayonet Wounds; Arrow Wounds. In The International Encyclopedia of Surgery: A Systematic Treatise on the Theory and Practice, edited by Ashhurst, J., pp. 101–118. W. Wood, New York.Google Scholar
Brown, Paula 1978 Highland Peoples of New Guinea. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.Google Scholar
Coues, Elliott 1866 Some Notes on Arrow-Wounds. The Medical and Surgical Reporter 14:321–324.Google Scholar
Ferguson, R. Brian 1997 Violence and War in Prehistory. In Troubled Times: Violence and Warfare in the Past, edited by Debra, L. Martin and David, W. Frayer, pp. 321–355. Gordon and Breach, Amsterdam.Google Scholar
Fingleton, L. J. 1987 Arrow Wounds to the Heart and Mediastinum. British Journal of Surgery 74:126–128.Google Scholar
Gat, Azar 1999 The Pattern of Fighting in Simple, Small-Scale, Prestate Societies. Journal of Anthropological Research 55:563–583.Google Scholar
Gauthier, Jason G. 2002 Measuring America: The Decennial Censuses From 1790 to 2000. U. S. Census Bureau, Department of Commerce, Washington, D. C. Google Scholar
Gross, Samuel D. 1866 A System of Surgery: Pathological Diagnostic, Therapeutic and Operative. Henry C. Lea, Philadelphia.Google Scholar
Haas, Jonathan 1999 The Origins of War and Ethnic Violence. In Ancient Warfare, edited by John, Carman and Anthony, Harding, pp. 11–24. Sutton, Phoenix Mill, Glouchestershire.Google Scholar
Haas, Jonathan, and Creamer, Winifred 1993 Stress and Warfare among the Kayenta Anasazi of the Thirteenth Century A. D. Fieldiana Anthropology 21. Field Museum of Natural History, Chicago.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Haas, Jonathan, and Creamer, Winifred 1997 Warfare Among the Pueblos: Myth, History, and Ethnography. Ethnohistory 44:235–261.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Haines, Joe D. 1994 Treatment of Arrow Wounds in the American Indian- Fighting Army: The Technique of Brevet Lt. Col. Joseph H. Bill. Journal of the Oklahoma State Medical Association 87:64–68.Google Scholar
Haines, Michael R. 1994 Estimated Life Tables for the United States. 1850-1900. Historical Paper 59. National Bureau of Economic Research, Cambridge, Massachusetts. Electronic document, http://ideas.repec.Org/p/nbr/nberhi/0059.html, accessed January 21, 2004.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Heider, Karl G. 1970 The Dugum Dani: A Papuan Culture in the Highlands of West New Guinea. Aldine, Chicago.Google Scholar
Heider, Karl G. 1997 Grand Valley Dani: Peaceful Warriors. 3rd ed. Wadsworth, Belmont, California.Google Scholar
Ingelmark, Bo E. 1939 The Skeletons. In Armour from the Battle of Wisby 1361, by Bengt, Thordeman, pp. 149–209. Vitterhets Historie och Antikvitets Akademien, Stockholm.Google Scholar
Jackson, A. T. 1943 Indian Arrow and Lance Wounds. Texas Archeological And Paleontological Society 15:38–65.Google Scholar
Keeley, Lawrence H. 1996 War Before Civilization. Oxford University Press, New York.Google Scholar
Keeley, Lawrence H. 1997 Frontier Warfare in the Early Neolithic. In Troubled Times: Violence and Warfare in the Past, edited by Debra, L. Martin and David, W. Frayer, pp. 303–319. Gordon and Breach, Amsterdam.Google Scholar
Keeley, Lawrence H. 2001 Giving War a Chance. In Deadly Landscapes: Case Studies in Prehistoric Southwestern Warfare, edited by Glen, E. Rice and Steven, A. Le Blanc, pp. 331–342. University of Utah Press, Salt Lake City.Google Scholar
Kelly, Raymond C. 2000 Warless Societies and the Origin of War. University of Michigan Press, Ann Arbor.Google Scholar
Lambert, Patricia M. 1997 Patterns of Violence in Prehistoric Hunter-Gatherer Societies of Coastal Southern California. In Troubled Times: Violence and Warfare in the Past, edited by Debra, L. Martin and David, W. Frayer, pp. 77–109. Gordon and Breach, Amsterdam.Google Scholar
Lambert, Patricia M. 2002 The Archaeology of War: A North American Perspective. Journal of Archaeological Research 10:207–241.Google Scholar
Larsen, Clark S. 1997 Bioarchaeology: Interpreting Behavior from the Human Skeleton. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.Google Scholar
Le Blanc, Steven A. 1999 Prehistoric Warfare in the American Southwest. University of Utah Press, Salt Lake City.Google Scholar
Lennox, C. E., and Pust, R. E. 1979 Surgical Experience of Tribal Warfare in Papua New Guinea. Tropical Doctor 9:184–188.Google Scholar
Lundy, J. A. 1952 Arrow Wounds. The New England Journal of Medicine 246:444–446.Google Scholar
Madziga, A. G. 2003 Arrow Injuries in North East Nigeria. West African Journal of Medicine 22:106–109.Google Scholar
Mays, B., Parfitt, A., and Hershman, M. J. 1994 Treatment of Arrow Wounds by Nineteenth Century USA Army Surgeons. Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine 87:102–103.Google Scholar
Milner, George R. 1999 Warfare in Prehistoric and Early Historic Eastern North America. Journal of Archaeological Research 7:105–151.Google Scholar
Milner, George R. 2000 Palisaded Settlements in Prehistoric Eastern North America. In City Walls: The Urban Enceinte in Global Perspective, edited by Tracy, James D., pp. 46–70. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.Google Scholar
Milner, George R., Anderson, Eve, and Smith, Virginia G. 1991 Warfare in Late Prehistoric West-Central Illinois. American Antiquity 56:581–603.Google Scholar
Moulton, Gary E. (Editor) 1988 The Journals of the Lewis & Clark Expedition: July 28-November 1, 1805, Vol. 5. University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln.Google Scholar
Muller, Jon 1997 Mississippian Political Economy. Plenum, New York.Google Scholar
Novak, Shannon A. 2000 Battle-Related Trauma. In Blood Red Roses: The Archaeology of a Mass Grave from the Battle of Towton AD 1461, edited by Veronica, Fiorato, Anthea, Boylston, and Christopher, Kniisel, pp. 90–102. Oxbow Books, Oxford.Google Scholar
Odell, George H., and Cowan, Frank 1986 Experiments with Spears and Arrows on Animal Targets. Journal of Field Archaeology 13:195–212.Google Scholar
Otis, George A. 1871 A Report of Surgical Cases Treated in the Army of the United States from 1865-1871. Circular 3. Surgeon General's Office, War Department, Washington, DC. Google Scholar
Parker, W. Thornton 1883 Concerning Arrow-Wounds. Philadelphia Medical Times 14:127–129.Google Scholar
Pope, Charles A. 1864 Two Cases of Ligature of the Common Carotid Artery on Account of Traumatism. St. Louis Medical and Surgical Journal 12-17.Google Scholar
Rice, Glen E., and Le Blanc, Steven A. (editors) 2001 Deadly Landscapes: Case Studies in Prehistoric Southwestern Warfare. University of Utah Press, Salt Lake City.Google Scholar
Sale, Kirkpatrick 1990 The Conquest of Paradise: Christopher Columbus and the Columbian Legacy. Plume, New York.Google Scholar
Sharp, Peter T. 1981 “Pierced by the Arrows of this Ghostly World”—A Review of Arrow Wounds in Enga Province. Papua New Guinea Medical Journal 24:150–163.Google Scholar
Smith, Maria O. 2003 Beyond Palisades: The Nature and Frequency of Late Prehistoric Deliberate Violent Trauma in the Chickamauga Reservoir of East Tennessee. American Journal of Physical Anthropology 121:303–318.Google Scholar
Taylor, Colin F. 2001 Native American Weapons. University of Oklahoma Press, Norman.Google Scholar
Taylor, Colin F. 2003 Native American Hunting and Fighting Skills. Lyon's Press, Guilford, Connecticut.Google Scholar
Thompson, Ian 2003 Cutting-Edge Technology. Missouri Archaeological Society Quarterly 20:14–18.Google Scholar
Thwaites, Reuben G. 1899 The Jesuit Relations and Allied Documents, Vol. 35. Burrows Brothers, Cleveland, Ohio.Google Scholar
Van Gurp, Gerald, Hutchinson, Timothy J., and Alto, William A. 1990 Arrow Wound Management in Papua New Guinea. Journal of Trauma 30:183–188.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Walker, Francis A. 1872 The Vital Statistics of the United States, Embracing the Tables of Deaths, Births, Sex, and Age, to Which are Added the Statistics of the Blind, the Deaf and Dumb, the Insane, and the Idiotic. Ninth Census, Vol. 2. Government Printing Office, Washington, DC.Google Scholar
Walker, Phillip L. 2001 A Bioarchaeological Perspective on the History of Violence. Annual Review of Anthropology 30:573–596.Google Scholar
Webster, David 1993 The Study of Maya Warfare: What It Tells Us About the Maya and What It Tells Us About Maya Archaeology. In Lowland Maya Civilization in the Eighth Century A. D., edited by Jeremy, A. Sabloff and John, S. Henderson, pp. 415-444. Dumbarton Oaks Research Library, Washington, DC. Google Scholar
Webster, David 2000 The Not So Peaceful Civilization: A Review of Maya War. Journal of World Prehistory 14:65–119.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
White, Tim D. 1992 Prehistoric Cannibalism at Mancos 5MTUMR-2346. Princeton University Press, Princeton, New Jersey.Google Scholar
Wilson, Thomas 1901 Arrow Wounds. American Anthropologist 3:513-531.CrossRefGoogle Scholar