Historically, scholars have focused on the direct impact of environmental and social issues like war and famine. However, more abstract concerns, such as fear, have often been overlooked.
However, recent research suggests that fear should be considered alongside conflict, climate change, and other significant factors that likely influenced the development of early civilizations.
A new study by team members from the Complexity Science Hub (CSH), a research group in Vienna, Austria, addressed this gap by attempting to quantify the intangible effects of fear and its role in shaping aspects of early human societies.
The Problem of Population Growth
Understanding population growth rates in prehistoric humans has long been challenging. When extrapolating from short-term fertility and mortality data, researchers often encounter what is known as the “forager population paradox,” where long-term growth rates do not align with short-term trends. A deeper understanding of these cycles of growth, stagnation, and decline has remained elusive for researchers.
“Globally, scientists have extensively studied and debated the presence and role of conflicts in prehistory,” said study co-author Daniel Kondor. “However, estimating their effects, such as those on population numbers, is still difficult. This difficulty is further compounded by potential indirect effects, such as people who, out of fear, leave their homes or avoid certain areas.”
The team, primarily composed of data scientists, collaborated with archaeologists to address these data challenges. They compiled extensive data from specialized sources like the Seshat Global History Databank, focusing on radiocarbon dating information from various archaeological sites in Neolithic Europe, dating from about 7,000 to 3,000 BCE. The researchers assumed this data would reveal the scale of human activity in specific times and places, thereby indicating population density.
“This allows us to examine the typical amplitudes and timescales of population growth and decline across Europe,” Kondor explained. “Our goal was for our simulation to reflect these patterns.”
Determining the Effect of Fear
The results of the data modeling aligned with other archaeological evidence from this period of non-state societies. While earlier research had highlighted the negative effects of conflict on societies, this study went further by demonstrating that populations often diminished in areas threatened by conflict, as people relocated to safer regions. These migrations frequently led to new challenges, such as overpopulation and its associated issues.
The model’s focus on refugees fleeing areas during times of heightened fear of conflict closely matched the boom-and-bust cycles evident in the archaeological data. Peter Turchin, a co-author of the study, noted, “This concentration of people in specific, often well-defended locations could have led to increasing wealth disparities and the formation of political structures that justified these inequalities. In this way, the indirect effects of conflict may have played a crucial role in the emergence of larger political units and the rise of early states.”
“The results from the simulation studies nicely match empirical evidence from archaeological fieldwork,” said co-author Detlef Gronenborn, an archaeologist from the Leibniz Centre for Archaeology (LEIZA) in Mainz, Germany, who provided additional context as a subject matter expert.
“For example, the Late Neolithic site of Kapellenberg near Frankfurt, dating to around 3700 BCE, shows many instances of temporary abandonment of open agricultural land, coupled with a retreat of groups to well-defended locations and significant investments in large-scale defensive systems like ramparts, palisades, and ditches.”
Overall, the study highlights the significant impact of fear as an indirect factor driving population dynamics and societal development in early civilizations, offering new insights into the complexities of prehistoric human behavior and migration.
The paper, titled “Landscape of Fear: Indirect Effects of Conflict Can Account for Large-Scale Population Declines in Non-State Societies,” was published on August 29, 2024, in the Journal of The Royal Society Interface.
Ryan Whalen covers science and technology for The Debrief. He holds a BA in History and a Master of Library and Information Science with a certificate in Data Science. He can be contacted at ryan@thedebrief.org, and follow him on Twitter @mdntwvlf.