The Natural State of Walls

You can often tell when war (as opposed to a culture of raiding) was present in a society by whether their settlements were arrayed in a defensive position.

From this, we see that, for settlements, this is the default.

There are some exceptions:

• early developmental phases of societies (like Cahokia)

• nomads (they’re on the move or attacking “all the time” anyway)

• early neolithic societies

From this, we might see that if you have something stationary that is of value, it is natural to expect that someone will try to take it.

We’ve gotten around this, in many places, with various forms of tribute.

This ends our Seshat week.

The next time you have a question about broad patterns in history, I hope you’ll give the database a whirl.