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beardedmrbean · 9 months ago

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Russia is already spreading disinformation in advance of the 2024 election, using fake online accounts and bots to damage President Joe Biden and his fellow Democrats, according to former U.S. officials and cyber experts.

The dissemination of attacks on Biden is part of a continuing effort by Moscow to undercut American military aid to Ukraine and U.S. support for and solidarity with NATO, experts said.

A similar effort is underway in Europe. France, Germany and Poland said this month that Russia has launched a barrage of propaganda to try to influence European parliamentary elections in June.

With Donald Trump opposing U.S. aid to Ukraine and claiming that he once warned a NATO leader that he would "encourage" Russia to attack a NATO ally if it didn't pay its share in defense spending, the potential rewards for Russian President Vladimir Putin are high, according to Bret Schafer, a senior fellow at the Alliance for Securing Democracy of the German Marshall Fund.

“Not that they didn’t have an incentive to interfere in the last two presidential elections,” said Schafer, who tracks disinformation efforts by Russia and other regimes. “But I would say that the incentive to interfere is heightened right now.”

Biden’s national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, said Sunday on NBC News’ “Meet the Press” that there’s “plenty of reason to be concerned” about Russia’s trying to interfere in the 2024 election but that he couldn’t discuss evidence related to it. He added: “We’re going to be vigilant about that.”

U.S. officials and experts are most concerned that Russia could try to interfere in the election through a “deepfake” audio or video using artificial intelligence tools or through a “hack and leak,” such as the politically damaging theft of internal Democratic Party emails by Russian military intelligence operatives in 2016.

The type of pro-Russia online propaganda campaigns that thrived on Twitter and Facebook ahead of the 2016 U.S. presidential election is now routine on every major social media platform, though it’s rare for individual accounts to go as viral now as they once did.

Those influence operations often create matching accounts on multiple sites, which vary drastically in their moderation policies. Accounts from one pro-Russia campaign that Meta, the owner of Facebook, cracked down on late last year, an English-language news influencer persona called “People Say,” are still live on other platforms, though some are dormant.

A “People Say” account on X is still visible, but it has only 51 followers and hasn’t posted in almost a year. Its counterpart on Telegram, which has become a home for some Americans on the far right, is still actively posting divisive content and has almost 5,000 subscribers.

A perfect storm

Moscow and its proxies have long sought to exploit divisions in American society. But experts and former U.S. officials said Trump’s false claims that the 2020 election was stolen, the country's deepening political polarization and sharp cuts in disinformation and election integrity teams at X and other platforms provide fertile ground to spread confusion, division and chaos.

“In many ways it’s a perfect storm of opportunity for them,” said Paul Kolbe, who worked for 25 years in the CIA’s Directorate of Operations and is now a fellow at Harvard’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs. “I think, for a lot of reasons, we will see the same approach, but amplified and, I think, with some of the constraints that you might have seen taken off."

In the 2022 midterm elections, Russia primarily targeted the Democratic Party to weaken U.S. support for Ukraine, as it most likely blames Biden for forging a unified Western alliance backing Kyiv, according to a recently released U.S. intelligence assessment.

In what appears to be an effort to deepen divisions, Russia has amplified the political dispute between the Biden administration and Texas Gov. Greg Abbott over security at the Texas border over the past month. Russian politicians, bloggers, state media and bots have promoted the idea that America is headed to a new “civil war.”

It was a quintessential move by a Russian regime with a long tradition of trying to manipulate existing political rifts, like immigration, to its advantage, experts said.

But there’s so far no sign that Russia’s disinformation operation in Texas has had any significant impact, said Emerson Brooking, a senior fellow at the Digital Forensic Research Lab at the Atlantic Council.

“So far, Russian operations targeting the U.S. have been opportunistic. They see whatever narrative is rising to the top, and they try to push it,” Brooking said. “Disinformation isn’t created in a vacuum. The more polarized a country is, the easier it is for foreign actors to infiltrate and hijack its political processes.”

The artificial intelligence threat

The bigger Russian threat to the 2024 election, Brooking and other experts said, could prove to be artificial intelligence-created fake audio.

An orchestrated deepfake or leak may not unfold on the national stage; instead, it could target a particularly crucial swing state or district, experts said. It might aim to discourage some voters from going to the polls or sow distrust about the accuracy of ballot counting.

The most likely disinformation scenario will be “hyper-personalized, localized attacks,” said Miles Taylor, a senior Trump administration homeland security official who has warned of the risks of another Trump presidency.

Deepfake audio, which is easy to create and difficult to detect, has been used in recent elections in multiple countries. In the U.S. last month, a fake Joe Biden robocall told New Hampshire Democrats not to vote in the state's primary. In the United Kingdom in November, a fake audio of London Mayor Sadiq Khan called for pro-Palestinian marches.

And two days before Slovakia’s parliamentary elections in September, a fake audio clip purported to show the leader of a pro-Western political party discussing how to rig the election. The audio was eventually debunked, and it’s unclear what effect it had on the election. But a pro-Russia party opposing aid to Ukraine won the most votes.

While an emerging cottage industry claims that software can identify whether audio or video is authentic or a deepfake, such programs are often wrong.

Past Russian efforts

Alleged Russian information operations against Ukraine over the past two years open a window into some of the Kremlin’s tactics.

A study published Wednesday by the Slovakian cybersecurity company ESET found that a pro-Russia campaign has been spamming Ukrainians with false and dispiriting emails about the war with claims of heating and food shortages.

In a coordinated effort near the start of Russia’s invasion in 2022, cyberattacks temporarily knocked key Ukrainian websites offline, while residents received spam texts telling them that ATMs in the country were down.

Other apparent Russian efforts to sow division are much simpler.

Last year, celebrities who sell personalized videos on the website Cameo, including Priscilla Presley, Mike Tyson and Elijah Wood, were tricked into inadvertently recording messages that denigrated two major enemies of the Kremlin, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Moldovan President Maia Sandu.

The messages were overlaid with text falsely claiming that the celebrities were calling for those leaders to step down. Representatives for Wood and Presley said the celebrities recorded the videos thinking they were helping a fan with addiction. A representative for Tyson said the videos of him were fake.

In the American mainstream

In the U.S., though, Russia’s propaganda themes are now often echoed in comments from some Republican lawmakers and pro-Trump commentators, including the portrayal of Ukraine’s government as deeply corrupt.

The adoption of Russian state rhetoric in America’s political debate is a victory for Moscow, experts said. Putin’s goal is to spread doubt and division among Americans.

“An equally nice outcome for them is just what we had last time, where a third of the country doesn’t believe the vote,” Schafer said. “Democracy is questioned; the system gets questioned. So they don’t necessarily need to see their guy win to have it be a good outcome for them.”

It remains extraordinarily difficult for a remote cyberattack to take over voting systems in the U.S. and change vote counts. The American intelligence assessment of the 2022 midterms found no indication that Russia had tried to hack into election systems or ballot counting that year.

But Kolbe, the former CIA directorate of operations official, said the Kremlin would most likely see trying to penetrate U.S. voting systems as a low-risk undertaking.

“I don’t see any reason why they wouldn’t,” he said. “You’d be hard-pressed to find where they would see the risk part of the equation. It gets close to zero.”

Such interference could come with plausible deniability. On the day of the 2022 midterm elections, the Mississippi secretary of state’s website, which hosts the official polling place finder for voters in Mississippi, was knocked offline most of the day after pro-Kremlin hacktivists on Telegram called for supporters to join in a low-level cyberattack against it.

Still, U.S. officials and disinformation analysts say Russia’s ability to manipulate voters shouldn’t be overstated. When it comes to spreading disinformation and fueling distrust in election authorities and election results, the biggest threat comes from within America’s fractured, polarized society, not from the outside.

“I am very skeptical, whether it’s 2016 or 2024, that the United States political and media culture needs any push from Russia,” said Gavin Wilde, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, who specializes in Russia and information warfare.

“The Kremlin has every interest in seeing an American public, or American leadership, that’s less inclined to support Ukraine, that’s less inclined to punish Russia. Those incentives are certainly there,” he said. “But we’re already doing a pretty good job of that at home. I don’t know how much of a nudge the Kremlin thinks it needs to lend it.”

#nunyas news #here we go again #going into extra fact check mode I guess

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random-thought-depository · 2 years ago

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"Mostly settled, complex hunter-gatherers exploiting an abundant range of resources, some Natufian settlements were small and temporary, but others reached 1000 m^2 with about 150 residents. Over time, settlements expanded into different areas, shaped by population growth, local ecology, and climatic perturbations. Trade in exotic stone such as obsidian developed, with some indication of regional cultural differentiation, but with no persuasive evidence of social ranking as found among some other complex hunter-gatherers…

Skeletal remains have been recovered of more than 400 Natufians. One female of 35-40 years from Nahal Oren apparently died of a blow to the head (Ferembach, 1959, p. 67). Three small samples also indicate the presence of violence, sometimes deadly. One of seven individuals, an unsexed adult, from around 10000 BC, had two healed and one unhealed cranial fractures, possibly the cause of death (Webb & Edwards, 2002). A reexamination of 17 individuals from around 9100 BC, found an embedded lunate point with no signs of healing in a vertebra of a mature adult male. Two others among the five adult males had healed cranial trauma (Bocquentin & Bar Yosef, 2004). In another study, 5 of 30 adult male skulls (16.7 percent) and 3 of 15 adult females (20 percent) had healed trauma, though only 1 of 487 upper limbs had a fracture (Eshed, Gopher, Pinhasi & Hershkovitz, 2010, pp. 125,127). Conflict violence? Yes. But Bar-Yosef, who has called for a deliberate effort to de-pacify the past (2010a), considering all that is known about Natufians, concludes that there is no evidence supporting the interpretation of war, just personal violence (2010b, p. 72). LeBlanc (2010, p. 41) posits three possible indicators of warfare among people such as the Natufian: settlements on defendable sites, deadly skeletal trauma, and specialized or stockpiled weapons, yet even this champion of de-pacification does not cite any instances. In contrast to the European Mesolithic, there is no evidence of war among Natufians. … Compared to the Natufian, PPNA population is denser, and with larger settlements of commonly 150-300 people. Evenly spaced villages cluster in favorable lowland environments near rivers, and are abandoned after a few centuries. A hierarchy of settlement sizes is apparent, down to small seasonal sites, with storage and cultic constructions in the larger ones. They are not in defendable locations, and without any indication of surrounding ditches or walls. Except by distance between major centers, there are no major cultural breaks. All areas are marked by convergence in technologies, and are linked in trade of exotic materials such as salt, bitumen, sea shells, and above all, obsidian, coming from multiple sources… Nothing in the construction or distribution of settlements suggests the presence of war.

A few of the largest sites appear to be nodes in trade networks, and probably cultic centers (Belfer-Cohen & Goring Morris, 2011, p. 213). Evidence for communal production and distribution, and for collective ceremonialism, is a persistent characteristic of the early Near East. My argument is that they are part of a peace system, resolving potential conflict and avoiding war. At the very start of the PPNA around 9650 BC, Wadi Faynan 16 in Jordan has a large public structure with complex internal structure (Mithen, Finlayson, Smith, Jenkins, Najjar, and Maricevic, 2011). The purpose is not obvious, but a ritual center seems likely. A more clear-cut (and amazing) ritual center is Gobekli Tepe in southeastern Turkey, centrally located on high ground visible for miles around, from 9130-8650 BC (Mithen, Finlayson, Smith, Jenkins, Najjar & Maricevic, 2011, pg. 360). It seems to have been free-standing, without accompanying settlement. No settlement remains have been found, and its monumental construction suggests a massive work commitment from populations throughout the surrounding area, leading to the inference that it was a means of creating a shared identity and culture at the very transition to the Neolithic (Schmidt, 2010, 253-254).

Jericho in Jordan is the best known settlement of the PPNA, reaching 500 inhabitants. After some centuries, the people of Jericho constructed a wall and a central tower, which was often taken as the earliest evidence of warfare, unique of its milieu (Roper, 1975, pp. 304-306). Bar Yosef (1986) reanalyzed those constructions, and found them unsuited for defense, and more likely for protection against flooding and mudflows, an interpretation that has been widely accepted. Over 500 burials at Jericho have been recovered from all periods (including PPNB), with some multiple burials. One burial that has 30 individuals lacks any sign of violence, which suggests that they died in an epidemic (Rollefson, 2010, p. 62). LeBlanc (2010, p. 45) mentions "a few … healed skull fractures" from Jericho and one other site, without elaboration.

Another huge, long-inhabited and very well-investigated PPNA site is Abu Hureyra in Syria. On a terrace above a flood plain, there are no signs of walls or towers. With up to 3,000 inhabitants in clearly planned structures, there must have been some form of authority. Yet there is no sign of social hierarchy - which suggests an alternative to standard evolutionary models that connect authority to chiefs. Authority may be vested in village councils of elders or lineage representatives, who live as others do. Recognized authority can be a precondition for peace. At Abu Hureyra, remains of approximately 162 individuals include multiple burials but they have no signs of violence. Disease seems likely. Points are found in a few burials, but their positioning suggests they are grave offerings, along with other objects… One young man, however, has an embedded point that was clearly lethal. "This is the only evidence that we have found for death by violence" (Moore et al., 2000, p. 288).

From the Southern Levant, several small sites spanning PPNA and PPNB yield 34 skulls for osteological analysis. One has a healed cranial fracture (Eshed, Gopher, Pinhasi, & Hershkovitz 2010, pp. 123, 127, 129). That is the paltry sum of evidence for war in the Levantine PPNA. The PPNA lasted for only 1,100 years, but that much time was more than enough in Europe for clear signs of war to emerge among Neolithic people.

This absence of evidence gains significance in contrast to the earliest Neolithic in the northern Tigris area, northern Iraq. … The Late Round House Horizon seems to develop out of the local Epipaleolithic Zarzian. Considerable differences exist on dates. Goring-Morris et al. (2009, pp. 210,212) go for calibrated 9750-8750, making it contemporary with the PPNA of the Levant. Village sites are located on the ecotone between floodplains and the Taurus. Two sites are important for evidence of war, the smaller and earlier Qermez Dere, and the nearby and later but overlapping Nemrik 9.

Qermez Dere is on high ground, with panoramic views of all approaches, and is protected on three sides by a steep drop. There are a few mace-heads, which may or may not be weapons of war. More significantly, it has a "spectacular development of projectile points" without any evident changes in hunting. Many points have broken tips, and may have "impacted with the settlement" (Watkins, 1992, pp. 68-69; Watkins, Baird, & Betts, 1989, p. 19). Nemrik 9 is bounded by steep wadis. It has mace heads, but also has skeletons with associated points (and no other grave goods) (Kozlowsky, 1989, pp. 25-28). One male skull contained two points, a second skeleton had a point in the pelvic area, and a third had a broken point next to a broken arm. These points are of a type that is unusual locally, suggested that attackers had come from some distance (Rollefson, 2010, p. 63). This convergence of different kinds of evidence supports the inference of war, the earliest in the Near East. Why war first appeared here is anyone's guess. Later firsts in the evolution from this same area are associated with the long-distance trade in Anatolian obsidian, as later routes went right through this area. But obsidian was rare at Qermez Dere (Watkins et al., 1989, pg. 22) and not mentioned at Nemrik 9 (Kozlowsky, 1989, pp. 27-28). … The second phase of the Pre-Pottery Neolithic, PPNB, laster longer, 8500-6400 cal BC. This was the early Holocene climatic optimum, especially favorable to cultivation - "a time of plenty as conditions improved from one year to the next" (Goring-Morris & Belfar-Cohen, 2011, p. 202). Cultivation shifted from earlier local experimentation to heavy reliance on cereals. Domesticated animal herds increased, use of wild resources declined, and the population exploded. Villages grew in size and stayed put for many centuries - still regularly spaced and with smaller settlements grading out from larger - and populations colonized formerly marginal areas. With northern and southern variations, some long-settled locations were abandoned, possibly due to changing water tables (Bar-Yosef, 2011, p. 182; Goring-Morris et al., 2009, pp. 212-214). Within this panorama, a new phenomenon of "mega-sites" approaching urban proportions developed and spread, transforming the social landscape, expanding "on an almost 'unlimited' scale in terms of food resources, due to the presence of various ungulates … and the availability of arable lands" (Gebel, 2004, p. 4).

Across a mosaic of locally specific adaptations, a deeply entwined interaction sphere of exchange and cultural convergence developed that extended past the old PPNA areas to include Anatolia and Cyprus (Asouti, 2006; Goring-Morris & Belfar-Cohen, 2011, pg. 202). Still, no fortifications or territorial separations are noted, at least until (possibly) the end, even though the presence of war is sometimes assumed (eg., Gebel, 2004, p. 9). In contrast, major ritual centers - consistent with the generally pronounced cultic orientation of PPNB remains - developed between major population centers, especially in the Northern Levant and southern Anatolia, which imply social cooperation across large areas. Gobekli Tepe, which began in the late PPNA, continued on, but other centers such as Nevali Cori and Cayonu became more common in the PPNB, often between settlements, often on high ground visible for miles around…

Roper's (1975, pp. 311-312) pioneering study of signs of war in the Near East finds nothing for a millennium after the questionable early wall of Jericho, the original mega-site, but some possibilities from the late seventh millenium. Extensively quoting Kenyon's report, the first ten PPNB occupation levels have no hint of a wall, but Phase XII and XIII trenches found massive stone slabs sloping up on top of fill, which Kenyon interpreted as defensive. Not likely. The structure was built in the midst of domestic units. The land behind it was filled in to its top, with house structures then built right up to the edge. Everything looks like a terrace, not a defensive wall. Besides that, for this key case, the extensive skeletal collection from PPNB Jericho does not display signs of violence, and multiple burials could be from epidemics.

Beidha (Southern Levant) level IV c. 6900-6600 BC is another candidate for war. Beidha was burned, with some culturally new elements found after, yet there are also continuities. With no clear signs of fortifications or any violence in skeletal remains, war remains nothing more than a possibility (Roper, 1975, pp. 312-313). Ras Shamra (Northern Levant) c. 6436 BC, possibly an early seaport, has a surrounding glacis of stone slabs over dirt, but that could be to prevent inundations (Roper, 1975, pp. 313-314). In Turkey Mellaart (1975, p. 90 ff) had interpreted Catalhuyuk joined structures with roof entrances as defensive - a point that seems destined to interminable debate - and a similar interpretation has been offered for aceramic Haclilar c. 7040 BC. Roper (1975, p. 316) notes the doubts, and considering all four sites, concludes that "there is no conclusive evidence … that warfare was feared or practiced, though it is likely." These four sites are frequently noted as evidence of Near Eastern warfare. It is not much of a record.

Post-Roper's-survey, Ghwair I, a smaller site from southern Jordan (Southern Levant, as are other PPNB sites to follow), 6800-6300 BC, has one infant with elaborate grave goods, and an elderly female with a point embedded inside her jaw (Simmon & Najjar, 2006, p. 90). At late PPNB Basta in Jordan, of 29 skulls, five had healed minor cranial fractures (Schultz, Berner & Schmidt-Schultz, 2004, p. 260). Another boy was killed by a blow to the head (Rollefson, 2010, p. 63). The violence at both those sites would be consistent with pronounced internal hierarchy. Late PPNB Ba'ja, a small site in mega-site times, is on a terrance in nearly vertical sandstone formations, approachable only through a steep and narrow passage. It certainly could be called defendable, and in that quality is noted as unique within its time. But from photographs, Ba'ja's terrace seems to be the only habitable ground in the vicinity, at least with access to water. No traces of contemporary settlements have been found anywhere around them (Bienert & Gebel, 2004, pp. 119-121, 135; Gebel & Bienert 1997, pp. 223, 229).

Ba'ja, Basta, and Beidha are not far apart, and this confluence of inconclusive clues makes it a promising area to look for concrete evidence of war. Yet as it stands, there is really nothing in any of those sites that even probably support the conclusion that war was present. The mega-sites should be able to raise a few hundred fighting men, and the effects of fighting at that scale most likely would be seen. On the contrary, in the north Jordan valley from the PPNB through the Pottery Neolithic, the countryside was spotted with small settlements in flat ground near water without any defensive characteristics (Roper, 1975, pg. 31). In sum, there is no persuasive evidence of war in the PPNB from the Southern Levant to Anatolia. Kuijt and Goring-Morris (2002, pg. 421) sum up the record for the entire Levant Pre-Pottery Neolithic, both A and B. They note the "near-total absence of evidence for interpersonal or intercommunity aggression in the PPN." Starting with the Natufian in 13100 BC, the close of the PPN around 6400 BC makes 6700 years in the Southern Levant without any good evidence of war. … The end of the PPNB, often called "collapse," included abandonment of many long-settled sites, and was close to and quite possibly related to the major climatic reversal and aridity in the eastern Mediterranean, known as the "8200 cal yr BP event" (Clare, 2010, pp. 15-17; Rollefson, Simmons, & Kafafi, 1992, p. 468; Weninger et al., 2006). The Pottery Neolithic, 6400-4500 cal BC (Goring-Morris et al. 2009:190), post-8.2 K cal BC, is marked most obviously by the development and immediate spread of pottery. It also saw a shift to smaller settlements, the digging of wells, more reliance on pastoralism, and sharp differentiation of local cultures. With climate-forced competition, invested labor in wells and livestock, and cultural differentiation, one might expect the emergence of warfare.

But war is not apparent in the record of the Southern Levant PN. Roper (1975, p. 317) notes settlements are small, on low, watered land. There is no sign of fortifications in the sixth millennium after the questionable wall at PNNB Jericho. Archaeological excavation in the Southern Levant has been intense in recent decades, as more real estate is developed (Rowan & Golden, 2009, p. 2). But 35 years after Roper, the evidence has not changed.

'Ain Ghazal was a central Jordan mega-site and major ritual center that was not abandoned with the PPNB "collapse." Occupied from 7250-5000 BC, no walls are indicated until Pottery Neolithic times (5500-5000 BC), when "stone enclosure walls abound … but just what these features enclosed is difficult to determine" (Rollefson et al., 1992, pg. 450). As these walls are found throughout the settlement, it is hard to see anything that suggests a defensive purpose (Rollefson, 1997). Differential burial of 112 skeletons suggests two classes of people, perhaps "a two-tiered 'patron-client' population" (Rollefson et al., 1992, p. 463). One of the "trash burials" has a thin flint blade, snapped at both sides, going through the skull (Rollefson, 2010, p. 63). it could be a killing, except "it is not entirely clear if this was intentional or rather the result of post-depositional processes (Kuijt & Goring-Morris, 2002, p. 422). What 'Ain Ghazal may be indicating is some form of hierarchy in a ritual-oriented central place, and increasing control as an alternative to warfare even in tough times for subsistence.

Although Clare (2010, pp. 18-19, 20, 23) takes a generally hawkish position in interpreting evidence for war, and points out a few possible indicators which are "to say the least, ambiguous," he recognizes a total absence of any "obvious fortification structures," a general reduction (with local variations) of tool-weapons of knives and arrowheads without any increase in sling ammunition, and concludes "harmonious times for the southern Levant might even be suggested, at least during the PN, and this is indeed the picture that is beginning to emerge." Clare suggests that climatically driven hard times may have led to new forms of cooperation.

The issue of maces is fully joined in the Pottery Neolithic Southern Levant (Rosenberg, 2010, pp. 210-211, 214). Many maceheads are found, but they are small (most under 5 cm diameter) and with very thin shaft holes (most 10-15 mm, some down to 6 mm). These maces could not "withstand a serious blow." He concludes, "most early maceheads were never used in combat." Rosenberg speculates on possible ritual uses. A reasonable interpretation is that they were symbols of authority. This does not necessarily imply a social ranking or "chiefs." It could be the authority of a community, represented by elders and wise people, perhaps with cultic backing (Kuijt & Goring-Morris, 2002, pp. 420-423). As noted previously, recognized authority is a way of regulating conflict, and could be central to avoiding war. Maces may be part of a system of peace. Adding the PPN to what came before in the Southern Levant, that makes 8600 years without signs of war.

Yet across the northern Near East, evidence for war is substantial in the Pottery Neolithic. Around the northern Tigris, close to Qermez Dere at the border between mountains and plains, is seventh millennium Tell Maghzaliyah. Several centuries after it was first occupied, a major defensive wall was raised, possibly with one or more towers (Bader, 1993, pp. 64-66). This is the earliest known fortification in Mesopotamia (Munchaev, 1993, p. 250), and may be the earliest in the Near East. Maghzaliyah appears to be of different cultural tradition than Qermez Dere, with some Anatolian affinities, and its people had a thousand times more obsidian (Watkins et al., 1989, p. 22). This is the debouchment where Anatolian trade comes down to the plains. Maghzaliyah could be a node in what would become (if it was not already) an enduring system of long-distance trade routes in Anatolian obsidian (Healey, 2007, pp. 262-263), certainly the most important exotic good in the Neolithic (Yellin et al., 1996, p. 366). Cross-culturally, different aspects of trade control are often critical issues in practices of war (see Ferguson, 1999, pp. 414-415). A linkage is suggested in this case, since erection of the wall coincided with a dramatic shift from obsidian to flint, suggesting that somebody was cutting into the flow of trade from Anatolia (Bader, 1993, p. 66).

Turning to Anatolia itself, the origin of Neolithic ways is still poorly understood. In central Anatolia, clear indicators of a Neolithic way of life appear near the end of the Pre-Pottery Neolithic, between 7400-7100 cal BC. Settlements remain small and sporadic until about 6500, around the start of the PN, with level 6 at Catalhuyuk - which as noted early is perennially debated as an exemplar of war. A significant development for this chapter's interest in peace is that communal ritual centers disappear from Anatolia over the PN, with religious practices moving into domestic contexts (Ergogu, 2009, 129). If major ritual centers had unified scattered people, their decline could make war more likely. Yet the painted representations at Catalhuyuk do not suggest war. There are life scenes of hunting, of domesticated plants and animals, and of vultures picking flesh from headless bodies - but no portrayals of war (Erdogu, 2009, pp. 133-135). The vulture scenes could stand as a warning against it. They may have had reason to worry. War was on the way.

A case has been made (Ozdogan, 2011) and challenged (Asouti, 2009; Thissen, 2010) that climatic deterioration associated with the 8200 cal K BP event drove late Neolithic subsistence shifts within Anatolia, and the spread of domestication from there to the Balkans. Consistent with that line of thinking, Clare et al. (2008, pp. 71-77) discuss four Late Neolithic/Early Chalcolithic sites in the densely settled Lake District (Pisidia) of the south-western Anatolian plateau: Hacilar, Kurucay Hoyuk, Hoyucek Hoyuk, and Bademagaci Hoyuk. Between them are multiple indicators of war: major conflagrations, some with unburied bodies, some with a subsequent hiatus or replacement by another group, fortifications with walls and towers, and large numbers sling missiles. During (2011, pp. 72-73) questions the defensive interpretation of structures at Hacilar and Kurucay (and elsewhere) and argues that the postulated signs of war postdate 6000 BC, centuries too late to be linked to the 82 cal K event. These are valid points. The most compelling evidence of war at Hacilar (II) is dated to 5600 BC (Roper, 1975, pg. 321).

Signs of war in other Anatolian sites also date to the early sixth millennium. Domuztepe of the Halaf culture has a pit (5700-5600 BC) with 40 possible victims of violence (Erdal, 2012, p. 2). Guvercinkaya, 5210-4810 BC, was built on top of a steep rock outcropping. During (2011, pg. 75) emphasizes that a nearby contemporary settlement was not fortified, but that would be consistent with fortifications on trade nodes. Down from the highlands on the coast, between Anatolia and Cyprus, the port settlement of Ras Shamra was destroyed by fire around 5234 BC. An apparent defensive wall went up somewhat later, possibly associated with the arrival of Halafians, a people originating in Northern Mesopotamia (Akkermans 2000), who seem to have brought war along with them (Roper, 1975, p. 318). The Halafian culture is not well-understood, but they had an unusual immersion in obsidian commerce. "They apparently engaged in directionally controlled, nonreciprocal, extensive trade which seems to have been more structured and more intensive (e.g., imported obsidian comprising three-fourths or more of the chipped stone industry) than we might expect in a tribal society" (Watson & LeBlanc, 1990, pp. 137).

While climatic deterioration may be related to this widespread pattern of war, a much stronger causal connection appears to involve key nodes of the trans-Anatolian obsidian trade. Obsidian from Anatolia was found all over the Near East. Pisidia was not a center of obsidian production, which came from Central Anatolia (Clare, Rohling, Weninger, & Hilpert, 2008, p. 82). Sources of critical goods usually do not control trade, those at passage bottlenecks do. Ozdogan (2011, p. 55) notes final Neolithic "turmoil" in Anatolia, and that for the first time, there appears to be a monopolization of trade patterns. Monopolization is the key link between war and trade.

On the Turkish coast, Mersin XX was destroyed and then reoccupied by the Halafians. A similar sequence occured at Chagar Bazar in northern Syria, and level 8 of Sakce Gozu. Below the mountains but close by, Ras Shamra Vb, also on the coast, and basal Tell Halaf (c. 5837 BC) appear to be "fortified Halafian settlements." "It is significant that all the sites that exhibit destruction or have fortifications are located on the east-west overland trade route (or subsidiary connections to this route)" (from Nineveh in northern Iraq through the Northern Levant, to Mersin, and up through the Taurus). "One may hypotheize that the Halafians wanted and took control of a portion of this great trade route" (Roper, 1975. pp. 323-325). Sixth millennium Halaf may be the first cultural group to expand via war. … The Anatolian trade network and accompanying warfare continued through the Chalcolithic (4500-3300 BC), with (probable) fortifications at Cadir Hoyuk and Kurucay level 6 (During 2011, p. 75). The Early Bronze Age Anatolia trade network included a wide array of materials and products. It expanded to reach from the northern edge of Mesopotamia to the Aegean and Greece (including Troy), and was characterized by centralized urban centers with massive fortifications (Sahoglu, 2005, pp. 339-341). "Signs of systematic violence become ever more pervasive in Anatolia during the Bronze Age (ca. 3000-1200 BC), starting especially in the EBA (ca. 3000-2000)" (Erdal, 2012, p. 2).

Considering this record against all the other records examined here leads to a major conclusion: by the early sixth millennium, along the trade corridors of Anatolia, the Western world's first widespread, enduring social system of war had begun. The inclusion of Troy serves to extend that point: this is the start of a system of war that flows down in a river of blood to our present.

On the Turkish coast around 4300 BC, Mersin was a true fort or citadel with firing ports, offsets covering turns in the walls, a protected gateway and tower, and possible barracks for specialized soldiers (cf. During, 2011, pp. 74-75). After about a century, Mersin was destroyed, and the site occupied by Ubadian people (Roper, 1975, pp. 328-329). At the eastern end of the Northern Levant, even more dramatic developments ensuded in the Late Chalcolithic.

In northeast Syria, close to the earlier Tell Maghzaliyah and Qermez Dere, Tell Brak and Hamoukar were emerging as urban centers by 4200 BC. Each was a major entrepot for northern obsidian (Khalidi, Graute, & Boucetta, 2009; Oates, 1982, p. 62). … Findings at Brak particularly (but the less excavated Hamoukar looks similar), have upended conventional notions of southern Mesopotamia as the heartland of cities, preceding known southern developments by several centuries…

Surrounding Tell Brak were massive fortifications, with towers, gates, and guardhouses (Oates et al. 2007, p. 588-589). Four mass graves have been found from 3800 to 3600. The two best known suggest a simultaneous internment of hundreds, with demographic patterns and casual disposal suggesting purposeful killing rather than an epidemic. Based on several factors - such as the absence of peri-mortem skeletal trauma and the formidability of defenses - researchers speculate that this represents internal violence rather than attacks from the outside (McMahon, Soltysiak, & Weber, 2011). That is not far-fetched, given Gilgamesh's oppression of his own people to build his massive walls (Garder & Maier, 1985, pp. 57, 67), and the possibility that local food production was stressed by cooling and increased aridity (McMahon et al., 2011, p. 217). Hamoukar, however, was attacked by outsiders. Recent excavations indicate that around 3500 BC, a massive bombardment by thousands of sling bullets weakened its 10-foot high wall, which then collapsed in a conflagration. Subsequent levels were dominated by Uruk pottery, suggesting the south had conquered the northern trade portal to Mesopotamia (Bower, 2008; University of Chicage, 2005)." - R. Brian Ferguson, "The Prehistory of War and Peace in Europe and the Near East," (from War Peace and Human Nature: The Convergence of Evolutionary and Cultural Views).

#history #prehistory #deep history #war #copied cause relevant to my Blindsight vampire fanfiction lol #deciding whether to set it in the PPN or the PN or the Copper Age #and how to portray the humans #tempting in this context to interpret a lot of those Natufians with skeletal trauma as vampire victims #‟no clear evidence of war but lots of people with fight injuries‟ sounds like what you might see in a prey species

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