6 1/2" x 10" 245 Pages Indexed. Brand new gift quality condition. Interior

6 1/2" x 10" 245 Pages Indexed. Brand new gift quality condition. Interior text pages are flawless. Dust jacket flap price $25 is unclipped. The myth of the peace-loving noble savage is persistent and pernicious. For the last fifty years, most popular and scholarly works have agreed that prehistoric warfare was rare, harmless, unimportant, and, like smallpox, a disease of civilized societies alone. Prehistoric warfare, according to this view, was little more than a ritualized game, where casualties were limited and the effects of aggression relatively mild. This book offers a devastating rebuttal to such comfortable myths and debunks the notion that warfare was introduced to primitive societies through contact with civilization, an idea he denounces as the pacification of the past. Building on archeological and historical research and offering a comparison of warfare in civilized and prehistoric societies, from modern European states to the Plains Indians of North America, this book demonstrates that prehistoric warfare was in fact more deadly, more frequent, and more ruthless than modern war. To support this point, Keeley provides a wide-ranging look at warfare and brutality in the prehistoric world. He reveals, for instance, that prehistorical tactics favoring raids and ambushes, as opposed to formal battles, often yielded a high death-rate; that adult males falling into the hands of their enemies were almost universally killed; and that surprise raids seldom spared women and children. Keeley cites evidence of ancient massacres in many areas of the world, including the discovery in South Dakota of a prehistoric mass grave containing the remains of over 500 scalped and mutilated men, women, and children, a slaughter that took place a century and a half before the arrival of Columbus. In addition, Keeley surveys the prevalence of looting, destruction, and trophy-taking in all kinds of warfare and again finds little moral distinction between ancient warriors and civilized armies. Finally, and perhaps most controversially, he examines the evidence of cannibalism among some preliterate peoples. Keeley's conclusions are bound to stir controversy.