The Origins of Warfare

The Ancients

History Hit

History

4.7 • 3.5K Ratings

🗓️ 4 March 2021

⏱️ 51 minutes

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Summary

Popular discussions of human history are punctuated with conflict, but when did warfare begin? To discuss this massive question, Professor Nam Kim has returned to the Ancients. Taking in examples from Ancient Germany, Britain, Kenya and Vietnam, Nam uses Anthropological Archaeology to decipher whether Ancient societies were involved in warfare before the birth of nation states, and to explore the question of why humans have been prone to violence between groups.

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0:00.0	It's the ancients on History Hit. I'm Tristan Hughes your host and in today's podcast
0:08.5	we are talking about the origins of warfare. We're going to be looking at several different
0:13.9	case studies from prehistory that range from ancient Britain and ancient Germany all the
0:19.6	way to ancient Kenya and even ancient Vietnam. Now we're going to be looking at these case
0:25.3	studies and seeing how they relate to the question of how does warfare emerge, where does
0:30.6	it emerge, when does it emerge and why. And joining me for this amazing chat I was delighted
0:36.6	to get back on the show Professor Nam Kim. Nam has been on the podcast once before to talk
0:43.1	about ancient Vietnam and his archaeological work on the site of Kaloah. But Nam's real passion
0:50.0	project has been looking into this huge question around the origins of warfare. Now
0:56.3	Nam is an anthropologist so he is approaching this through the anthropological lens and he
1:01.2	explains how this angle is the best way to understand the huge topic that is the origins
1:08.6	of warfare. This was an absolutely brilliant chat so without further ado, here's now.
1:14.9	Nam, it's great to have you back on the podcast. Thank you. It is such a pleasure to be back.
1:23.0	Now ancient Vietnam last time, amazing topic in its own right but we are now talking about one
1:28.9	of the biggest topics of ancient history. This is a huge topic of ancient military history in particular.
1:33.8	This is the origins of warfare. Yeah, this actually is, I would say my lifelong passion. This is
1:40.0	the reason I got into research. This is the reason I got into anthropology. It's the reason I've
1:44.8	made certain decisions in my studies, in my education, and then now in my research. And you mentioned
1:51.8	that this is the reason that you went into anthropology. So just a bit of background to this so because
1:56.0	your personal interest in this is linked to your family too. That's right. So I'm a mixed ancestry.
2:02.5	My father is Korean. My mother is Vietnamese. And they both grew up in environments that were
2:09.5	significantly affected by a conflict of warfare. We can talk about the 20th century in Cold War,
	...

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