Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Gmez, Jos Mara
• Verd, Miguel
• Gonzlez-Megas, Adela
• Mndez, Marcos

Titel

The phylogenetic roots of human lethal violence

Ist Teil von

• Nature (London), 2016-10, Vol.538 (7624), p.233-237

Ort / Verlag

London: Nature Publishing Group UK

Erscheinungsjahr

2016

Quelle

MEDLINE

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• The percentage of human deaths caused by interpersonal violence reflects our membership of a particularly violent clade of mammals, although changes in socio-political organization have led to marked variations in this proportion. Phylogenetic roots of human lethal violence The philosopher Thomas Hobbes said that people are inherently violent; Jean-Jacques Rousseau, that people are usually peaceable. The reality presumably lies somewhere in between, but where? Here José María Gomez et al . present a phylogenetic analysis of intraspecies lethal violence in more than 1,000 mammalian species. They show that whereas lethal violence is almost unknown in some clades, such as bats and whales, it is a particular feature of primates. The level of lethal violence during human prehistory inferred from empirical observations is in line with the phylogenetic prediction, but during most historic periods was higher than the phylogenetic predictions. In modern times, cultural practices appear to have modulated the tendency towards violence that nature has given us. The psychological, sociological and evolutionary roots of conspecific violence in humans are still debated, despite attracting the attention of intellectuals for over two millennia 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 , 6 , 7 , 8 , 9 , 10 , 11 . Here we propose a conceptual approach towards understanding these roots based on the assumption that aggression in mammals, including humans, has a significant phylogenetic component. By compiling sources of mortality from a comprehensive sample of mammals, we assessed the percentage of deaths due to conspecifics and, using phylogenetic comparative tools, predicted this value for humans. The proportion of human deaths phylogenetically predicted to be caused by interpersonal violence stood at 2%. This value was similar to the one phylogenetically inferred for the evolutionary ancestor of primates and apes, indicating that a certain level of lethal violence arises owing to our position within the phylogeny of mammals. It was also similar to the percentage seen in prehistoric bands and tribes, indicating that we were as lethally violent then as common mammalian evolutionary history would predict. However, the level of lethal violence has changed through human history and can be associated with changes in the socio-political organization of human populations. Our study provides a detailed phylogenetic and historical context against which to compare levels of lethal violence observed throughout our history.