ABSTRACT
This chapter reviews the archaeological evidence for interpersonal violence among the Paleoamericans, occupants of North America between the earliest identifiable arrivals and approximately 9,000 years before present. It considers that record in the light of the morphology, health, and demography of those people; and offer potential explanations for the pattern that emerges. The violence inflicted on the Paleoamericans is primarily frontal, primarily inflicted at close quarters, and primarily nonlethal. Wrangham and Peterson document violence within the community for hierarchical dominance and coercion of females among chimpanzees in their native habitat. The sample of Paleoamerican skeletons is small and incomplete, but the evidence for interpersonal violence in that sample is ubiquitous and extensive. The pattern it presents is almost exclusively one of nonlethal fights between males within their own community and abuse of women and children by those same males. This pattern of violence is associated with high level of sexual dimorphism and a marked robusticity in the crania of males.
