October
01
/ 2015
America’s Wild West may have been just as wild before the white man arrived with horses, guns and liquor. Analysis of more than 16,000 skeletons of Native Americans buried across 2,500 years shows about 1 in 15 people in prehistoric central California sustained some type of wound. A case in point is a study conducted by University of California-Davis professor of archaeology Jelmer W. Eerkens of an apparent mass homicide from 850 AD. Professor Eerkens analyzed the remains of seven men killed and dumped in one grave and concluded they were a war or raiding party. Professor Eerkens and other researchers say interpersonal violence and territorial warfare were common in California over a long period. “We suggest that inter-village warfare
