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In American Antiquity, SFI External Professor Tim Kohler and co-authors plot evidence of violent trauma on human remains in the northern Rio Grande and central Mesa Verde areas between the time of the initial settlement by farmers around A.D. 600 and the arrival of the Spanish in the mid-1500s.

Their study reveals significant differences in the prevalence of violence in the two areas. In the northern Rio Grande (today's north-central New Mexico), violence generally declined from the mid-1100s until the arrival of the Spanish in 1540 even as population increased markedly. In contrast, in the central Mesa Verde area (today's southwestern Colorado), violence typically increased as population increased and maize production fluctuated. 

Their findings begin to resolve longstanding contradictions between existing archaeological and ethnographic data on violence in pre-Hispanic Pueblo societies and provide insight into the difficult problem of what motivates violent behavior.

According to Kohler, societies in the northern Rio Grande gradually abandoned violence as the chief way to settle their grievances, remaining relatively peaceful—compared to slightly earlier societies in the central Mesa Verde—even in times of resource shortfalls and variability.

Based on the new research, Kohler suggests that this general decline might have been due to the combination of increased social span of polities, the importance of inter-Pueblo religious structures, exchange between Pueblos accompanied by increased specialization, all eventually leading to increased adherence to a set of nonviolent norms.

How this relative peace was achieved might inform how we resolve conflict today, Kohler says. Scott Ortman, a former SFI Omidyar Fellow at the Institute, is a co-author on the study.

Read the paper in American Antiquity (July 2014, subscription required)

Read the article in Science 2.0 (August 4, 2014)

Read the article in The Raw Story (August 5, 2014)