Territorialism and social group identity are intrinsic to human nature, to a degree, and appear to be biologically inherited from our ancient ancestors. But, so are cooperation, negotiation, acceptance of 'the other' into a group.
Our closest relatives today, chimpanzees, are territorial. The males are hierarchical and follow the leadership of an alpha male in their troop (band of chimps). In Jane Goodall's studies, the males used posturing, intimidating grunts, and gestures to assert themselves until one remained dominant. They did not physically fight for the role. Some other studies in other locations report some serious physical fights.
Chimps are not monogamous. They do not form parental pairs, but sometimes preferences develop and males will sometimes protect their own offspring from internal threats by other chimps in the troop. This happens when other chimps, usually mothers, steal an infant to kill and feed to their own offspring.
In general, chimp males protect the entire troop from external threats. They will attack outsiders in their territory and follow them to kill off the invaders' entire troop. Chimp genocide. But, they will also sometimes accept a single 'foreign' female into their troop.
But, we do not descend from chimps, so we do not inherit our traits from them. We are close relatives because we have a common ancestor. Our ancestors diverged from our chimp cousins to develop along our own, separate evolutionary path.
We have another close relative who also shared a common ancestor with us and with chimps. They are bonobos. They look like chimps but are smaller and are a separate species of their own. They are more peaceful and cooperative than chimps. They defend their territories but do not engage in genocide like chimps do. They have troop leaders but they settle differences among themselves through mediation and negotiation. Often, females are the mediators between 2 males. They sometimes adopt outsiders, other times drive them off.
We do not descend from bonobos, either. But we share some traits of both of our ancestral relatives because all 3 of us share a common distant ancestor. Our ancestors diverged onto our own evolutionary branch of the family tree. Along the way, our inherited traits evolved, both genetically and culturally, according to environmental and social pressures and genetic changes..
Our ancestors formed small social groups and larger ones. They evolved customs, or social rules, to maintain social stability and unity. They distrusted the 'outsider' or stranger, but developed customs for dealing with them in hospitality, trade, or rejection, which might include death, varying from one culture to another.
Longrich cites the skeletal remains of injured bones to back up claims of a genocidal past. Nonsense. They indicate the existance of wars or maybe a fight between 2 people, but that is not genocide. Skeletons of 20+ people that he cited might have been part of a sacrificial custom, or a ritual treatment of people who died from disease. He cannot know if they indicate genocide. Nor can we.
But, yes, we know there were wars and that some were brutal. Some were genocidal in historic times as far back as the Assyrian and Babylonian empires, or as recent as the Nazis. I don't doubt that our pre HS ancestors also fought over territories and resources sometimes. That capacity is part of our nature as humans. But I do not believe that it accounts for the extinctions of our various pre HS ancestors.
We have also biologically inherited the capacity for negotiation, mediation, acceptance of 'the other' which is just as much a part of our intrinsic human nature as murderous tribalism. We have a dual nature and some societies emphasize one of those dual traits over the other. As HS, with a well developed brain, we can choose.
Longrich seems to be arguing for the existence of the murderous tribal trait as the only true biological nature of human beings, and to brush off our more peaceful side as mere cultural teachings. In fact he appears to be using pseudo science to justify tribalism and genocide as the only aspect of our 'true nature.' He brushes off the peaceful side of our nature as articially induced.
The mid 20th century saw the use of pseudo science and the misuse of real science to justify sterilization of 'inferiors,' isolationism, nationalism, conquest wars, and genocidal slaughters. I am not buying Longrich's proposition at all. But it does not surprise me that it appears in a publication founded by neocon Irving Kristol, whose son favors the extinction of whole ethnic groups.
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