Pre-Human Peace and Peacemaking

When did the world history of peace begin? How did peace and peace­making originally evolve? Establishing the basic characteristics and chronology of peace from prehistoric times to the origins of civilization has been a considerable challenge for researchers across a wide array of disciplines.

Whether the world was more peaceful before humans evolved is impos­sible to say, but that peace and peacemaking in certain forms then existed is clear. Although firsthand stories are unavailable, primatologists offer practical secondary windows. After studying chimpanzees in their natural Tanzanian habitat for over twenty-five years, for instance, Jane Goodall attested to their inclination towards peaceful coexistence:

Aggression, particularly in its more extreme form, is vivid and attention catching, and it is easy to get the impression that chimpanzees are more aggressive than they really are. In actuality, peaceful interactions are far more frequent than aggressive ones; mildly threatening gestures are more common than vigorous ones; threats per se occur much more often than fights; and serious, wounding fights are very rare compared to brief, relatively mild ones.²

The idea that social peace is a matter of proportions, the variables of which can be changed, thus starts with primates though it does not end with them.

Given the absence of developed reasoning and language skills in primates - with whom we otherwise share 99 percent of our genes - their capacity for peaceful coexistence most likely has a biological basis, rein­forced by environmental adaptation and enculturation processes neces­sary to pass on peace instincts from one generation to the next. Primatologist Frans de Waal, author of the path-breaking Peacemaking among Primates (1990), sees peaceful coexistence among primates whether in the wild or in captivity as stemming from intuitions necessary for survival or, in a word, peace instincts. Whenever two or more primates compete for a single resource, both the value of the resource itself relative to the risk of harm or death and the value of their relationship with the competitor must be taken into consideration if the individual and group are to survive. “Sometimes the resource may not be worth the straining of a cooperative relationship, even if an individual could easily win the fight.”⁵ Peace instincts, distinct from inner peace in being less of a con­scious state than a predisposition of which one can be unaware, play important roles in the everyday lives of primates. As with humans, two constant sources of social tension in primate groups are the drives for and necessity of food and reproduction, which spur conflicts between indi­viduals of the same and other species.

For example, mating often “works to ease anxiety or tensions and to calm excitement” and so to “increase tolerance, which makes food­sharing smooth.”⁶ Another primate approach to peaceful coexistence is found in restorative behavior, which occurs after conflicts regardless of the amount and direction of previous aggression. The restorative behav­ior of rhesus monkeys includes a dramatic increase in lip-smacking and embracing during post-conflict reunions as compared to control contacts, whereas reconciling stumptail monkeys engage in the hold-bottom ritual, where one individual presents its hindquarters and the other clasps the other’s haunches. Stumptail post-conflict behavior is called explicit rec­onciliation because conspicuous behavior rarely performed outside this context refers directly to the conflict, while peacemaking among rhesus is called implicit reconciliation because ordinary behavior is simply modi­fied, thus only indirectly referring to the same. The restorative behavior of chimpanzees involves kissing, embracing, outstretched-hand invita­tions, and gentle touching. In contrast, reconciliation among bonobos typically involves mutual penis thrusting between males, genitor-genital rubbing between females and ventro-ventral and -dorsal mating between sexes. So for chimpanzees, post-conflict peacemaking means taking part in what may be called affective reconciliation, while for bonobos doing likewise means engaging in sexual reconciliation. A distinction emerges between two complementary kinds of peace-oriented activities among pri­mates and later humans: one aims at sustaining peaceful coexistence, the other at restoring it after a temporary breach.

Despite that its performance differs dramatically between species, in each case primate peacemaking through tension relief and restorative behavior serves the function of reconciling the parties involved in a con­flict, reinforcing their peace instincts. If primates have developed ways to relieve tensions and use restorative behavior to sustain peaceful coexis­tence, what can this tell us about the history of peace among humans? Peace and peacemaking predate humanity in the sense that they evolved from those of primates from which our species descends. Taking a wider view, “evolution has led intra-species aggression, in the overwhelming number of species... to a non-lethal and non-violent form of behavior.”⁷ Humans inherited these innate peaceful capacities and learned abilities from primates, and only afterwards developed them distinctively for our­selves. Moreover, inter-species disparities in primate peacemaking paral­lel sharp contrasts between their equivalents among human cultural groups. One can easily imagine what would happen if a chimpanzee attempted to make peace with a bonobo, or a rhesus monkey with a stumptail, if neither party changes their peacemaking behavior: mis­interpretation would lead to serious misunderstandings, putting the whole peace process in jeopardy. As heuristic models, such hypothetical situations among primate species are of great import to actual peace and peacemaking among different human cultures in that each demands the recognition of and adaptation to different conditions and participants to be successful.