Washington : Under certain conditions, violent conflict may offer a biological benefit to those who take part in it, a Harvard study has found, reports IANS.
In the study over members of an East African herding tribe, the team noticed that those who engaged in conflict – in the form of violent raids carried out on neighbouring groups – had more wives and children.
“The currency of evolution is reproductive success. By having more wives, you can have more children. What we found was that, over the course of their lives, those who took part in more raids had more children,” said Luke Glowacki, a doctoral student working with Richard Wrangham, Ruth Moore Professor of biological anthropology at Harvard University. For Glowacki, the project involved living with the Nyangatom, a group of nomadic herders living in a region of southwest Ethiopia and South Sudan, for more than a year. The team observed virtually every part of day-to-day village life – from digging water holes to migrations.
Typically carried out by Nyangatom men between 20 and 40 years old armed with weapons like AK-47 rifles, the raids sometimes result in serious injuries and deaths. Those who take part in the raids, however, must turn over any livestock they obtain to village elders, who use them to obtain wives for themselves.
