View Full Version : The British Have Always Been Violent
I tripped over a cool little article today (http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=mg19025514.900&feedId=online-news_rss20), which clearly demonstrates that the Brits have been kicking each others' heads in since well before the invention of football and steel-toed boots:
Muggings were rife in New Stone Age
From New Scientist Print Edition. Subscribe and get 4 free issues.
Emma Young
If you are worried about being attacked or killed by a violent criminal, just be glad you are not living in Neolithic Britain. From 4000 to 3200 BC, Britons had a 1 in 14 chance of being bashed on the head, and a 1 in 50 chance of dying from their injuries.
Grisly figures from the first systematic survey of early Neolithic British skulls reveal that life then was no rural idyll. "It's certainly more violent than we'd considered," says Rick Schulting of Queen's University Belfast, UK, who conducted the study with Mick Wysocki at the University of Central Lancashire in Preston.
The discovery of craniums from the New Stone Age with signs of human-inflicted trauma is nothing new but this is the first clue to the overall frequency of violence. Schulting and Wysocki have so far identified and studied the remains of about 350 skulls, mostly from southern England. The pair found healed depressed fractures in 4 to 5 per cent of the skulls, and unhealed injuries in about 2 per cent - suggesting the person died from their wounds, or at some point in the attack.
Most of the fatal blows were to the left side of the head, which would make sense if two right-handed people were fighting, says Schulting. The injuries were mostly caused by blunt objects, although some of the skulls seem to have been hacked by stone axes and there is some evidence that ears were chopped off. Schulting presented the work at last month's annual conference of the Society for American Archaeology in San Juan, Puerto Rico.
Kanamori
05-11-2006, 19:44
It's a good thing our ancestors didn't do that, here in America.:scastle:
Kanamori
05-11-2006, 19:46
Guffaw.
I'm certain that every other stone-age culture was peaceful and full of goodwill. It was just the Brits knocking each others' skulls in. This is the proof.
You British people are dangerous, I say. Very dangerous, and perhaps unstable. Please don't hurt me.
lancelot
05-11-2006, 19:52
You British people are dangerous, I say. Very dangerous, and perhaps unstable. Please don't hurt me.
Let the world tremble! Bwahaahaa! :charge:
Must be something in the water...
Taffy_is_a_Taff
05-11-2006, 22:15
My great great great ......great great great.....great great grandfather could beat yours up.
:boxing:
Al Khalifah
05-11-2006, 22:47
It was certainly the most raucous and troublesome Roman province.
The moral of the story is: We, the British, will not play by anyone's rules - not even our own.
My great great great ......great great great.....great great grandfather could beat yours up.
:boxing:
Not at all - my great....great great great....great great great great....great great grandfather took your great great great ......great great great.....great great grandfather's mother and used her like a Neolithic British wench :laugh4:
So our great great great ......great great great.....great great grandfather could be one and the same. :juggle2:
Taffy_is_a_Taff
05-11-2006, 23:10
you're
my
brother!
:2thumbsup:
(:help: )
~:thumb:
Byzantine Prince
05-11-2006, 23:19
Great, another retarded chromosome in the gene pool. :rolleyes:
you're
my
brother!
:2thumbsup:
(:help: )
~:thumb:
Well it could be worse - I could be your cousin.......:2thumbsup:
Great, another retarded chromosome in the gene pool. :rolleyes:
Another useless comment from the peanut gallery....:dizzy2:
Great, another retarded chromosome in the gene pool. :rolleyes:
There is no such thing. I'd get into how down syndrome happens, but that might swell your head a bit to much.~;)
English assassin
05-12-2006, 09:47
Well it could be worse - I could be your cousin.......:2thumbsup:
If you lived in Norfolk you could be his cousin AND his brother. And your own Aunty Betty.
I'm surprised your odds were only 1 in 14 of being bashed on the head if you lived in Stone Age Britain. These days, you've got more chance than that of being bashed on the head in a three hour charter flight from Birmingham to Faliraki . And you'd have an STD by the end of the flight too.
(Edit: in addition to the ones you started the flight with I mean)
Philippus Flavius Homovallumus
05-12-2006, 10:48
Oh, man, so funny.
1. The Stone Age "Britons" have little or no connection to the actual British, the Celts.
2. The "British" today are the Welsh, Scots and Irish, the hooligans are the English.
Show me a study about ancient Germanic tribes bashing each other in the head and don't connect me to these non-ancestors.
Nope, you're wrong. They're your ancestors, and they were violent. And clearly you are violent as well. I mean, after all, you're British, so you must be violent. It's possible you're a skinhead with big bother boots. I have no way of knowing. But I'm definitely frightened of you.
Taffy_is_a_Taff
05-12-2006, 14:09
Oh, man, so funny.
1. The Stone Age "Britons" have little or no connection to the actual British, the Celts.
of course not...
Prove it.
Edit: just saying that the evidence is a little slim(or not even there) either way.
I liked the studies of stone age remains from Somerset that found genetic links with the current locals, that was excellent.
Prodigal
05-12-2006, 14:23
There is no such thing. I'd get into how down syndrome happens, but that might swell your head a bit to much.~;)
Stone axes at dawn its the only way to settle it!
Let the blunt trauma begin!
InsaneApache
05-12-2006, 14:55
Nope, you're wrong. They're your ancestors, and they were violent. And clearly you are violent as well. I mean, after all, you're British, so you must be violent. It's possible you're a skinhead with big bother boots. I have no way of knowing. But I'm definitely frightened of you.
bother boots...lmfao.
Don Corleone
05-12-2006, 15:06
Not for nothing, but does anybody think that if you found antrhopological remnants from any corner of the globe, the results would be any different? Most ancient folks were incredibly bloodthirsty, I don't think neolithic Britains held any special honors there.
Taffy_is_a_Taff
05-12-2006, 15:12
bovver!
p.s.
Oi!
See? You're being intimidating and violent again. Clearly it's genetic.
Taffy_is_a_Taff
05-12-2006, 16:46
See? You're being intimidating and violent again. Clearly it's genetic.
you looking at my pint? :viking:
:2thumbsup:
English assassin
05-12-2006, 16:47
you looking at my pint? :viking:
:2thumbsup:
Oi Taff. He's not just looking mate, he called your pint a poof.
Avicenna
05-12-2006, 17:05
It's a good thing our ancestors didn't do that, here in America.:scastle:
Probably due to the fact that most Americans now were not at America at the time :wink:
Taffy_is_a_Taff
05-12-2006, 17:47
Oi Taff. He's not just looking mate, he called your pint a poof.
I don't know what his problem is, I try to help him out and he accuses me of being aggressive and makes some comment about my family.
He then spends all night staring at my pint and now he's questioning its sexuality.
It's not even like he's drunk or anything, he's stone cold sober and trying to start something.
B*stard.
:2thumbsup:
{Lemur curls into a fetal position and awaits his kicking at the hands of British hooligans.}
Taffy_is_a_Taff
05-12-2006, 17:55
:laugh4:
Kanamori
05-12-2006, 18:03
Probably due to the fact that most Americans now were not at America at the time
What are you talking about? WE ARE AMERICANS AND THIS IS AMERICA. Duh! Of course our neolithic ancestors were here.
master of the puppets
05-12-2006, 18:20
aw, da british is a bunch o meanies huh. course they are, just ask the zulus, or the american settlers, or the afghanis, or the saudis, or the chinese, or the indians, or the irish, or the scottish, ask the french, austrians, russians, ask the inuits and the africans. the british are freakin mean.
Justiciar
05-12-2006, 18:30
or the scottish
Silly git. :2thumbsup:
master of the puppets
05-12-2006, 18:45
ok, mabey not all the scottish but me thinks willy wallace has got something to say about there nastiness.
Taffy_is_a_Taff
05-12-2006, 18:46
ok, mabey not all the scottish but me thinks willy wallace has got something to say about there nastiness.
That would have been before the English were considered British.
Justiciar
05-12-2006, 18:51
Last I checked "Willy Wallace" was British.
Taffy_is_a_Taff
05-12-2006, 18:55
Last I checked "Willy Wallace" was British.
yeah, his surname and place of origin definitely hint at that.
Maybe Brits are violent because they wear stilton cheese as a perfume (http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20060512/wl_uk_afp/britainfoodcosmeticsoffbeat).
http://www.cfpeople.org/military/070404/braveheart.jpg
FREEEEEEDOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM
Taffy_is_a_Taff
05-12-2006, 19:15
One female Stilton employee told AFP: "I've had the perfume on all day and none of the men complained."
And yet she doesn't mention if anybody has said how nice she smells.
Stilton: buy our perfume, it doesn't smell too badly.
Vladimir
05-12-2006, 19:29
Maybe Brits are violent because they wear stilton cheese as a perfume (http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20060512/wl_uk_afp/britainfoodcosmeticsoffbeat).
One female Stilton employee told AFP: "I've had the perfume on all day and none of the men complained."
Hah! Female logic! :laugh4:
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