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104-448: Warfare is thought to have been more prevalent in primitive, ungoverned regions than in civilized states. The massacre at Talheim supports this idea by giving evidence of habitual warfare between Linearbandkeramik settlements. It is most likely that the violence occurred among LBK populations since the head wounds indicate the use of weapons from LBK cultures and all skeletons found resemble those of LBK settlers. The Talheim grave contained

208-617: A guillotine -like device known as a Fallbeil ("falling axe") since the 17th and 18th centuries, and decapitation by guillotine was the usual means of execution in Germany until the abolition of the death penalty in West Germany in 1949. It was last used in communist East Germany in 1966. In Nazi Germany , the Fallbeil was reserved for common criminals and people convicted of political crimes , including treason . Members of

312-582: A sword , and commoners with an axe . The last executions by decapitation in Finland in 1825, Norway in 1876, Faroe Islands in 1609, and in Iceland in 1830 were carried out with axes. The same was the case in Denmark in 1892. Sweden continued the practice for a few decades, executing its second to last criminal—mass murderer Johan Filip Nordlund —by axe in 1900. It was replaced by the guillotine, which

416-623: A UN report from Congolese refugees, they believed the Bana Mura and Kamuina Nsapu militias have "magical powers" as a result of drinking the blood of decapitated victims, making them invincible. Besides the massive decapitations (like the beheading of 40 members of the State Police), a globally notorious case happened in March 2017 to Swedish politician Zaida Catalán and American UN expert Michael Sharp, who were kidnapped and executed during

520-478: A dramatic intensification of the pace of social changes, and was a crucial catalyst for the growth of left-wing politics . Mao Zedong urged the socialist camp not to fear nuclear war with the United States since, even if "half of mankind died, the other half would remain while imperialism would be razed to the ground and the whole world would become socialist." A distinctive feature of war since 1945

624-508: A few years. While conventional wisdom holds that casualties have increased in recent times due to technological improvements in warfare, this is not generally true. For instance, the Thirty Years' War (1618–1648) had about the same number of casualties per capita as World War I , although it was higher during World War II (WWII). That said, overall the number of casualties from war has not significantly increased in recent times. Quite to

728-434: A finding supported by other researchers. Keeley explains that early war raids were not well organized, as the participants did not have any formal training. Scarcity of resources meant defensive works were not a cost-effective way to protect the society against enemy raids. William Rubinstein wrote "Pre-literate societies, even those organized in a relatively advanced way, were renowned for their studied cruelty.'" Since

832-600: A firing squad was used (including that of Jean Bastien-Thiry ), the guillotine was the only legal method of execution from 1791, when it was introduced by the Legislative Assembly during the last days of the kingdom French Revolution , until 1981. Before the revolution, beheading had typically been reserved for noblemen and carried out manually. In 1981, President François Mitterrand abolished capital punishment and issued commutations for those whose sentences had not been carried out. The first person executed by

936-569: A form of defense against aggressors. The people who lived there had built two ditches to counter the menace of other LBK communities. Another Early Neolithic mass grave was found at Herxheim , near Landau in the Rhineland-Palatinate . The site, unlike the mass burials at Talheim and Schletz, serves as proof of ritual cannibalism rather than of the first signs of violence in Europe. Herxheim contained 173 skulls and skull-plates, and

1040-508: A general feature of animal social behavior. Some proponents of the idea argue that war, while innate, has been intensified greatly by developments of technology and social organization such as weaponry and states. Psychologist and linguist Steven Pinker argued that war-related behaviors may have been naturally selected in the ancestral environment due to the benefits of victory. He also argued that in order to have credible deterrence against other groups (as well as on an individual level), it

1144-450: A headsman's axe or sword is sharp and his aim is precise, decapitation is quick and thought to be a relatively painless form of death . If the instrument is blunt or the executioner is clumsy, repeated strokes might be required to sever the head, resulting in a prolonged and more painful death. Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex , and Mary, Queen of Scots required three strikes at their respective executions. The same could be said for

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1248-463: A limited time even after connection to the brain is lost, responding to any nearby stimulus. In addition, the bodies of chickens and turtles may continue to move temporarily after decapitation. Although head transplantation by the reattachment of blood vessels has seen some very limited success in animals, a fully functional reattachment of a severed human head (including repair of the spinal cord , muscles, and other critically important tissues)

1352-627: A mission near the village of Ngombe in Kasaï Province . The UN was reportedly horrified when video footage of the executions surfaced in April that same year, where some grisly details led to assume ritual components of the beheading: the perpetrators first cut the hair of both victims, and then one of them beheaded Catalán only, because it would "increase his power", which may be linked to the fact that Congolese militias are particularly brutal in their acts of violence toward women and children. In

1456-588: A more honorable instrument of death. Those who could verify that they were Roman citizens were to be beheaded, rather than undergoing crucifixion . In the Roman Republic of the early 1st century BC, it became the tradition for the severed heads of public enemies—such as the political opponents of Marius and Sulla —to be publicly displayed on the Rostra in the Forum Romanum after execution. Perhaps

1560-469: A noble cause is a contributing factor towards war, few wars have originated from a desire for war among the general populace. Far more often the general population has been reluctantly drawn into war by its rulers. One psychological theory that looks at the leaders is advanced by Maurice Walsh. He argues the general populace is more neutral towards war and wars occur when leaders with a psychologically abnormal disregard for human life are placed into power. War

1664-521: A period of 10 seconds that have been linked to nociception across a number of different species of animals, including rats. Some animals (such as cockroaches ) can survive decapitation and die not because of the loss of the head directly, but rather because of starvation . A number of other animals, including snakes , and turtles , have also been known to survive for some time after being decapitated, as they have slower metabolisms and their nervous systems can continue to function at some capacity for

1768-514: A punishment for capital crimes. Cases of decapitation by suicidal hanging, suicide by train decapitation and by guillotine are known. Less commonly, decapitation can also refer to the removal of the head from a body that is already dead. This might be done to take the head as a trophy , as a secondary stage of an execution by hanging, for public display , to make the deceased more difficult to identify, for cryonics , or for other, more esoteric reasons. The word decapitation has its roots in

1872-482: A rapid fall of intracranial perfusion of blood"). A laboratory study testing for humane methods of euthanasia in awake animals used EEG monitoring to measure the time duration following decapitation for rats to become fully unconscious, unable to perceive distress and pain. It was estimated that this point was reached within 3–4 seconds, correlating closely with results found in other studies on rodents (2.7 seconds, and 3–6 seconds). The same study also suggested that

1976-609: A source of violent conflict. Pope Urban II in 1095, on the eve of the First Crusade , advocating Crusade as a solution to European overpopulation, said: For this land which you now inhabit, shut in on all sides by the sea and the mountain peaks, is too narrow for your large population; it scarcely furnishes food enough for its cultivators. Hence it is that you murder and devour one another, that you wage wars, and that many among you perish in civil strife. Let hatred, therefore, depart from among you; let your quarrels end. Enter upon

2080-446: A total of 34 skeletons, consisting of 16 children, nine adult males, seven adult women, and two more adults of indeterminate sex. Several skeletons of this group exhibited signs of repeated and healed-over trauma , suggesting that violence was a habitual or routine aspect of the culture. Not all of the wounds , however, were healed at the time of death . All of the skeletons at Talheim showed signs of significant trauma that were likely

2184-560: A war". Tangible/intangible aims: Explicit/implicit aims: Positive/negative aims: War aims can change in the course of conflict and may eventually morph into "peace conditions" – the minimal conditions under which a state may cease to wage a particular war. Throughout the course of human history, the average number of people dying from war has fluctuated relatively little, being about 1 to 10 people dying per 100,000. However, major wars over shorter periods have resulted in much higher casualty rates, with 100–200 casualties per 100,000 over

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2288-744: Is a Mesolithic cemetery in Jebel Sahaba , which has been determined to be about 13,400 years old. About forty-five percent of the skeletons there displayed signs of violent death, specifically traumatic bone lesions. In War Before Civilization , Lawrence H. Keeley , a professor at the University of Illinois , says approximately 90–95% of known societies throughout history engaged in at least occasional warfare, and many fought constantly. Keeley describes several styles of primitive combat such as small raids , large raids, and massacres . All of these forms of warfare were used by primitive societies,

2392-404: Is an armed conflict between the armed forces of states , or between governmental forces and armed groups that are organized under a certain command structure and have the capacity to sustain military operations, or between such organized groups. It is generally characterized by extreme violence , destruction, and mortality, using regular or irregular military forces . Warfare refers to

2496-632: Is caused by leaders who seek war such as Napoleon and Hitler . Such leaders most often come to power in times of crisis when the populace opts for a decisive leader, who then leads the nation to war. Naturally, the common people don't want war; neither in Russia nor in England nor in America, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine

2600-493: Is commonplace encourage their children to be more aggressive. War can be seen as a growth of economic competition in a competitive international system. In this view wars begin as a pursuit of markets for natural resources and for wealth. War has also been linked to economic development by economic historians and development economists studying state-building and fiscal capacity . While this theory has been applied to many conflicts, such counter arguments become less valid as

2704-567: Is estimated that between 1985 and 1994, 378,000 people per year died due to war. Most wars have resulted in significant loss of life, along with destruction of infrastructure and resources (which may lead to famine , disease, and death in the civilian population ). During the Thirty Years' War in Europe, the population of the Holy Roman Empire was reduced by 15 to 40 percent. Civilians in war zones may also be subject to war atrocities such as genocide , while survivors may suffer

2808-400: Is estimated that some 16,500 persons were guillotined in Germany and Austria between 1933 and 1945, a number that includes resistance fighters both within Germany itself and in countries occupied by Nazi forces . As these resistance fighters were not part of any regular army , they were considered common criminals and were in many cases transported to Germany for execution. Decapitation

2912-547: Is fueled by displacement and projection where a person transfers his or her grievances into bias and hatred against other races , religions , nations or ideologies . By this theory, the nation state preserves order in the local society while creating an outlet for aggression through warfare. The Italian psychoanalyst Franco Fornari , a follower of Melanie Klein , thought war was the paranoid or projective "elaboration" of mourning. Fornari thought war and violence develop out of our "love need": our wish to preserve and defend

3016-660: Is not likely. Early versions of the guillotine included the Halifax Gibbet , which was used in Halifax , England, from 1286 until the 17th century, and the " Maiden ", employed in Edinburgh from the 16th through the 18th centuries. The modern form of the guillotine was invented shortly before the French Revolution with the aim of creating a quick and painless method of execution requiring little skill on

3120-506: Is one of the earliest known sites in the archaeological record that shows proof of genocide in Early Neolithic Europe, among various LBK tribes. The site was not entirely excavated, but it is estimated that the entire ditch could contain up to 300 individuals. The remains of 67 people have been uncovered, all showing multiple points of trauma. Scientists have concluded that these people were also victims of genocide. Since

3224-849: Is that combat has largely been a matter of civil wars and insurgencies. The major exceptions were the Korean War , the Indo-Pakistani War of 1971 , the Iran–Iraq War , the Gulf War , the Eritrean–Ethiopian War , and the Russo-Ukrainian War . The Human Security Report 2005 documented a significant decline in the number and severity of armed conflicts since the end of the Cold War in the early 1990s. However,

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3328-892: The American Civil War , including about 6% in the North and approximately 18% in the South. The war remains the deadliest conflict in American history, resulting in the deaths of 620,000 military personnel. United States military casualties of war since 1775 have totaled over two million. Of the 60 million European military personnel who were mobilized in World War I , 8 million were killed, 7 million were permanently disabled, and 15 million were seriously injured. During Napoleon 's retreat from Moscow, more French military personnel died of typhus than were killed by

3432-485: The Anglo-Afghan Wars would behead enemy soldiers who were captured, such as British and Sikh soldiers. In Japan , decapitation was a common punishment, sometimes for minor offences. Samurai were often allowed to decapitate soldiers who had fled from battle, as it was considered cowardly. Decapitation was historically performed as the second step in seppuku (ritual suicide by disembowelment ). After

3536-509: The Bosnian Army . At least one case is documented and proven in court by the ICTY where mujahedin, members of 3rd Corps of Army BiH, beheaded Bosnian Serb Dragan Popović. In British history , beheading was typically used for noblemen, while commoners would be hanged; eventually, hanging was adopted as the standard means of non-military executions. The last actual execution by beheading

3640-598: The Second Nagorno-Karabakh War . In traditional China , decapitation was considered a more severe form of punishment than strangulation , although strangulation caused more prolonged suffering. This was because in Confucian tradition, a person's body was a gift from their parents, and so it was therefore disrespectful to their ancestors to return their bodies to the grave dismembered. The Chinese, however, had other punishments, such as dismembering

3744-489: The Soviet Union were around 27   million . Since a high proportion of those killed were young men who had not yet fathered any children, population growth in the postwar Soviet Union was much lower than it otherwise would have been. Once a war has ended, losing nations are sometimes required to pay war reparations to the victorious nations. In certain cases, land is ceded to the victorious nations. For example,

3848-721: The Statute Law (Repeals) Act 1973 . One of the most notable executions by decapitation in Britain was that of King Charles I of England , who was beheaded outside the Banqueting House in Whitehall in 1649, after being captured by parliamentarians during the English Civil War and tried for treason . In England, a bearded axe was used for beheading, with the blade's edge extending downwards from

3952-544: The White Rose resistance movement, a group of students in Munich that included siblings Sophie and Hans Scholl , were executed by decapitation. Contrary to popular myth, executions were generally not conducted face-up, and chief executioner Johann Reichhart was insistent on maintaining "professional" protocol throughout the era, having administered the death penalty during the earlier Weimar Republic . Nonetheless, it

4056-421: The involuntary functions that are needed for the body to function. The term beheading refers to the act of deliberately decapitating a person, either as a means of murder or as an execution ; it may be performed with an axe , sword , or knife , or by mechanical means such as a guillotine . An executioner who carries out executions by beheading is sometimes called a headsman. Accidental decapitation can be

4160-678: The 11th-century Old English words wyrre and werre , from Old French werre (also guerre as in modern French), in turn from the Frankish * werra , ultimately deriving from the Proto-Germanic * werzō ' mixture, confusion ' . The word is related to the Old Saxon werran , Old High German werran , and the modern German verwirren , meaning ' to confuse, to perplex, to bring into confusion ' . The earliest evidence of prehistoric warfare

4264-401: The 16th and 17th centuries, noblemen were sometimes executed by means of beheading. Examples include Anthony van Stralen, Lord of Merksem , Lamoral, Count of Egmont and Philip de Montmorency, Count of Horn . They were tied to a chair on a scaffold. The executioner used a knife to cut the head from the body. It was considered to be a more honourable death if the executioner started with cutting

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4368-707: The Great Depression, though some consider that it did not play a very large role in the recovery, though it did help in reducing unemployment. In most cases, such as the wars of Louis XIV, the Franco-Prussian War , and World War I , warfare primarily results in damage to the economy of the countries involved. For example, Russia's involvement in World War I took such a toll on the Russian economy that it almost collapsed and greatly contributed to

4472-660: The Late Latin word decapitare . The meaning of the word decapitare can be discerned from its morphemes de- (down, from) + capit- (head). The past participle of decapitare is decapitatus which was used to create decapitatio , the noun form of decapitatus , in Medieval Latin, whence the French word décapitation was produced. Humans have practiced capital punishment by beheading for millennia. The Narmer Palette (c. 3000 BCE) shows

4576-564: The Neanderthals and ancestors of apes and primates. For the period 3000 BCE until 1991, estimates range from 151   million to 2   billion. The deadliest war in history, in terms of the cumulative number of deaths since its start, is World War II , from 1939 to 1945, with 70–85 million deaths, followed by the Mongol conquests at up to 60 million. As concerns a belligerent's losses in proportion to its prewar population,

4680-705: The Russians. Of the 450,000 soldiers who crossed the Neman on 25 June 1812, less than 40,000 returned. More military personnel were killed from 1500 to 1914 by typhus than from military action. In addition, if it were not for modern medical advances there would be thousands more dead from disease and infection. For instance, during the Seven Years' War , the Royal Navy reported it conscripted 184,899 sailors, of whom 133,708 (72%) died of disease or were 'missing'. It

4784-438: The United States and U.S. Generals , expressed support for an economic view of war. The Marxist theory of war is quasi-economic in that it states all modern wars are caused by competition for resources and markets between great ( imperialist ) powers, claiming these wars are a natural result of capitalism . Marxist economists Karl Kautsky , Rosa Luxemburg , Rudolf Hilferding and Vladimir Lenin theorized that imperialism

4888-476: The absence of women among the local skeletons meant that they were regarded as somehow special, thus they were spared execution and captured instead. The capture of women may have indeed been the primary motive for the fierce conflict between the men. Other speculations as to the reasons for violence between settlements include vengeance, conflicts over land, resources, poaching , demonstration of superiority, and kidnapping slaves . Some of these theories related to

4992-495: The block, or submit to a sentence where she had received no trial. She told the executioner, that if he would have her head, he must win it the best way he could: and thus, shaking her venerable grey locks, she ran about the scaffold; and the executioner followed her with his axe, aiming many fruitless blows at her neck before he was able to give the fatal stroke. To ensure that the blow would be fatal, executioners' swords usually were blade-heavy two-handed swords. Likewise, if an axe

5096-565: The body into multiple pieces (similar to the English quartering ). In addition, there was also a practice of cutting the body at the waist , which was a common method of execution before being abolished in the early Qing dynasty due to the lingering death it caused. In some tales, people did not die immediately after decapitation. The British officer John Masters recorded in his autobiography that Pathans in British India during

5200-471: The cause of death. Broken down into three categories, 18 skulls were marked with wounds indicating the sharp edge of adzes of the Linearbandkeramik or Linear Pottery culture (LBK); 14 skulls were similarly marked with wounds produced from the blunt edge of adzes, and 2–3 had wounds produced by arrows . The skeletons did not exhibit evidence of defensive wounds , indicating that the population

5304-988: The chances of becoming a psychiatric casualty – of being debilitated for some period of time as a consequence of the stresses of military life – were greater than the chances of being killed by enemy fire. Swank and Marchand's World War II study found that after sixty days of continuous combat, 98% of all surviving military personnel will become psychiatric casualties. Psychiatric casualties manifest themselves in fatigue cases, confusional states, conversion hysteria, anxiety, obsessional and compulsive states, and character disorders. One-tenth of mobilised American men were hospitalised for mental disturbances between 1942 and 1945, and after thirty-five days of uninterrupted combat, 98% of them manifested psychiatric disturbances in varying degrees. Additionally, it has been estimated anywhere from 18% to 54% of Vietnam war veterans suffered from posttraumatic stress disorder . Based on 1860 census figures, 8% of all white American males aged 13 to 43 died in

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5408-495: The common activities and characteristics of types of war, or of wars in general. Total war is warfare that is not restricted to purely legitimate military targets , and can result in massive civilian or other non-combatant suffering and casualties . While some war studies scholars consider war a universal and ancestral aspect of human nature , others argue it is a result of specific socio-cultural, economic, or ecological circumstances. The English word war derives from

5512-778: The conflict, and increased revenues by weapons manufacturers . Three of the ten most costly wars, in terms of loss of life, have been waged in the last century. These are the two World Wars, followed by the Second Sino-Japanese War (which is sometimes considered part of World War II , or as overlapping). Most of the others involved China or neighboring peoples. The death toll of World War II, being over 60 million, surpasses all other war-death-tolls. Military personnel subject to combat in war often suffer mental and physical injuries, including depression, posttraumatic stress disorder , disease, injury, and death. In every war in which American soldiers have fought in,

5616-414: The contrary, on a global scale the time since WWII has been unusually peaceful. Estimates for total deaths due to war vary widely. In one estimate, primitive warfare from 50,000 to 3000 BCE has been thought to have claimed 400   million±133,000 victims based on the assumption that it accounted for the 15.1% of all deaths. Other scholars find the prehistoric percentage much lower, around 2%, similar to

5720-534: The early Meiji era. A similar scene is described in the last page of James Clavell's book Shōgun . Historically, decapitation had been the most common method of execution in Korea, until it was replaced by hanging in 1896. Professional executioners were called mangnani (망나니) and they were volunteered from death rows. Historically, decapitation had been the main method of execution in Thailand , until it

5824-588: The evidence examined in the 2008 edition of the Center for International Development and Conflict Management's "Peace and Conflict" study indicated the overall decline in conflicts had stalled. Entities contemplating going to war and entities considering whether to end a war may formulate war aims as an evaluation/propaganda tool. War aims may stand as a proxy for national-military resolve. Fried defines war aims as "the desired territorial, economic, military or other benefits expected following successful conclusion of

5928-499: The execution of Johann Friedrich Struensee , favorite of the Danish queen Caroline Matilda of Great Britain . Margaret Pole, 8th Countess of Salisbury , is said to have required up to 10 strokes before decapitation was achieved. This particular story may, however, be apocryphal, as highly divergent accounts exist. Historian and philosopher David Hume , for example, relates the following about her death: She refused to lay her head on

6032-557: The first known depiction of decapitated corpses. The terms "capital offence", "capital crime", "capital punishment", derive from the Latin caput , "head", referring to the punishment for serious offences involving the forfeiture of the head; i.e. death by beheading. Some cultures, such as ancient Rome and Greece, regarded decapitation as the most honorable form of death. In the Middle Ages, many European nations continued to reserve

6136-405: The following about Celtic head-hunting: They cut off the heads of enemies slain in battle and attach them to the necks of their horses. The blood-stained spoils they hand over to their attendants and striking up a paean and singing a song of victory; and they nail up these first fruits upon their houses, just as do those who lay low wild animals in certain kinds of hunting. They embalm in cedar oil

6240-553: The guillotine in France was highwayman Nicolas Jacques Pelletier in April 1792. The last execution was of murderer Hamida Djandoubi , in Marseille, in 1977. Throughout its extensive overseas colonies and dependencies , the device was also used, including on St Pierre in 1889 and on Martinique as late as 1965. In Nordic countries , decapitation was the usual means of carrying out capital punishment. Noblemen were beheaded with

6344-524: The heads of the most distinguished enemies, and preserve them carefully in a chest, and display them with pride to strangers, saying that for this head one of their ancestors, or his father, or the man himself, refused the offer of a large sum of money. They say that some of them boast that they refused the weight of the head in gold. Both the Greeks and Romans found the Celtic decapitation practices shocking and

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6448-459: The increasing mobility of capital and information level the distributions of wealth worldwide, or when considering that it is relative, not absolute, wealth differences that may fuel wars. There are those on the extreme right of the political spectrum who provide support, fascists in particular, by asserting a natural right of a strong nation to whatever the weak cannot hold by force. Some centrist, capitalist, world leaders, including Presidents of

6552-413: The interred remains showed a remarkably high percentage of long bones (especially in the lower leg) which were broken around the time of the individuals' deaths, which insinuates a deliberate targeting of these areas of the body, possibly as the victims were still alive. The mass grave dates to 5207–4849 BCE, and has been referred to as "indisputable evidence for another massacre". Warfare War

6656-455: The lack of resources are supported by the discovery that various LBK fortifications bordering indigenously inhabited areas appear to have not been in use for very long. The mass grave near Schletz, part of Asparn an der Zaya , was located about 33 kilometres (roughly 20 miles ) to the north of Vienna , Austria , and dates back about 7,500 years. Schletz, just like the Talheim death pit,

6760-620: The latter put an end to them when Celtic regions came under their control. According to Paul Jacobsthal , "Amongst the Celts the human head was venerated above all else, since the head was to the Celt the soul, centre of the emotions as well as of life itself, a symbol of divinity and of the powers of the other-world." Arguments for a Celtic cult of the severed head include the many sculptured representations of severed heads in La Tène carvings, and

6864-499: The massive wave which can be recorded by EEG monitoring approximately one minute after decapitation ultimately reflects brain death. Other studies indicate that electrical activity in the brain has been demonstrated to persist for 13 to 14 seconds following decapitation (although it is disputed as to whether such activity implies that pain is perceived), and a 2010 study reported that decapitation of rats generated responses in EEG indices over

6968-462: The method only for nobles and royalty. In France, the French Revolution made it the only legal method of execution for all criminals regardless of class, one of the period's many symbolic changes. Others have regarded beheading as dishonorable and contemptuous, such as the Japanese troops who beheaded prisoners during World War II. In recent times, it has become associated with terrorism. If

7072-505: The most destructive war in modern history may have been the Paraguayan War (see Paraguayan War casualties ). In 2013 war resulted in 31,000 deaths, down from 72,000 deaths in 1990. War usually results in significant deterioration of infrastructure and the ecosystem, a decrease in social spending, famine , large-scale emigration from the war zone, and often the mistreatment of prisoners of war or civilians. For instance, of

7176-476: The most famous beheading was that of Cicero who, on instructions from Mark Antony , had his hands (which had penned the Philippicae against Antony) and his head cut off and nailed up for display in this manner. In France, until the abolition of capital punishment in 1981, the main method of execution had been by beheading by means of the guillotine . Other than a small number of military cases in which

7280-542: The motivations for war, but no consensus about which are most common. Military theorist Carl von Clausewitz said, "Every age has its own kind of war, its own limiting conditions, and its own peculiar preconceptions." Dutch psychoanalyst Joost Meerloo held that, "War is often...a mass discharge of accumulated internal rage (where)...the inner fears of mankind are discharged in mass destruction." Other psychoanalysts such as E.F.M. Durban and John Bowlby have argued human beings are inherently violent. This aggressiveness

7384-599: The nature and presence of warfare. Thus, he argues, warfare is not a universal human occurrence and appears to have been a historical invention, associated with certain types of human societies. Montagu's argument is supported by ethnographic research conducted in societies where the concept of aggression seems to be entirely absent, e.g. the Chewong and Semai of the Malay peninsula. Bobbi S. Low has observed correlation between warfare and education, noting societies where warfare

7488-529: The nine million people who were on the territory of the Byelorussian SSR in 1941, some 1.6 million were killed by the Germans in actions away from battlefields, including about 700,000 prisoners of war, 500,000 Jews, and 320,000 people counted as partisans (the vast majority of whom were unarmed civilians). Another byproduct of some wars is the prevalence of propaganda by some or all parties in

7592-502: The organized placing of the skulls suggests a recurrent ritual act, instead of a single instance. Herxheim also contained various high-quality pottery artifacts and animal bones associated with the human remains. Unlike the mass burial at Talheim, scientists have concluded that instead of being a fortification, Herxheim was an enclosed center for ritual. This Neolithic mass grave, also in modern-day Germany, may exhibit signs of deliberate mutilation and/or torture. Skeletal analysis of

7696-463: The part of the operator. Decapitation by guillotine became a common mechanically assisted form of execution . The French observed a strict code of etiquette surrounding such executions. For example, a man named Legros, one of the assistants at the execution of Charlotte Corday , was imprisoned for three months and dismissed for slapping the face of the victim after the blade had fallen in order to see whether any flicker of life remained. The guillotine

7800-399: The policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy or a fascist dictatorship or a Parliament or a Communist dictatorship. ... the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works

7904-525: The psychological aftereffects of witnessing the destruction of war. War also results in lower quality of life and worse health outcomes. A medium-sized conflict with about 2,500 battle deaths reduces civilian life expectancy by one year and increases infant mortality by 10% and malnutrition by 3.3%. Additionally, about 1.8% of the population loses access to drinking water . Most estimates of World War II casualties indicate around 60 million people died, 40 million of whom were civilians. Deaths in

8008-480: The result of an explosion, a car or industrial accident, improperly administered execution by hanging or other violent injury. The national laws of Saudi Arabia and Yemen permit beheading. Under Sharia , which exclusively applies to Muslims, beheading is also a legal punishment in Zamfara State , Nigeria . In practice, Saudi Arabia is the only country that continues to behead its offenders regularly as

8112-419: The rise of the state some 5,000 years ago, military activity has continued over much of the globe. The invention of gunpowder , and its eventual use in warfare, together with the acceleration of technological advances have fomented major changes to war itself. In Western Europe, since the late 18th century, more than 150 conflicts and about 600 battles have taken place. During the 20th century, war resulted in

8216-486: The road to the Holy Sepulchre; wrest that land from a wicked race, and subject it to yourselves. Decapitated Decapitation is the total separation of the head from the body. Such an injury is invariably fatal to humans and most other animals, since it deprives the brain of oxygenated blood by way of severing through the jugular vein and common carotid artery , while all other organs are deprived of

8320-407: The sacred object to which we are attached, namely our early mother and our fusion with her. For the adult, nations are the sacred objects that generate warfare. Fornari focused upon sacrifice as the essence of war: the astonishing willingness of human beings to die for their country, to give over their bodies to their nation. Despite Fornari's theory that man's altruistic desire for self-sacrifice for

8424-674: The same way in any country. Several theories concern the evolutionary origins of warfare. There are two main schools: One sees organized warfare as emerging in or after the Mesolithic as a result of complex social organization and greater population density and competition over resources; the other sees human warfare as a more ancient practice derived from common animal tendencies, such as territoriality and sexual competition. The latter school argues that since warlike behavior patterns are found in many primate species such as chimpanzees , as well as in many ant species, group conflict may be

8528-453: The scattered remains of at least 450 individuals. Two complete skeletons were found inside the inner ditch . The crania from these bodies were discovered at regular intervals in the two defensive ditches surrounding the site. After the victims were decapitated , their heads were either thrown into the ditch or placed on top of posts that later collapsed inside the ditch. The heads showed signs of trauma from axes and one other weapon. Moreover,

8632-529: The search for the missing remains, arrived to a ritual place in Moyo Musila where "parts of bodies, hands and heads" were cut and used for rituals, where they lost track of the victim's head. During the 2016 Armenian–Azerbaijani clashes , Yazidi-Armenian serviceman Kyaram Sloyan was decapitated by Azerbaijani servicemen. Several reports of decapitation, along with other types of mutilation of Armenian POWs by Azerbaijani soldiers, emerged in 2020 during

8736-469: The start of the Russian Revolution of 1917 . World War II was the most financially costly conflict in history; its belligerents cumulatively spent about a trillion U.S. dollars on the war effort (as adjusted to 1940 prices). The Great Depression of the 1930s ended as nations increased their production of war materials. By the end of the war, 70% of European industrial infrastructure

8840-552: The surviving Celtic mythology, which is full of stories of the severed heads of heroes and the saints who carry their own severed heads , right down to Sir Gawain and the Green Knight , where the Green Knight picks up his own severed head after Gawain has struck it off in a beheading game , just as Saint Denis carried his head to the top of Montmartre . A further example of this regeneration after beheading lies in

8944-465: The tales of Connemara 's Saint Féchín , who after being beheaded by Vikings carried his head to the Holy Well on Omey Island and on dipping it into the well placed it back upon his neck and was restored to full health. Pothinus matched Mark Antony in crime: They slew the noblest Romans of their time. The helpless victims they decapitated, An act of infamy with shame related. One head

9048-514: The territory of Alsace-Lorraine has been traded between France and Germany on three different occasions. Typically, war becomes intertwined with the economy and many wars are partially or entirely based on economic reasons. The common view among economic historians is that the Great Depression ended with the advent of World War II . Many economists believe that government spending on the war caused or at least accelerated recovery from

9152-475: The tip of the shaft. The Celts of western Europe long pursued a "cult of the severed head" , as evidenced by both Classical literary descriptions and archaeological contexts. This cult played a central role in their temples and religious practices and earned them a reputation as head hunters among the Mediterranean peoples. Diodorus Siculus , in his 1st-century Historical Library (5.29.4) wrote

9256-525: The trial that followed investigations after the bodies were discovered, and according to a testimony of a primary school teacher from Bunkonde, near the village of Moyo Musuila where the executions took place, he witnessed a teenage militant carrying the young woman's head, but despite the efforts of the investigation, the head was never found. According to a report published on 29 May 2019, the Monusco peacekeeping military mission led by Colonel Luis Mangini, in

9360-462: The victim had sliced his own abdomen open, another warrior would strike his head off from behind with a katana to hasten death and to reduce the suffering. The blow was expected to be precise enough to leave intact a small strip of skin at the front of the neck—to spare invited and honored guests the indelicacy of witnessing a severed head rolling about, or towards them; such an occurrence would have been considered inelegant and in bad taste. The sword

9464-502: The weapons used were characteristic of LBK peoples, the attackers are believed to be members of other LBK tribes. In similar proportions to those found at Talheim, fewer young women were found than men at Schletz. Because of this scarcity of young women among the dead, it is possible that other women of the defeated group were kidnapped by the attackers. The site was enclosed, or fortified, which serves as evidence of violent conflict among tribes and means that these fortifications were built as

9568-484: Was Pompey 's, who brought triumphs home, The other Cicero 's, the voice of Rome. — Martial , Epigram I:60 (Trans. by Garry Wills ) The ancient Greeks and Romans regarded decapitation as a comparatively honorable form of execution for criminals. The traditional procedure, however, included first being tied to a stake and whipped with rods. Axes were used by the Romans, and later swords, which were considered

9672-599: Was also considered a very severe and degrading form of punishment. One of the most brutal decapitations was that of Sugitani Zenjubō  [ ja ] (杉谷善住坊), who attempted to assassinate Oda Nobunaga , a prominent daimyō , in 1570. After being caught, Zenjubō was buried alive in the ground with only his head out, and the head was slowly sawn off with a bamboo saw by passers-by for several days (punishment by sawing; [[[nokogiribiki]]  [ ja ] ] Error: {{Lang}}: Non-latn text/Latn script subtag mismatch ( help ) ( 鋸挽き ). These unusual punishments were abolished in

9776-484: Was considered a "dishonorable" death, in contrast to execution by firing squad . In the Democratic Republic of Congo , the conflict and ethnic massacre between local army and Kamuina Nsapu rebels has caused several deaths and atrocities such as rape and mutilation. One of them is decapitation, both a fearsome way to intimidate victims as well as an act that may include ritualistic elements. According to

9880-588: Was destroyed. Property damage in the Soviet Union inflicted by the Axis invasion was estimated at a value of 679 billion rubles. The combined damage consisted of complete or partial destruction of 1,710 cities and towns, 70,000 villages/hamlets, 2,508 church buildings, 31,850 industrial establishments, 40,000 mi (64,374 km) of railroad, 4100 railroad stations, 40,000 hospitals, 84,000 schools, and 43,000 public libraries. There are many theories about

9984-464: Was expected to be used upon the slightest sign that the practitioner might yield to pain and cry out—avoiding dishonor to him and to all partaking in the privilege of observing an honorable demise. As skill was involved, only the most trusted warrior was honored by taking part. In the late Sengoku period , decapitation was performed as soon as the person chosen to carry out seppuku had made the slightest wound to his abdomen. Decapitation (without seppuku)

10088-469: Was fleeing when it was killed. Investigation of the Neolithic skeletons found in the Talheim death pit suggests that prehistoric men from neighboring tribes were prepared to fight and kill each other in order to capture and secure women . Researchers discovered that there were women among the immigrant skeletons, but within the local group of skeletons there were only men and children. They concluded that

10192-667: Was important to have a reputation for retaliation, causing humans to develop instincts for revenge as well as for protecting a group's (or an individual's) reputation (" honor "). Crofoot and Wrangham have argued that warfare, if defined as group interactions in which "coalitions attempt to aggressively dominate or kill members of other groups", is a characteristic of most human societies. Those in which it has been lacking "tend to be societies that were politically dominated by their neighbors". Ashley Montagu strongly denied universalistic instinctual arguments, arguing that social factors and childhood socialization are important in determining

10296-420: Was of Simon Fraser, 11th Lord Lovat on 9 April 1747, while a number of convicts were beheaded posthumously up to the early 19th century. (Typically traitors were sentenced to be hanged, drawn and quartered , a method which had already been discontinued.) Beheading was degraded to a secondary means of execution, including for treason, with the abolition of drawing and quartering in 1870 and finally abolished by

10400-571: Was replaced by shooting in 1934. Execution by beheading was one of the most common forms of execution in Vietnam under the feudal system. This form of execution still existed in the South Vietnam regime until 1962. During the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina (1992–1995) there were a number of ritual beheadings of Serbs and Croats who were taken as prisoners of war by mujahideen members of

10504-533: Was the result of capitalist countries needing new markets . Expansion of the means of production is only possible if there is a corresponding growth in consumer demand . Since the workers in a capitalist economy would be unable to fill the demand, producers must expand into non-capitalist markets to find consumers for their goods, hence driving imperialism. Demographic theories can be grouped into two classes, Malthusian and youth bulge theories: Malthusian theories see expanding population and scarce resources as

10608-572: Was used for the first and only time on Johan Alfred Ander in 1910. Finland 's official beheading axe resides today at the Museum of Crime in Vantaa . It is a broad-bladed two-handed axe. It was last used when murderer Tahvo Putkonen was executed in 1825, the last execution in peacetime in Finland. In Spain executions were carried out by various methods including strangulation by the garrotte . In

10712-659: Was used in France during the French Revolution and remained the normal judicial method in both peacetime and wartime into the 1970s, although the firing squad was used in certain cases. France abolished the death penalty in 1981. The guillotine was also used in Algeria before the French relinquished control of it, as shown in Gillo Pontecorvo 's film The Battle of Algiers . Many German states had used

10816-701: Was used, it almost invariably was wielded with both hands. Decapitation is quickly fatal to humans and most animals . Unconsciousness occurs within seconds without circulating oxygenated blood ( brain ischemia ). Cell death and irreversible brain damage occurs after 3–6 minutes with no oxygen, due to excitotoxicity . Some anecdotes suggest more extended persistence of human consciousness after decapitation, but most doctors consider this unlikely and consider such accounts to be misapprehensions of reflexive twitching rather than deliberate movement, since deprivation of oxygen must cause nearly immediate coma and death ("[Consciousness is] probably lost within 2–3 seconds, due to

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