Hello, welcome back!
Now, close your eyes for 10 seconds and ponder on the word “War”. What came to mind?
Like me, I’m guessing you thought of devastating nuclear bombs, rifles, high-intelligence systems and deadly bioweapons. Well, these are characteristic of modern warfare, and arose from technological advancements. But before I start venturing into that notion of war most have, I decided to first understand ancient war and its impact on the environment. By understanding warfare’s first manifestations in humanity, I believe we can then better comprehend its modernisation and resultant increasing impacts on the environment.
So, what exactly is ancient war? Though what is defined as “ancient” periods differ from region to region, it is commonly regarded to be from 3000BC to 476AD – the beginning of recorded history to the fall of the roman empire. Preceded by the Neolithic Age, I believe the war in ancient times was characterised by heavy reliance on animals, agricultural warfare and the use of melee weapons.
In ancient times, agricultural warfare was one of the biggest arms of the Scorched Earth Policy, which is defined as “the act of an army destroying everything in an area that could be useful to an enemy”. Techniques like burning by the Scythians, sowing weeds by the Assyrian, salting of cropland, and poisoning wells in Mesopotamia managed to render once prosperous grounds futile and unproductive. This devastated enemy food sources and production systems, therefore weakening civilisations through starvation.
Have you seen the wars in Narnia and The Lord of the Rings? Have a quick look!
Animals were used to wage war too. Despite the movies’ fictional and dramatic depictions of creatures at war, I could identify some common animal war tactics as used in ancient warfare. For combat, elephants were indeed used to trample and ravage enemy armies, and horses were employed for transportation. Other animals used included pigs, pigeons and even dogs.
Besides combat, animals were exploited as weapons, and the deployment of Entomological Warfare is a great example. “Scorpion Grenades” and “Bee Bombs” were utilised as weapons by the Roman Empire to cause physical harm, and fleas were used as vectors of disease.
Undeniably, ancient war was not just all about triumph and defeat of empires, it had dire ecological consequences too. I found it challenging to gather evidence quantifying their specific spatial and temporal extents, understandably, ancient war occurred ages ago. Despite that, modern examples can help us gain insight on them. For example, we know that introducing weed does way more than reduce crop yield, but also greatly interferes with biodiversity and ecosystem processes. Using animals can lead to mass death, seen from eight million horses perishing in WW1, and foreign animals introduced when invading land can alter ecology as invasive species.
The fact is that the environmental and physical impacts of ancient war were significant enough to destroy whole civilisations. The question now is “How do the impacts of modern warfare compare to them?”. To find out, stay tuned!
rayzel
September 13, 2020 — 1:10 pm
Hi Kelly!
I never really thought about the environmental impacts of ancient wars before and thinking back, I can really see how wars could devastate the land, even before nuclear bombs were invented. I think I used to focus more on the impacts on people and society. Are the areas which were used in agricultural warfare are still unusable today? Also, is there anything that can be done to reverse this damage?
I’m really looking forward to your future posts!
~Rayzel
Kelly
September 15, 2020 — 11:29 pm
Hi Rayzel!
Thanks for your comment! Unfortunately, as expressed in my blog, I found it hard to find quantifying evidence of the environmental impacts of specific ancient wars (eg Roman War, Scythian war etc): since they happened thousands ago, their effects haven’t been the most accessible/easy to study – especially with civilisations rebuilt on land and ever-changing land-uses. The most I could find were recounts of the destruction itself, and not the long-term outcome of the land. Though I will always be on a look-out and will update this comment if I find something!
However, I personally do think that the land damaged by ancient war is usable today due to the more “natural and organic” agents of destruction used. For example, to “reverse” damage, there is evidence that burnt land can be recovered- even without human intervention for low intensity fires.(1) A low intensity burn might have even boosted soil fertility! (2) As for unproductive soils due to sowing weed, productivity can be restored with simple methods like by “mowing, flooding, cultivating, smothering, burning, and crop rotation”, which were accessible by ancient civilisations.(3)
This does not mean that all land targeted by agricultural warfare suffers the same outcome – as human societies developed from ancient to modern times, warfare techniques got more complex, powerful and destructive too. I believe that the extent of damage on land by agricultural warfare techniques in ancient times is far less severe than say, Agent Orange in modern warfare, which unlike ancient times, still manifests its adverse impacts on agriculture today. Do stay tuned to to find out more!
I hope I answered your question (-:
Cheers,
Kelly
(1) https://www.agric.wa.gov.au/fire/pasture-recovery-after-fire
(2) http://www2.nau.edu/~gaud/bio300w/frsl.htm#:~:text=Soil%20fertility%20can%20increase%20after,(Schoch%20and%20Binkley%201986).
(3) https://www.britannica.com/technology/agricultural-technology/Weed-control
rayzel
September 16, 2020 — 3:32 pm
Hi Kelly!
Thank you for your reply! I’m glad that it is possible to reverse the effects that ancient war had on the land. I’ll be sure to read your next posts!
~Rayzel
ENV3102
September 18, 2020 — 1:22 pm
excellent reply to Rayzel’s excellent questions.
Divina Vicknesh
September 16, 2020 — 7:21 pm
Hi Kelly! This is such an interesting blog topic! I don’t think I would have drawn a connection between invasive species and war if i hadn’t had read your post!
I was just wondering… do you think Agro-warfare techniques like those you mentioned in your post, can be in some aspects more dangerous than other modern warfare strategies(eg. aerial warfare)?
Cheers,
Divina
Kelly
September 17, 2020 — 11:40 am
Hi Divina!
Thanks for dropping by! I think we can determine how dangerous a warfare technique is in 2 ways: how extensive its impacts are (spatial scale) and how long-lasting its impacts are (temporal scale).
I feel that the impacts of the techniques used in agricultural warfare in ancient times (eg burning, sowing weeds, etc) could have been as extensive and effective in destroying the enemy as modern warfare techniques – as destroying essential food supply would result in a direct collapse of economy and mass starvation.
However, I do think the impacts of ancient agricultural warfare is not as lasting as modern warfare (eg nuclear bombing/modern agricultural warfare like Agent Orange), perhaps you can refer to my reply to Rayzel’s comment to see why! I will be covering the impact of different types modern warfare on the environment in my next posts, and feel that they will definitely allow us to then make a more insightful comparison, so do stick around! Really look forward to having you back (-:
Cheers,
Kelly
Divina Vicknesh
September 18, 2020 — 8:00 pm
Thank you for your really clear response to my question, Kelly! The idea of a direct collapse of economy does seem pretty formidable!
Looking forward to your future posts!
Cheers,
Divina