Was there any evidence of conflict between Hunter-Gatherer groups living in the Lower Pecos?

The evidence for interpersonal conflict in the Lower Pecos is extremely limited and sporadic. The Ensor dart point stuck in a pelvic bone, seen in a Lower Pecos area Museum, is certainly a clue to murder most foul. We can assume that rage, jealousy, envy, aggression, and defense against aggression were part of the human condition, then as now. It is unlikely, however, that these emotions were institutionalized to the degree seen in modern society. There were few resources of the magnitude to inspire envy in neighboring people. The population was too sparse and widely distributed to support an authoritarian structure capable of warfare or even systematic oppression. It is far more likely that conflict was managed at the personal level, even when it involved more than a few combatants. By that I mean Group A may have been feuding with Group B because some one was insulted, or another one trespassed, or a suit was rejected. Escalation may have led to raids upon the enemy camp; the victims retaliating with a raid of their own. These exchanges rarely led to a high fatality rate, the women and children perhaps made captive and adopted. The operative mechanism here is the need to maintain a certain population level and that can't be done if the reproductive sector is eliminated. Most of the evidence for aggression is pictographic but the context suggests that the nature of violence changed over time. In the earliest Pecos River style, a number of artistic conventions imply death - inverted, falling bodies, riddled with spears, might be interpreted as evidence for mayhem but it is far more likely that they are portraying the symbolic death of the entranced shaman. Recall that during initiation, the young shaman is metaphorically torn to pieces by spirit monsters and reincarnated from his bones. During the voyage to the spirit world, the shaman is dead to the world and his reawakening is rebirth. Therefore, the Pecos River style is illustrating metaphorical death at the hands of otherworldly forces that far transcend the power of mere mortal enemies. When the Red Linear style replaces the Pecos River pictographs, the emphasis turns to birth, not death. Although lines of miniature warriors march about waving their weapons, in only one instance does it appear that they are actually engaged in hand- to-hand combat. That scene is the dagger-dancers at Fate Bell where the headdressed leader marches on while one of his associates guards his rear, raising his lance to block the path of a follower. It is hard to take these vivacious little people seriously although the concerns voiced by their art are certainly basic to survival. Like the Pecos River style, a few figures in the Red Monochrome art are veritable pincushions, their bodies bristling with spears. The realism of the style suggests perhaps the intent is to show aggression, an emotion that would be consistent with the context that indicates that the Red Monochrome people were intrusive into the region. If, in fact, they were newcomers, an effort might well have been made to repulse them. A corollary might be found in the cairn burials that are presumed to be contemporaneous with this influx. The occasional site with six to eight cairns implies an extremely heavy loss for a small band of hunters and gatherers if the graves are contemporaneous. The one excavated example had four projectile points in the center of the feature, perhaps buried in the flesh of a fallen warrior. Sparsely distributed hunters and gatherers are not prone to epidemic diseases capable of wiping out large numbers of their people so a violent end is not an unlikely scenario. But who killed whom remains a mystery. Warfare on a grander scale arrived in the Lower Pecos with the displaced people fleeing the events set in motion by the arrival of the Europeans. The ingress of the Plains Indians ca 1700 AD left an indelible record of individual bravery, hatred, and violence in the pictographs - a result of the conflict of cultures of a magnitude not seen before. The indigenous people of the Lower Pecos had long since vacated the scene, more likely victims of European diseases, internecine struggles with intrusive native people, and the collapse of their social system. Lately, there had been considerable controversy over the contention that Native Americans were strangers to warfare prior to the coming of the Europeans. This is patently false, given the evidence from the Pueblo and Plains regions where entire villages were massacred and ethnic groups had a tradition of mutual antagonism. However, the Lower Pecos did not provide a nurturing environment for group violence. Too few people, too far apart, too few possessions, too few natural riches. Human nature, in itself, is enough to explain the few demonstrable cases of murder and mayhem left in the archeological record. After all, Cain and Abel were hardly a product of overpopulation.