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Originally Posted by Duchemin
Or : invaders take natives women as sexual slaves. Reminds me of something.
But in that case, what did native men and Neolithic women become? Neolithic men came in Europe without women, killed natives men and took their women or something?
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As I pointed out in various threads early farmers, especially sedentary ones are usually military inferior if compared with high hunter and gatherer cultures (which they met) and herders in particular.
So the miliary advantage they might have had was primarily one of numbers if at all. But if looking at the remains in Northern Central Europe we can partly really see that they lived more side by side and some Neolithic settlements were indeed surrounded by H-G groups! So the small advantage they might have had was a the breeding results and techniques they brought in and their potentially somewhat higher reproductive rate. But in some areas which were dominated by LBK we can see that the following culture was much more dominated by European types, partly closer to late Mesolithic Europeans. And the Corded People show how a mobile herder-warrior existence (at least predominance of animal husbandry) became really dominant. Not too speak about the effects in the mixture, which certainly took place, that the selection worked against the Neolithics, they were less adapted to the climate, in group selection most likely weaker, partly less evolved as well. After losing their initial advantage, what was left?
In fact not too much and thats what we see in the record fas well. If at all, they just influenced progressive European groups (like the Corded, TBK), but we dont see a dominance of the earlist physical variants, even on the contrary, they practically disappear.
The locals learned their lesson from them, that was their main role for Europe. For a long time herder-warriors became dominant then, until more advanced techniques and social organisations made farmers almost unbeatable on the long run - you can see that in the East if looking at Russians and Tartars - you can see exactly when such a military strategy has lost. A main advantage of herders is constant training and that practically every herder or hunter is automatically a warrior (compare aristocratic hunters - relict of the old relation that the elite and warriors are always hunters as well - its often like a training for war), whereas you can say the same especially of sedentary and dependent farmers. But biologically they lost much earlier because winning battles is from the biological perspective not as important as the shere mass, the reproductive success. Thats in fact a reason why farmers finally won and why we can see often "successful societies" which degenerate biologically and use their potential they had from earlier times (when group selection was more active, mobile life, warlike etc.) until its gone or drastically reduced.