From Bill Andrews, Farnborough, Hampshire, UK
The chimpanzee civil war has been held to show war as a pre-human activity, but is civil war the same thing as war? It may be argued that war defined the start of civilisation: one group of people reacting to another in opposition and possibly cooperating with others. Surely civilisation was when humans realised they were part of humankind and had to interact. History starts with writing, but the first writing was often about wars. Battles also have to be distinguished from war, too. Throughout the animal world, species, as well as communities, have battled over territory (18 April, p 5).
