The First War in Recorded History and Why It Still Matters

Ancient warfare history has gotten complicated with all the fragmentary evidence and competing interpretations flying around. As someone who’s studied the archaeological and textual records of early conflict, I learned everything there is to know about what we can actually say about the first recorded wars. Today, I will share it all with you.

Here’s the honest answer: we probably can’t identify the “first” war in human history because warfare predates writing. What we can identify are the earliest well-documented military conflicts – and even there, the picture is complicated.

The Battle of Kadesh: Well-Documented, But Not First

Probably should have led with this section, honestly. The Battle of Kadesh, fought around 1274 BCE between Egyptian forces under Ramses II and Hittite forces under Muwatalli II, is one of the best-documented ancient battles. We have extensive Egyptian inscriptions, temple reliefs, and even the subsequent peace treaty – one of the earliest diplomatic documents in history. But calling Kadesh the “first war” would be wrong by more than a thousand years.

Earlier Documented Conflicts

Sumerian records from the third millennium BCE document organized warfare between city-states. The Stele of the Vultures commemorates King Eannatum of Lagash’s victory over Umma around 2450 BCE – that’s over a thousand years before Kadesh. Egyptian records from the Old Kingdom describe military campaigns even earlier. The problem isn’t finding ancient wars; it’s that earlier conflicts left fewer detailed records.

Prehistoric Warfare

That’s what makes this question ultimately unanswerable. Archaeological evidence suggests organized violence predates civilization itself. Mass grave sites from prehistoric Europe show victims of what appears to be inter-group violence. Once human societies developed resources worth taking and territories worth defending, conflict likely followed. The “first war” probably occurred long before anyone could write about it.

Why Kadesh Stands Out

Kadesh matters not because it was first but because of what came after. The resulting peace treaty between Egypt and the Hittites established borders, mutual defense provisions, and even prisoner exchange protocols. This level of diplomatic sophistication suggests that by 1274 BCE, warfare had evolved beyond simple raiding into something resembling modern interstate relations. The war ended not through annihilation but through negotiation – a significant development in how humans managed conflict.

What Defines a “War”?

Part of the difficulty here is definitional. Is a raid between nomadic bands a “war”? What about a skirmish between villages over water rights? Modern definitions usually require organized forces, sustained conflict, and political objectives. By those standards, wars emerged alongside complex societies – when there were states capable of organizing armies and pursuing strategic goals. Earlier violence existed but might not meet the threshold of “war” as we understand it.

The first war in human history remains lost to time. What we have are the earliest documented conflicts – and those records show that by the time humans could write about warfare, it had already become a sophisticated, organized activity with its own rules and rituals.