Editing Scalping (section)

===Intertribal conflict===
[[File:Sauvages Tchaktas matachez en Guerriers qui portent des Chevelures.jpg|thumb|1732 illustration by Alexandre de Batz of [[Choctaw]] people of the [[Mississippi River|Mississippi]] in [[Body painting|war paint]], bearing scalps]]
There is substantial archaeological evidence of scalping in North America in the [[pre-Columbian era]].<ref name=":0">{{Cite journal|last1=Axtell|first1=James|last2=Sturtevant|first2=William C.|date=1980|title=The Unkindest Cut, or Who Invented Scalping|url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/1923812|journal=The William and Mary Quarterly|volume=37|issue=3|pages=451–472|doi=10.2307/1923812|jstor=1923812|issn=0043-5597|url-access=subscription}}</ref><ref name=":1">{{Cite journal|last=Miller|first=Elizabeth|title=Evidence for Prehistoric Scalping in Northeastern Nebraska|date=1994|url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/25669265|journal=Plains Anthropologist|volume=39|issue=148|pages=211–219|doi=10.1080/2052546.1994.11931728|jstor=25669265|issn=0032-0447|url-access=subscription}}</ref> Carbon dating of skulls show evidence of scalping as early as 600 AD; some skulls show evidence of healing from scalping injuries, suggesting at least some victims occasionally survived at least several months.<ref name=":1" /> Among [[Plains Indians]], it seems to have been practiced primarily as part of intertribal warfare, with scalps only taken of enemies killed in battle.<ref name=":1" /> However, author and historian Mark van de Logt wrote, "Although military historians tend to reserve the concept of 'total war{{'"}}, in which civilians are targeted, "for conflicts between modern industrial nations," the term "closely approaches the state of affairs between the [[Pawnee people|Pawnees]], the [[Great Sioux Nation|Sioux]], and the [[Cheyennes]]. [[Non-combatant|Noncombatants]] were legitimate targets. Indeed, the taking of a scalp of a woman or child was considered honorable because it signified that the scalp taker had dared to enter the very heart of the enemy's territory."<ref>{{cite book |first=Mark |last=van de Logt |year=2012 |url= https://books.google.com/books?id=Bbgh_hA4ib4C |title=War Party in Blue: Pawnee Scouts in the U.S. Army |publisher= [[University of Oklahoma Press]] | page=35 |isbn=978-0806184395}}</ref>

[[File:Sioux_Knife_and_Sheath.jpg|thumbnail|''Knife and Sheath'', probably [[Sioux]], early 19th century, [[Brooklyn Museum]]]]
Many tribes of Native Americans practiced scalping, in some instances up until the end of the 19th century. Of the approximately 500 bodies at the [[Crow Creek massacre]] site, 90 percent of the skulls show evidence of scalping. The event took place ''circa'' 1325 AD.<ref>{{Cite book
  | last1 =  Hall Steckel
  | first1 = Richard
  | last2 = R. Haines
  | first2 = Michael
  | title = A population history of North America
  | url = https://books.google.com/books?id=BPdgiysIVcgC&pg=PA68
  | publisher = [[Cambridge University Press]]
  | year = 2000
  | page = 68
  | isbn = 0-521-49666-7}}
</ref> European colonisation of the Americas increased the incidence of intertribal conflict, and consequently an increase in the prevalence of scalping.<ref name=":0" />