Tell Is an Ancient Term

One way archaeologists
Compare rates of violence
In ancient communities

Is by extrapolating
Carefully from the remains
To estimate how often

Skulls had been coshed in. The good
Life, then, is to live somewhere
Where it’s highly unlikely

Someone will smash your head in,
Relative to background rates
In the times through which you live.

Living people can sense this
Without archaeologists.
Folks move in the direction

Of diminished skull-smashing
Incidents, or diminished
Equivalents. But how much

Sorrow is there, has there been,
That how much smashing of skulls
Answers a telling question?