Hoplology is the study of human combative behavior and performance. Etymology and history of the term The word hoplology is derived from the Greek terms hoplos (a mythical plate-armored animal) and ὅπλον hóplon, the equipment carried by some warriors in ancient Greece. The word hoplite, derived from hoplon, is the term for the classical Greek warrior who carried such equipment. The field originates in the 19th century with Sir Richard Burton; although the origin of the word is often attributed to Burton, there are earlier references to it. Despite the work of Burton and a few others, it was not until the 1960s that hoplology took shape as an academic field of study under the leadership of Donn F. Draeger. Hoplology was at some time defined as the science of "arms and weapons of offense and defence, human and bestial" (Burton, 1884), and subsequently as "the study of the basis, patterns, relationships, and significances of combative behavior at all levels of social complexity" (Draeger, 1982). Sid Campbell, a black belt level, tenth dan-ranked in karate, defines hoplology as "the study of the evolution and development of human combative behaviour and performance ... the study of how people fight, why they fight, and how different cultures manifest those behaviours." More recently, hoplology is defined as the investigation and analysis of all forms of armed combat. It is most productively seen as an embodied event where the physiological and neurological structures of those individuals taking part in a combative encounter shape and, in turn, are shaped by cultural norms of what is right, effective, and efficient and so changes overtime and across space. As in all human encounters, every combat event is accompanied by a form of material technology and has been learned through a process of apprenticeship. Warriors, scholars, explorers and their hoplologies 1800s – The accidental hoplologists: Burton & Pitt-Rivers Several pioneering anthropologists were also contributing to the field of hoplology while Burton was active. A retired military officer who fought in the Crimean War, A.H.L. Pitt-Rivers developed a now outdated view of human evolution. Cultures, he concluded, evolved through time from technologically simpler societies to technologically complex societies. In other words, progress is an integral aspect of human history. Primitive Warfare 2. Oxford: The Journal of the Royal United Service Institution Vol. XII 1868 NO. LI. Working in the Trobriand Islands (just off Australia) around the time of WWI,