Where did Martial Arts originate from?

[Dobbersky]

I watched a documentary on Youtube, taken from one of the US channels. It wasn't new as David Carradene was featured. Now from the comments on the program and YouTube claims of the origins were highlighted. I believe "martial arts" don't actually have a specific location or date in history as it occurred throughout history all over the world.

Now one person specified martial arts originated in African culture. Me if I had to state a location would say Egypt or Greece!

[JusticeZero]

Probably did originate in Africa, but only for the reason that *people* originated in Africa. True but completely meaningless statement.

Also - you do realize that Egypt is part of Africa, yes?

[Dobbersky]

Probably did originate in Africa, but only for the reason that *people* originated in Africa. True but completely meaningless statement.

Also - you do realize that Egypt is part of Africa, yes?

Totally agree with that statement. And yes I know Egypt is on the North East part of Africa.

I would say that the Greeks especially the Spartans had codified their Martial Arts training before other civilisations.

But so did the Asian cultures as their methods of recording was far superior to any other Culture around the same time unless you count the Mayans and they had their Martial Arts too, so did Martial Arts begin in America?

TBH I'm not too concerned where it began, I'm just glad I have the honour of practising and teaching such an awesome art

[Groinstrike]

As far as documented accounts of martial arts i would say Greek Pankration

You could also argue that Cain was the first person to use martial arts.

[JusticeZero]

Well beyond that the issue is that you're talking about "documented" history when discussing two cultures out of many others that preceeded them and preceeded their predecessors that cared about documenting things. This is made worse by the fact that certain time periods of those cultures tended to react to any hint of seeing another culture documenting things in violent and destructive ways.

[Groinstrike]

One could also argue that the first neanderthal to pick up a bone, or use their hands to threaten, intimidate, strike or kill, another neanderthal would be the first instance of martial arts.

If we are talking about an organized system, one again, probably Greek pankaration or something from sumeria.

[JusticeZero]

First organized system was, again, probably something in Africa. Remember that having half a brain did not originate only very recently; the only thing that did originate was the knowledge of how to write down how clever they were combined with the tendency to try to write it in excessively permanent forms that thousands of years later, a bunch of now-dead racists from the bad old days when that was the norm would see and think was close enough to their culture to qualify as being a human development.

Just because a culture didn't build everything out of rocks while simultaneously living in places with very low-erosion climates doesn't mean they weren't intelligent people inventing, theorizing, and teaching advanced skills.

[bushido_man96]

I would say that the Greeks especially the Spartans had codified their Martial Arts training before other civilisations.

I disagree here. They may have been doing it a bit better than anyone else at the time, but they weren't the only ones. As long as there has been seperate civilizations, they have had the need to fight, and have trained armies thus.

[sensei8]

Haven't we forgotten about the Cro-Magnon/Neanderthal, minus the codified part, I suppose.

[JusticeZero]

There were civilized and intelligent humans of the modern type wandering around for thousands of years inventing things and codifying things before Sumeria. Two thousand years from now, when all our digital and paper media have decayed into uselessness and all our buildings have crumbled into piles of dust, our civilization is going to look awfully ignorant, and people will probably assume we were all uneducated cavemen who clearly didn't have the mental capacity to do anything so complex as codify a martial arts system.