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5162 results in Prehistory

Page 63 of 259

  • Chapter Two - Bronze Age Encounters: Violent or Peaceful?

  • Edited by Christian Horn, Christian-Albrechts Universität zu Kiel, Germany, Kristian Kristiansen, Göteborgs Universitet, Sweden
  • Book:
    Warfare in Bronze Age Society
    Published online:
    06 April 2018
    Print publication:
    26 April 2018, pp 16-22

  • Summary

    We know very well that the peoples of Europe were in regular contact with each other, sometimes across large distances, facilitating major changes in the cultural landscape of Europe: perhaps most significantly, the start of the Urnfield cultures in the 13th century BC. How did this shift in ideology and cultural practice actually take place? Did it see incoming people fighting with, and displacing, existing groups? Or was it a peaceful affair, with innovations simply entering people’s lives? To answer these questions, we have a range of data sources at our disposal. The paper will bring in information from the site of Velim, Czech Republic, and allude to the battlefield in the Tollense valley, Mecklenburg. Both these sites suggest that there were major episodes of violent activity in the time between ca 1400 and 1200 cal BC, including violent deaths. This does not, however, mean that such activities were the norm; in other areas the transition might have been entirely peaceful. I shall consider to what extent other aspects of the archaeological record from this time might support the idea of embedded violence (“war”), and speculate on the nature of encounters and their potential impact on other aspects of society.

  • Chapter Six - Bronze Weaponry and Cultural Mobility in Late Bronze Age Southeast Europe

  • Edited by Christian Horn, Christian-Albrechts Universität zu Kiel, Germany, Kristian Kristiansen, Göteborgs Universitet, Sweden
  • Book:
    Warfare in Bronze Age Society
    Published online:
    06 April 2018
    Print publication:
    26 April 2018, pp 81-100
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  • Summary

    Myth and legend from the Classical world told us of the existence of an earlier complex society: The Mycenaeans. Echoes of Atlantis may well be found in the Minoan world. Tales of the Dorians and returning Heraclids are, however, not popular. In this paper, I address the increased engagement by Mycenaean peoples with groups from the north and west peripheries of their world, and consider the impacts this had on the military material culture of the central and southern Balkans. There was a strong military component to these interactions, and they extended north to the Danube as well as south to Mycenae. In charting potential movement of peoples and / or ideas, de-coupling handmade pottery, bow-fibulae and sword types (traditionally viewed together) is essential if we are to characterise the different pathways they followed. The movement of warriors can be very short term, high impact, yet difficult to define archaeologically. It is argued in this paper that the above areas, along with southern Italy, witnessed increased mobility of warrior groups that had a profound effect on the Late Bronze Age Aegean world and beyond.

  • Chapter Ten - Warfare or Sacrifice? Archaeological Research on the Bronze Age Site in the Tollense Valley, Northeast Germany

  • Edited by Christian Horn, Christian-Albrechts Universität zu Kiel, Germany, Kristian Kristiansen, Göteborgs Universitet, Sweden
  • Book:
    Warfare in Bronze Age Society
    Published online:
    06 April 2018
    Print publication:
    26 April 2018, pp 153-167

  • Summary

    Find material from several archaeological sites over a stretch of 2.5 km along the valley of the River Tollense in northeast Germany, dating to about 1.250 BC, seem to indicate violent Bronze Age conflict on a so far unexpected scale. Skeletal remains of at least 110 mostly male individuals, partly with perimortal as well as healed lesions, have been excavated together with horse remains in the valley. Finds of two wooden clubs, numerous bronze and flint arrowheads as well as bone spearheads indicate the use of mostly simple but effective weapons. This is in some contrast to finds from mounds where bronze weapons such as swords and spearheads testify to prestigious burials. Recent findings indicate a Bronze Age wooden construction in the river valley, possibly a bridge, close to the beginning of the find concentration. Among the find material from the Tollense valley there are also various bronze objects dating to Period III, for instance two small tin ingots and gold spiral rings. They offer the possibility to discuss the relevance of these sites in the Tollense valley in view of the role of violent conflicts and of possible ritual acts connected to these events.

  • Chapter Three - Warfare and the Political Economy: Europe 1500–1100 bc

  • Edited by Christian Horn, Christian-Albrechts Universität zu Kiel, Germany, Kristian Kristiansen, Göteborgs Universitet, Sweden
  • Book:
    Warfare in Bronze Age Society
    Published online:
    06 April 2018
    Print publication:
    26 April 2018, pp 23-46

  • Summary

    The emergence of the full Bronze Age after 1500 BC was a time of profound changes throughout Europe: new offensive and defensive weapon technologies appeared as well as chariots, and with that new forms of warfare and settlements. It is argued that mobile warrior groups were important in the spread of these innovations, organising and controlling trade. During this phase warfare became (semi-) professionalized. It is suggested in this chapter that the transformations were in part violent and led to migrations and the rise of new forms of centralized and decentralized forms of political economies.

  • Chapter Eleven - Violence and Ritual in Late Bronze Age Britain: Weapon Depositions and Their Interpretation

  • Edited by Christian Horn, Christian-Albrechts Universität zu Kiel, Germany, Kristian Kristiansen, Göteborgs Universitet, Sweden
  • Book:
    Warfare in Bronze Age Society
    Published online:
    06 April 2018
    Print publication:
    26 April 2018, pp 168-188

  • Summary

    This chapter takes a fresh look at bronze weaponry from Late Bronze Age depositions in Great Britain. Such contexts have previously been interpreted as "personal", "merchant's" or "founder's hoards" explicitely excluding a ritualistic background. By analysis the spatial distribution, associated finds and treatment of the objects, it is argued that the concealment of these weapons should be understood as deliberate cultic acts, and, secondly, that they were immediately connected to the actions of warriors. The ritual deposition and sometimes observable intentional destruction of weaponry is perhaps linked to a desire to set times of conflict in a Turnerian sense apart from times of normal living.

Page 63 of 259