Bronze Age Battle Sheds New Light on Northern Europe
Bronze-age warfare in northern Europe is difficult to study. We have no surviving epic poems from that era. Nor do we have any major archaeological sites such as lost cities which may reveal clues about ancient wars. Nonetheless, through the decades archaeologists have discovered the remnants of fortified towns and villages that may have been outposts or centers of influence among tribal regions in times of conflict.
A recent study published by German archaeologists now sheds some light on the extent of Bronze-age conflict in northern Europe. Scattered human remains and artifacts have been collected in the Tollense valley in northeastern Germany since 1997. A systematic analysis of the remains has concluded that as many as 200 bodies (mostly young men) and horses may have been buried near or dumped in the ancient Tollense river after a fierce battle.
The BBC summarized the details of the study, whose authors suggest that the battle may have been fought between local inhabitants and invaders, possibly from Silesia. Artifacts include wooden clubs and arrowheads; however, some of the wounds indicate that slashing weapons were also used.
The identification of so many contemporary remains (dating to about 1200 BCE) indicates that two or more organized groups of warriors clashed somewhere in the Tollense River area. The dating coincides with a period of widespread upheavel in the Mediterranean region and this battle may signify a far more widespread disruption of human society occurred at that time.
Interest in the 1200 BCE period is so great that a special conference devoted solely to the age (organized by the University College Dublin) has brought together experts from regions all across Europe. Perhaps most notable among the scientists’ findings is that a new type of sword developed in northern Italy and the Balkans spread across Europe very quickly, reaching both Ireland and Greece in short time.
The European landscape is no doubt peppered with the remnants of a Bronze Age culture that we barely understand. The great challenge in studying that culture is that so much of Europe’s land has been cultivated. The Tollense valley is no exception.
We can use Google Maps (or Google Earth) to view landscapes from different altitudes. Not only is the task of digging up the entire landscape of Europe impossible, the most important areas could be buried under farms, cities, or man-made lakes. We have no way of knowing where to look specifically for the details that have so far eluded us.
The Tollense Bronze Age battle does shed some light on the extent to which the peoples of northern Europe were interacting with other peoples. Research indicates that trade routes extended all the way across Europe. Cultural artifacts and burial traditions suggest that many clans shared similar values, ideas, and beliefs. The Bronze Age may have in fact been a period of great communication between communities, an idea which seems foreign to current prehistorical theories.
The rapid spread of technology, the somewhat uniform distribution of art styles and burial customs, and the sophistication of Bronze Age cultures suggests that while there was no great civilization in northern Europe (they did not build cities of stone, develop writing systems, or create vast empires) there most likely was a common culture that allowed people to travel widely and exchange ideas freely.
When people settle in lands that provide a great amount of food, they not only increase their numbers quickly, they also have more time to spend on abstract activities such as art, architecture, and trade. Recent studies have suggested that our primitive ancestors chose to live in regions that had been shaped by earthquakes because they produced rich wetlands. A similar study notes that Maya cities may have risen in similar circumstances, where once human-friendly wetland habitats have now become swamps, jungles, or desert.
Land that has abundant resources allows a human enclave to grow beyond its natural hunter-gatherer limits. When family groups become too large they have to split up and go their separate ways. As northern Europe became more temperate and as people learned to take advantage of natural resources, family groups and clans grew into tribes. These tribes maintained common language, culture, and boundaries.
The evidence for widespread social organization thousands of years ago is increasing broadly. Scientists now suggest that a network of cities may have extended well beyond Mesopotamia into India and Asia around 2,000-3,000 BCE.
The question that plagues is why did humans develop civilization in this interglacial period if we had basically the same physiology and many of the same skills 70-100,000 years ago? A 2006 study suggests that civilization may have arisen as a last resort in efforts to survive. Could civilization be the product of a combination of unlikely factors such as climate change, technological innovation, and an increase in population?
The Bronze Age conflicts reveal an interesting pattern of violent change which suggests that people were either very desperate to find and seize control over new resources or else that they had developed extensive political ambitions. The social upheavals of 1200 BCE seem to favor the former motivation over the latter. That is, while a few people may have become ambitious at one time, it seems unlikely that ambitious power-seeking leaders would have appeared across Europe in the same generation.
Hence, we must look for signs of the struggle to survive — signs that have so far been overlooked or beyond our reach. The climate change studies may tell us useful things but archaeologists will need to discover what was happening with the flora and fauna across Europe in the period 1400 BCE – 1000 BCE. Great deprivation or loss of habitat should have left its mark somewhere in the sands of time. We just need to keep looking.
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