http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2016/03/slaughter-bridge-uncovering-colossal-bronze-age-battle?utm_source=sciencemagazine&utm_medium=facebook-text&utm_campaign=bronzeagebattle-3174
Pretty neat, and with likely implications about social organization at that time. This is close to contemporary with the sack of Troy.
Should we rather imagine prehistoric warriors as looking the size and development of adolescent boys rather than these old bearded muscular men that illustrations and other media like to show us?
(https://languish.org/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.sciencemag.org%2Fsites%2Fdefault%2Ffiles%2Fstyles%2Farticle_main_large%2Fpublic%2Fwarriors_03.png%3Fitok%3DQXbzKPUA&hash=e0563570fbe315efd604d8837986f0f202d98b4b)
Quote from: Phillip V on March 24, 2016, 05:48:14 PM
Should we rather imagine prehistoric warriors as looking the size and development of adolescent boys rather than these old bearded muscular men that illustrations and other media like to show us?
Maybe... what's your reason?
Quote from: Jacob on March 24, 2016, 06:00:39 PM
Quote from: Phillip V on March 24, 2016, 05:48:14 PM
Should we rather imagine prehistoric warriors as looking the size and development of adolescent boys rather than these old bearded muscular men that illustrations and other media like to show us?
Maybe... what's your reason?
Empathy.
Not surprised there was this kind of unrest in the north around this time. Just as the huns pushed the germans west 1700 years later, climate changed likely caused cascading migrations and violent upheaval that lead to the Sea People's invasion of the Near East.
Cool. :)
I remember looking at the bog bodies from early-CE Germany when they were in LA. Even non-curled up and desiccated, most of them couldn't have been taller than 1.6 m.
Quote from: Phillip V on March 24, 2016, 05:48:14 PM
Should we rather imagine prehistoric warriors as looking the size and development of adolescent boys rather than these old bearded muscular men that illustrations and other media like to show us?
You mean there's a possibility that they really weren't members of Amon Amarth straight from the opening scenes of
Conan the Barbarian?
A lot was going on around then. The great bronze age collapse and all that.
Quote from: Phillip V on March 24, 2016, 05:48:14 PM
Should we rather imagine prehistoric warriors as looking the size and development of adolescent boys rather than these old bearded muscular men that illustrations and other media like to show us?
(https://languish.org/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.sciencemag.org%2Fsites%2Fdefault%2Ffiles%2Fstyles%2Farticle_main_large%2Fpublic%2Fwarriors_03.png%3Fitok%3DQXbzKPUA&hash=e0563570fbe315efd604d8837986f0f202d98b4b)
If you read the whole article the men are mostly between 20 and 30 years old and 27% have healed serious wounds indicating these are veteran soldiers not boys.
So much for the peaceful, proto-socialist, Pre-Indo-European matriarchy.
Quote from: jimmy olsen on March 24, 2016, 07:45:04 PM
Quote from: Phillip V on March 24, 2016, 05:48:14 PM
Should we rather imagine prehistoric warriors as looking the size and development of adolescent boys rather than these old bearded muscular men that illustrations and other media like to show us?
(https://languish.org/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.sciencemag.org%2Fsites%2Fdefault%2Ffiles%2Fstyles%2Farticle_main_large%2Fpublic%2Fwarriors_03.png%3Fitok%3DQXbzKPUA&hash=e0563570fbe315efd604d8837986f0f202d98b4b)
If you read the whole article the men are mostly between 20 and 30 years old and 27% have healed serious wounds indicating these are veteran soldiers not boys.
First of all, his point/question wasn't that they were boys instead of full-grown men, but rather that full-grown men of the time had roughly the same physical stature as adolescent boys of today. And second, in those days, you didn't have to be a soldier to get serious injuries--it's likely that a great many people often suffered serious or even fatal injuries just in the everyday course of trying to get enough food to survive as a hunter/gatherer.
The article says they were farmers and the healed wounds looked like they were intentionally inflicted.
Quote from: Razgovory on March 24, 2016, 08:37:13 PM
So much for the peaceful, proto-socialist, Pre-Indo-European matriarchy.
Raz, BCE 1250 was well after the indo european migrations began.
Quote from: dps on March 24, 2016, 09:03:25 PM
And second, in those days, you didn't have to be a soldier to get serious injuries--it's likely that a great many people often suffered serious or even fatal injuries just in the everyday course of trying to get enough food to survive as a hunter/gatherer.
By 1250 BCE farming and animal husbandry (not THAT kind, Brain) was the norm, not foraging. The Beaker people were farmers centuries before 1250 BCE.
Last refuge of the hunter/gatherer?
Awesome find, very interesting article.
Quote from: The Brain on March 25, 2016, 03:11:39 AM
Last refuge of the hunter/gatherer?
This is many hundreds of years after the Proto-Germanic peoples had settled the region. It seems a lot more likely it was a conflict between different types of Indo-European peoples, as is indicated by the large presence of people who did not live in Denmark. I'd guess something like a conflict between groups like Satem-speakers (the ancestors of Slavs, Dacians, Thracians, Scytho-Sarmatians) and Centum speakers. The Germanic languages kind of have characteristics of both so God only knows who won.
Quote from: Queequeg on March 25, 2016, 10:35:35 AM
Quote from: The Brain on March 25, 2016, 03:11:39 AM
Last refuge of the hunter/gatherer?
This is many hundreds of years after the Proto-Germanic peoples had settled the region. It seems a lot more likely it was a conflict between different types of Indo-European peoples, as is indicated by the large presence of people who did not live in Denmark. I'd guess something like a conflict between groups like Satem-speakers (the ancestors of Slavs, Dacians, Thracians, Scytho-Sarmatians) and Centum speakers. The Germanic languages kind of have characteristics of both so God only knows who won.
I know who won: international arrowhead suppliers.
Quote from: alfred russel on March 24, 2016, 10:17:16 PM
Quote from: Razgovory on March 24, 2016, 08:37:13 PM
So much for the peaceful, proto-socialist, Pre-Indo-European matriarchy.
Raz, BCE 1250 was well after the indo european migrations began.
That's nice.
Quote from: PDH on March 24, 2016, 10:30:22 PM
Quote from: dps on March 24, 2016, 09:03:25 PM
And second, in those days, you didn't have to be a soldier to get serious injuries--it's likely that a great many people often suffered serious or even fatal injuries just in the everyday course of trying to get enough food to survive as a hunter/gatherer.
By 1250 BCE farming and animal husbandry (not THAT kind, Brain) was the norm, not foraging. The Beaker people were farmers centuries before 1250 BCE.
:unsure:
(https://media3.giphy.com/media/FwpecpDvcu7vO/200_s.gif)
Looks like someone from New Guinea.
Quote from: Tonitrus on March 25, 2016, 04:14:49 PM
Quote from: PDH on March 24, 2016, 10:30:22 PM
Quote from: dps on March 24, 2016, 09:03:25 PM
And second, in those days, you didn't have to be a soldier to get serious injuries--it's likely that a great many people often suffered serious or even fatal injuries just in the everyday course of trying to get enough food to survive as a hunter/gatherer.
By 1250 BCE farming and animal husbandry (not THAT kind, Brain) was the norm, not foraging. The Beaker people were farmers centuries before 1250 BCE.
:unsure:
(https://media3.giphy.com/media/FwpecpDvcu7vO/200_s.gif)
They were a proud race of beaker makers.
Please. Barbarians fighting each other.
Hardly a large scale battle.
Quote from: Siege on March 31, 2016, 02:57:44 PM
Please. Barbarians fighting each other.
Hardly a large scale battle.
Elaborate, Messiah.
Quote from: Siege on March 31, 2016, 02:57:44 PM
Please. Barbarians fighting each other.
Hardly a large scale battle.
No kidding. A million people crashing into each other with swords isn't nearly as grand a scale as a dozen commandos trying to take a fortified farmhouse. :huh:
Ok.
You made your point.
I am curious, though, if and if so why they used cavalry.
Wooded areas were death traps.
Only around 1180 were cavalry used as a force in Norway, and it wasn't for a lack of horses.
Quote from: Norgy on April 01, 2016, 03:38:30 PM
I am curious, though, if and if so why they used cavalry.
Wooded areas were death traps.
Only around 1180 were cavalry used as a force in Norway, and it wasn't for a lack of horses.
Cavalry in 1250 BC?
When do a bunch of guys riding around on horses with spears and clubs become a cavalry force?
Thing is, fighting on horseback was rare.
Eejits.
They found five horses, compared to 130 human bodies. Hardly indicative of cavalry.
Quote from: dps on March 24, 2016, 09:03:25 PM
Quote from: jimmy olsen on March 24, 2016, 07:45:04 PM
Quote from: Phillip V on March 24, 2016, 05:48:14 PM
Should we rather imagine prehistoric warriors as looking the size and development of adolescent boys rather than these old bearded muscular men that illustrations and other media like to show us?
If you read the whole article the men are mostly between 20 and 30 years old and 27% have healed serious wounds indicating these are veteran soldiers not boys.
First of all, his point/question wasn't that they were boys instead of full-grown men, but rather that full-grown men of the time had roughly the same physical stature as adolescent boys of today.
Grallon would LOVE it!
Quote from: Jacob on March 24, 2016, 05:39:56 PM
http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2016/03/slaughter-bridge-uncovering-colossal-bronze-age-battle?utm_source=sciencemagazine&utm_medium=facebook-text&utm_campaign=bronzeagebattle-3174
Pretty neat, and with likely implications about social organization at that time. This is close to contemporary with the sack of Troy.
Very cool Jacob. Thanks
Quote from: jimmy olsen on April 01, 2016, 07:21:18 PM
They found five horses, compared to 130 human bodies. Hardly indicative of cavalry.
The drawings showed people on horseback, Tim. And I just skimmed the article first time around. Which led me to think horseback warriors was strange.
So I am just going to apologise for not giving it a proper read in the first place.
Quote from: Norgy on April 04, 2016, 12:31:56 PM
Quote from: jimmy olsen on April 01, 2016, 07:21:18 PM
They found five horses, compared to 130 human bodies. Hardly indicative of cavalry.
The drawings showed people on horseback, Tim. And I just skimmed the article first time around. Which led me to think horseback warriors was strange.
So I am just going to apologise for not giving it a proper read in the first place.
Apologies on the internet! :o
No problem, easy mistake to make.
Quote from: Norgy on April 01, 2016, 03:38:30 PM
I am curious, though, if and if so why they used cavalry.
Wooded areas were death traps.
Only around 1180 were cavalry used as a force in Norway, and it wasn't for a lack of horses.
I think the article points to officers using horses, not a cavalry force per se.
Fighting using horses is pretty ancient - it predates the evolution of horses large enough to carry a man; the earliest horse warriors used chariots. The first cavalry without chariots is usually dated somewhat later than 1250 BCE, though.
The article had this to say:
QuoteArchaeologists have excavated the remains of 5 horses on the Tollense battlefield, of a small breed like the Icelandic horse shown here. Warriors may have ridden them into battle or used them as pack horses. Those who had such animals were likely part of an elite warrior class and carried bronze weapons.
So, not definitive as to how they speculate they were used.
Bavarians <_<
https://edition.cnn.com/2024/09/23/science/tollense-valley-bronze-age-battlefield-arrowheads
QuoteA new analysis of dozens of arrowheads is helping researchers piece together a clearer portrait of the warriors who clashed on Europe's oldest known battlefield 3,250 years ago.
The bronze and flint arrowheads were recovered from the Tollense Valley in northeast Germany. Researchers first uncovered the site in 1996 when an amateur archaeologist spotted a bone sticking out of a bank of the Tollense River.
Since then, excavations have unearthed 300 metal finds and 12,500 bones belonging to about 150 individuals who fell in battle at the site in 1250 BC. Recovered weaponry has included swords, wooden clubs and the array of arrowheads — including some found still embedded in the bones of the fallen.
No direct evidence of an earlier battle of this scale has ever been discovered, which is why Tollense Valley is considered the site of Europe's oldest battle, according to researchers who have studied the area since 2007.
Studies of the bones have yielded some insights into the men — all young, strong and able-bodied warriors, some with healed wounds from previous skirmishes. But details on who was involved in the violent conflict, and why they fought in such a bloody battle, has long eluded researchers.
There are no written accounts describing the battle, so as teams of archaeologists have unearthed more finds from the valley, they have used the well-preserved remains and weapons to try to piece together the story behind the ancient battle scene.
Now, a team of researchers studying arrowheads used in the battle has discovered evidence that it included local groups as well as an army from the south. These findings, published Sunday in the journal Antiquity, suggest the clash was the earliest example of interregional conflict in Europe — and raise questions about the state of organized, armed violence thousands of years ago.
"The arrowheads are a kind of 'smoking gun,'" said lead study author Leif Inselmann, researcher at the Berlin Graduate School of Ancient Studies within the Free University of Berlin, in a statement. "Just like the murder weapon in a mystery, they give us a clue about the culprit, the fighters of the Tollense Valley battle and where they came from."
Evidence of invasion
Previous discoveries of foreign artifacts, such as a Bohemian bronze ax and a sword from southeastern Central Europe, and analyses of the remains have suggested that outsiders fought in the Tollense Valley battle. But the researchers of the new study were curious to see what clues the arrowheads would yield.
When Inselmann and his colleagues analyzed the arrowheads, they realized that no two were identical — not exactly shocking before the days of mass production. But the archaeologists could pick out key differences in the shapes and features that signified some of the arrowheads were not made within Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, a state in northeast Germany that's home to the Tollense Valley.
Inselmann collected literature, data and examples of more than 4,700 Bronze Age arrowheads from Central Europe and mapped out where they came from to compare them with the Tollense Valley arrowheads.
Many matched the style of arrowheads from other sites in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, suggesting they were locally made and carried by men who called the region home, according to the study.
But other arrowheads with straight or rhombus-shaped bases and side spurs and barbs matched those from a southern region that now includes modern Bavaria and Moravia, Inselmann said.
"This suggests that at least a part of the fighters or even a complete battle faction involved in Tollense Valley derive from a very distant region," Inselmann wrote in an email.
Inselmann and his colleagues suspect it unlikely that the arrowheads were imported from another region to be used by local fighters. Otherwise, they would expect to find evidence of arrowheads within ceremonial burials in the region that were practiced during the Bronze Age.
The spark of war
A causeway that crossed the Tollense River, constructed about 500 years before the battle, is thought to have been the starting point of the conflict, said study coauthor Thomas Terberger.
Terberger, a professor in the department of prehistoric and historical archaeology at Germany's University of Göttingen, has studied the site, a 1.8-mile (3-kilometer) stretch of the river, since 2007.
"The causeway was probably part of an important trade route," he said. "Control of this bottleneck situation could well have been an important reason for the conflict."
However, the fact that researchers haven't found any clear evidence in the area of sources of wealth, such as mines for metal or places to extract salt, makes the trade route theory less likely, said Barry Molloy, an associate professor in the school of archaeology at University College Dublin. Molloy was not involved in the study.
"The causes of warfare were many, but it is likely in my view that this was about a group seeking to impose political control over another — an age old thing — in order to extract wealth systematically over time, not simply as plunder," Molloy said in an email.
The exact scale and cause of the battle remain unknown, but the remains and weaponry found so far suggest more than 2,000 people were involved, according to the study. And researchers believe that more human bones are preserved in the valley, which could represent hundreds of victims.
The 13th century BC was a time of increased trade and cultural exchange, but the discovery of bronze arrowheads across Germany has suggested it was also when armed conflict arose.
"This new information has considerably changed the image of the Bronze Age, which was not as peaceful as believed before," Terberger said. "The 13th century BC saw changes of burial rites, symbols and material culture. I consider the conflict as a sign that this major transformation process of Bronze Age society was accompanied by violent conflicts. Tollense is probably only the tip of the iceberg."
The new study also points to the placement of arrow injuries found on remains buried at the battle site, which suggests that shields may have protected warriors from the front, while their backs were left exposed.
The research drives home the importance of archery on the battlefield, which has often been underestimated in previous studies of Bronze Age warfare, Molloy said.
"This is a really convincing study that uses routine archaeological methods to great effect to provide insight into the nature of this key prehistoric battle site, with regard to aspects of battlefield actions and the participants involved," he said. "The authors make a robust case that there were at least two competing forces and that they were from distinct societies, with one group having travelled hundreds of kilometers. That is a crucial insight into the logistics behind the armies involved at Tollense."
The scale of conflict
The large scale of battle has researchers rethinking what social organization and warfare were like during the Bronze Age.
"Were the Bronze Age warriors (organized) as a tribal coalition, the retinue or mercenaries of a charismatic leader — a kind of 'warlord' — or even the army of an early kingdom?" Inselmann said.
For a long time, researchers argued that Bronze Age violence was a small-scale affair involving tens of individuals from local communities, but Tollense blows that theory wide open, Molloy said.
"We have many sites where we find evidence of mass killing and even slaughter of whole communities," Molloy said, "but this is the first time that the demographics of the dead are those we can reasonably argue were warriors and not, for example, whole families migrating."
Bronze Age societies built fortified settlements and smiths to forge weapons, but Tollense shows that both were more than just displays of power, he said.
"Tollense shows us that they were also created for very real military purposes including full scale battles that involved armies on the march, moving into hostile lands and waging war," Molloy said.
So much necromancy being practiced on Languish recently and it is not even October yet.
Quote from: Valmy on September 23, 2024, 09:32:47 PMSo much necromancy being practiced on Languish recently and it is not even October yet.
I actually posted something interesting though
Quote from: Valmy on September 23, 2024, 09:32:47 PMSo much necromancy being practiced on Languish recently and it is not even October yet.
Normal practice for Wags, unusual for Tim.
Can this thread maybe be merged with the general archaeology thread? :)
Also: Hi Tim. :)
I saw this on CNN also. I am going to believe one army was Cimmerians, and the other Stygians, because nobody will ever unearth any evidence to prove otherwise, and because that would be awesome. :cool:
"CROM... GRANT ME REVENGE!" :showoff:
Quote from: Caliga on September 24, 2024, 11:43:43 AMI saw this on CNN also. I am going to believe one army was Cimmerians, and the other Stygians, because nobody will ever unearth any evidence to prove otherwise, and because that would be awesome. :cool:
"CROM... GRANT ME REVENGE!" :showoff:
:cheers:
Quote from: Caliga on September 24, 2024, 11:43:43 AMI saw this on CNN also. I am going to believe one army was Cimmerians, and the other Stygians, because nobody will ever unearth any evidence to prove otherwise, and because that would be awesome. :cool:
"CROM... GRANT ME REVENGE!" :showoff:
But...the point of the article is that much more than two stood against many. That was what is supposed to be important. :mad:
Quote from: Tonitrus on September 25, 2024, 01:04:26 AMBut...the point of the article is that much more than two stood against many. That was what is supposed to be important. :mad:
:lol:
Conan did not need a revenge-based movie origin. He was amoral: he came because he simply wanted to take your women and to take your stuff. He has limits, he's not Evul, he is a natural force. Much like a bolt of lightning. He looks good though , because the world he lives in is corrupt and decadent.
Quote from: saskganesh on September 27, 2024, 09:16:58 PMConan did not need a revenge-based movie origin. He was amoral: he came because he simply wanted to take your women and to take your stuff. He has limits, he's not Evul, he is a natural force. Much like a bolt of lightning. He looks good though , because the world he lives in is corrupt and decadent.
He's also a White Supremacist, which is all kinds of weird.