Tuesday, September 24, 2024

Thousands of bones and hundreds of weapons reveal grisly insights into a 3,250-year-old battle

Ashley Strickland, CNN
Tue, September 24, 2024 

A 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.”

An ancient skull recovered from the Tollense Valley site was found perforated with a bronze arrowhead. - Volker Minkus/Minkusimages
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.


Lead study author Leif Inselmann holds one of the arrowheads recovered from Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, a state in northeast Germany that’s home to the Tollense Valley. - Leif Inselmann

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.

Researchers uncovered a variety of bronze and flint arrowheads at the Tollense Valley site. - Leif Inselmann


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.”



Researchers cataloged the types of injuries inflicted on remains recovered in the Tollense Valley to understand how the conflict played out. - Ute Brinker


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.

Thousands of prehistoric artifacts found where Wake County highway opens this week

Richard Stradling
Tue, September 24, 2024 

Before the trees were cut and the bulldozers moved in to build NC. 540 across southern Wake County, archaeologists followed the route, looking for places people might have lived thousands of years ago.

They discovered a treasure trove along a creek east of Interstate 40. Sifting through the dirt, they found more than 24,000 artifacts, including shards of clay pots and other vessels; stone points used on spears, arrows and hand tools; and at least one piece of jewelry.

As the southern leg of the Triangle Expressway opens to traffic this week, those items are poised to join the state’s archaeological collection in Raleigh. Without the work of the archaeologists, they would have been churned up and paved over by the six-lane highway.

“It was going to be blitzed by the construction,” said Matt Wilkerson, who heads the N.C. Department of Transportation’s archaeology program. “This site was pretty much smack dab in the middle.”

NCDOT is required by state and federal law to determine whether road and bridge projects are likely to destroy important archaeological sites. That falls to Wilkerson and his team of six archaeologists, with help from consultants and the State Office of Archaeology.

They evaluate between 300 and 400 projects a year, focusing on those most likely to yield results: roads built on new right-of-way and bridges where flood plains can conceal well-preserved artifacts. The 18-mile extension of N.C. 540, across fields, forests and house lots from Apex to near Garner, was a good candidate.

NCDOT’s team gradually moved the length of the future highway corridor, pushing soil samples through a quarter-inch mesh to see what showed up.

“It’s like a chess board,” Wilkerson said. “We dig holes at a certain interval. If we find something, we tighten up that interval and dig some more.”

The goal is not to find and remove every artifact in the highway’s path. Instead, it’s to document what’s there and explore more deeply the most significant sites.

“We’re after sites that have integrity, where the soils are intact,” Wilkerson said. “That way we know the materials that we’re finding are not just all jumbled up. They might actually be able to tell us a little something about the site.”

The team found artifacts in more than 150 places along the path of the highway. But only one site was so rich and undisturbed that it was considered eligible for the National Register of Historic Places. And that site needed to be excavated, because it was directly in the highway’s path.

Artifacts including pottery, tools and jewelry--some made 10,000 years ago--were found during digging in 2021 for the last leg of the Triangle Expressway.
A popular spot over thousands of years

It was on a small rise just above a creek, which likely made it an attractive place to camp. It was extensive enough that NCDOT contracted with Commonwealth Heritage Group, a consulting firm based in Tarboro, to help with the work.

Using radio carbon dating and other techniques, the archaeologists determined that most of the artifacts they found were from two distinct periods: 6,000 to 5,500 BC or middle archaic and the middle woodland era, from 300 BC and 800 AD.

In neither case does it look as if the site was a permanent settlement, Wilkerson said. People may have spent a season along the creek, before moving on. The more recent occupants in particular seem to have spent little time at the site, which may have been a satellite of a larger settlement nearby, he said.

Perhaps the coolest item the archaeologists found was part of a gorget or piece of jewelry from sometime in the woodland period. The polished piece of stone was tapered on both ends and had been drilled with holes for a cord or leather strap.

“We don’t really know if it’s ceremonial or it’s just jewelry that someone would wear,” Wilkerson said. “We haven’t found many of those.”

A stone gorget or piece of jewelry found during an archaeological dig before construction of N.C. 540 in southern Wake County. N.C. Department of Transportation’s archaeologists and their consultants found more than 24,000 artifacts at one site where the highway runs now.

None of what the archaeologists found at the site is a museum piece, said Davis Cranfield, an assistant state archaeologist with the Department of Natural and Cultural Resources. But taken together, they are notable, Cranfield said.

“Usually we say, ‘It’s not what you find but what you find out,’ the collective assemblage that can help tell a story,” he said. “And this was a pretty significant site.”

In particular, the concentration of ceramic pottery, the presence of a hearth or fire pit and fragments of burned walnut shells help show how people lived at the time.

NCDOT and its consultants cataloged and documented what they found; a few of the items were on display at 540 Fest, when people were invited to run and cycle on the nearly completed highway in June.

Their permanent home will be at the State Office of Archaeology’s Research Center, where they’ll be available for future study.

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