Northeastern Germany ’s Tollense Valley hosts what is known as the world ’s oldest battlefield : an archaeologic site bearing the remains of some 150 somebody , dating to the 13th C BCE .
Now , analysis of arrowhead found on the site reveal that the weaponry was not produced in the area , indicating that the conflict involved the great unwashed from elsewhere in Europe . The team ’s research was print today inAntiquity .
“ The arrowheads are a form of ‘ smoking gun ’ , ” says lead generator of the research , Leif Inselmann , a researcher at Freie Universtät Berlin and moderate author of the study , in anAntiquityrelease . “ Just like the murder weapon system in a whodunit , they give us a clew about the culprit , the fighters of the Tollense Valley fight and where they came from . ”
A skullcap from the Tollense Valley perforated by an arrowhead.Photo: Volker Minkus
The website was first nominate to be a battlefield in 2011 , though the party involved in the conflict remain unclear . concord to the liberation , based on the number of human clay left on the website , some researchers estimate over 2,000 people were involved with the battle itself . Now , the recent squad has determined that at least some of the combatants were not topical anesthetic to northern Germany .
Inselmann has roll up nearly 5,000 arrowhead from across Central Europe and discovered that different type were present at the engagement site . The arrowheads were flint and bronze ; though the flint arrowheads were distinctive from the area , the bronze arrowhead were a combination of local and non - local type . Many of the arrowheads were receive in the Tollense area , but others — namely those with square or rhombic understructure — are more generally associate with regions farther to the south , like Bavaria and Moravia .
The extraneous arrowheads have not been regain in tombs in the Tollense area , suggest that the arrowheads from elsewhere did n’t just make their direction to the region through trade . The gibe , it seems , were brought to Tollense for the purpose of conflict . One hardening of corpse on the site hit that clear : a human skull cap , puncture with a bronze arrowhead .
“ The Tollense Valley conflict dates to a time of major changes , ” Inselmann said . “ This raises questions about the governance of such violent conflicts . Were the Bronze Age warriors organize as a tribal coalition , the suite or mercenary of a magnetic leader ‒ a variety of “ warlord ” ‒ , or even the army of an early kingdom ? ”
Though the arrowheads do not pull in up the parties require in the difference , they show that the gravid - scale fury ( for the time ) involved group from farther afield than antecedently known . As the team noted in their paper , no helmet and aegis distinctive of the time have designate up from archeological dig of the site , so more slam may be necessary to let on more about the ancient combatants at Tollense , the cadaver of many of whom remain on the site .
Arrowbattles
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