Bronze Age battle site in Northern Germany

[Ursus]

Archaeological excavations of the Tollense Valley in northern Germany unearthed fractured skulls, wooden clubs and horse remains dating from around 1200 BC.

 

The injuries to the skulls suggest face-to-face combat in a battle perhaps fought between warring tribes, say the researchers.

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-13469861

[Viggen]

...this is an incredible important site, here are many pictures

 

Rick Schulting of the School of Archaeology at the University of Oxford hopes additional research will clarify exactly what took place in the Tollense Valley"What perhaps surprises me most is the claim (made in the research paper) that some individuals survived their injuries for up to weeks," Schulting told Discovery News. "This would be unusual in the context of a battle at this time, which we would expect to be more of the nature of 'hit and run,' though of course we may be wrong about this, or the Tollense case may be an exception. The presence of young infants also requires some explanation."

 

Nick Thorpe, head of the Department of Archaeology at the University of Winchester, raised an interesting question: Why isn't there more evidence for bronze weapons, given that this was the Bronze Age? "Instead," he told Discovery News, "most of the evidence is of people being dispatched with wooden clubs, which may imply that the dead are mostly victims of a post-battle massacre. Perhaps those who surrendered were not deemed to be worthy of being killed like warriors."

http://news.discovery.com/archaeology/bronze-age-battle-warriors-110527.html

 

 

[parthianbow]

Thanks for the post, Ursus. Fascinating stuff, and I got all excited about it. Then a German reader of mine said something along the lines of, "Huh. It takes about two years for this news to reach Britain. This is old hat in Germany." What a shame that it takes that long to reach us. :-(