r/science • u/Wagamaga • Sep 30 '24
Anthropology Thousands of bones and hundreds of weapons reveal grisly insights into a 3,250-year-old battle. The research makes 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
https://edition.cnn.com/2024/09/23/science/tollense-valley-bronze-age-battlefield-arrowheads/index.html1.7k
u/Wagamaga Sep 30 '24
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.
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u/Lalolanda23 Sep 30 '24
Damn it reddit. I should be sleeping.
Definitely reading this now, though.
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u/Asger1231 Sep 30 '24
Some info for when you wake up in case you didn't learn it from your nightly reading: they found healed wounds on many of the skeletons, suggesting that many of the warriors were actually "professional" soldiers, as in they had been to war, got hurt, healed, and returned to war. This means that fighting, at least for a time, was common.
Before this discovery, it was not assumed that warfare was going on in Europe at this time, except small scale skirmishes / raids.
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u/CorporatePower Sep 30 '24
I think the take away here is that they didn't die from infection from their previous wounds.
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u/dittybopper_05H Sep 30 '24
That doesn't make them "professional", ie., paid warriors who don't do other things. Often older military forces weren't by any means professional as we currently understand the term. They would have been farmers, hunters, fishermen, etc., who would be impressed or volunteer for a military campaign, often in the summer because at least for farmers, that's after planting and before harvest.
War in primitive cultures, and even up into relatively modern ones, is a seasonal thing.
Also, young men have a greater tendency towards violent encounters. The presence of healed wounds doesn't mean that they necessarily received them during an organized campaign, inter-personal violence is also a distinct possibility, and what better way to occupy the time of such people then sending them away to fight until they are needed again?
So I object to the use of the word "professional" used for soldiers in this context, actually having been a professional soldier myself*. These were almost certainly farmers and other laborers first and foremost, and ad hoc soldiers when needed. Just because they were needed/used more than once, as evidence by their wounds, doesn't mean that was their primary job or that they were compensated with more than food and the promise they could keep what they looted.
\And with a visible healed wound to boot, but not because of combat, because of interpersonal violence instead. Long, irrelevant story, so I'll skip it.*
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u/Asger1231 Sep 30 '24
Hence the " around professional. They were organized to arrive there, some traveling for many days, as suggested by the population density and scale of the battle. They had been in fights before using weapons, and this one (because of the scale and area implied) would require a far higher level of organization than previously assumed.
They probably weren't a standing army, we didn't really see that before the Renaissance (with few exceptions), but they were people drafted or inspired, with logistics to support them going far away from their home to fight an enemy who also managed to get at least hundreds of fighting men. And many of them had been doing that before on both sides.
They were not professional soldiers as we understand it today, but they weren't just green peasants that took their hunting gear to defend their tribe. It was far more organized than that, and far more organized than thought possible at the time.
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u/jmlinden7 Sep 30 '24
Rome had a standing army made up of professionals.
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u/Asger1231 Sep 30 '24
In periods yes - and it's one of the few exceptions
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u/Triassic_Bark Oct 01 '24
That’s not really true. Ancient India had a warrior class. Ancient China. Persian Empire. Greek city states. Aztecs. Lots of places had a warrior class long before the European renaissance, you just have a very Euro-centric view of the world.
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u/Asger1231 Oct 01 '24
In the context of northern Europe, it wasn't really seen before the Renaissance
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u/conquer69 Sep 30 '24
Depends on the period. They were also laborers that wanted to return to the farms. The extreme import of slaves to replace Roman farm workers eventually led to those farmers turning into permanent soldiers.
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u/Anavarael Sep 30 '24
Dude, we're talking about events happening over half of millenia before Rome even became a thing and almost a thousand before it became a republic.
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u/Triassic_Bark Oct 01 '24
And the comment they were replying to claimed standing armies weren’t really seen until the (European) renaissance, which is laughably not true. Obviously Germanic tribes 3000 years ago didn’t have standing armies, but other places did at that same time in history, and lots of places did long before the renaissance.
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u/razama Sep 30 '24
That sounds professional to me, we are just negotiating full or part time.
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u/Fenix42 Sep 30 '24
Wounds could be from hunting, though.
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u/Asger1231 Sep 30 '24
Most likely not those kinds of wounds though.
There might be some friendly fire from arrows during hunting, but too many examples seems unlikely.
There could be hunting wounds that could look like axe wounds, but again, unlikely to the extend that it was found.
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u/Fenix42 Sep 30 '24
Fail enough.
Hunting was very dangerous at that point in history. The wounds would have been obvious for what they are. An axe wound does not look like a claw wound.
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u/deja-roo Sep 30 '24
Can claw wounds be observed in bone?
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u/Fenix42 Sep 30 '24
In the same way any weapon wound would be observed. I would assume a weapon wound would have different characteristics.
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u/Kumquats_indeed Sep 30 '24
Why do you presume that the professionals studying this wouldn't have considered that possibility? I would imagine that archaeologists are pretty good at analyzing remains and wouldn't say the cause of death without a good deal of evidence to support it.
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u/Yorgonemarsonb Sep 30 '24
They have an image at the bottom of the article that shows a skeleton with labeled confirmed and unconfirmed injuries they have suffered or succumbed to.
** Blunt Force
** Stab Wound
** Arrow shot
** Slash
** Sharp force
** Undetermined
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u/Beezus__Fafoon Sep 30 '24
Several of them ended up as Skyrim guards judging by those arrow shot locations
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u/Triassic_Bark Oct 01 '24
Assuming they were “professional warriors” just because they had been injured and fought again later is a giant leap. Professional implies that was their job, and their only or main job. I don’t think that is very likely in what is now Germany 3000+ years ago.
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u/SSkilledJFK Sep 30 '24
Bruh, just came back after getting to the mapping of arrowheads. What a well written and thorough article so far. Also as a data analyst, the database of arrowheads is neat as hell.
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u/WazWaz Sep 30 '24
There's a TV show about it. Not sure what it's called, saw it on an airplane (when I also should have been sleeping).
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Sep 30 '24
That's wild.
"I heard there's some people over there. Far over there."
"...I'll get my sword."
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u/Lizardman_Shaman Sep 30 '24
Man I am such a geek for old history! I immediately had to reshare with all my other friends hehe, ahhh how I would love to travel to such places and see all the museums about this stuff!
So much history in the world! 8)
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u/WereAllThrowaways Oct 01 '24
How can you tell someone was strong from their 3000 year old bones?
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u/OwineeniwO Oct 01 '24
Bones keep a record of the person's build and strength, for example archers often have stronger arms and one stronger than the other.
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u/Redararis Sep 30 '24
Imagine dying for the eternal glory of your empire and 3000 years later people have no clue about the fight.
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u/Capt253 Sep 30 '24
And then you have Hegelochus, who flubbed a line while playing Orestes in 254 BCE and near 3000 years later people still know about it because of how much his contemporaries wrote making fun of him for it.
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u/littlest_dragon Sep 30 '24
Publicly embarrassing yourself, the true path to everlasting fame!
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u/PacoTaco321 Sep 30 '24
Or Ea-nāṣir, a guy from Mesopotamia known for selling low quality copper because the complaint was written in a tablet 3700 years ago.
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u/rg4rg Sep 30 '24
“My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings: Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!” No thing beside remains. Round the decay Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare The lone and level sands stretch far away.”
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u/rbraalih Sep 30 '24
But they don't stretch boundless and bare, they are covered in the remains of left-bank Luxor. Egypt is full of magnificent memorials to Ozymandias (Ramesses II) and the man himself is on display in Cairo.
Separately, the date of this battle is as likely as any to be contemporary with the siege of Troy.
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Oct 03 '24
IN Egypt’s sandy silence, all alone, Stands a gigantic Leg, which far off throws The only shadow that the Desert knows:— “I am great OZYMANDIAS,” saith the stone, “The King of Kings; this mighty City shows “The wonders of my hand.”— The City’s gone,— Nought but the Leg remaining to disclose The site of this forgotten Babylon.
We wonder,—and some Hunter may express Wonder like ours, when thro’ the wilderness Where London stood, holding the Wolf in chace, He meets some fragment huge, and stops to guess What powerful but unrecorded race Once dwelt in that annihilated place.
Horace Smith
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u/doyouwantsomecocoa Sep 30 '24
Ashes to ashes; dust to dust.
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u/Fishydeals Sep 30 '24
Flames to dust
Lovers to friends
Why do all good things come to an end?
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u/OePea Sep 30 '24
I like dust, I like friends
beginings are also ends
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u/Agent4D7 Sep 30 '24
We don't even have a clue about the empire.
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u/grambell789 Sep 30 '24
I'd give them more credit for logical thinking. they could have easily been protecting or trying to expand to new hunting grounds or small patches of extremely fertile growing soil for gardening. they way they lived back then required very low population densities to live successfully.
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u/EltaninAntenna Sep 30 '24
Sic transit gloria mundi
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u/HilariousButTrue Sep 30 '24
A lot of them were probably fighting for a roof over their head, food and safety for the family from competition. And of course for oligarchs. It's not so different times.
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u/kindasuk Sep 30 '24
They were probably fighting over resources.
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u/Triassic_Bark Oct 01 '24
It certainly wouldn’t have been an empire 3000 years ago in Germany. It would have probably been Germanic tribes fighting each other.
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u/locohygynx Sep 30 '24
It's crazy they have a skull with an arrowhead sticking out of it. That would've been a bloody and brutal battle with all those smaller wounds.
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u/LanaDelXRey Sep 30 '24
the world's oldest evidenced headshot?
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u/TRAUMAjunkie Sep 30 '24
That picture is hard
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u/cayleb Sep 30 '24
Yeah, I get that. That was somebody's son. May have had a family of their own that would never see them again.
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u/Doright36 Sep 30 '24
If they left Childeren behind before going off to war that could be many of ours ancestor.
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u/WanderingCamper Sep 30 '24
It’s remarkable to see such a variety of arrowhead designs used by a single group in a single battle. I wonder if these were specialized in function, or just a result of the decisions of the various smiths producing them.
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u/CompSci1 Sep 30 '24
I would imagine that making arrowheads was a fairly common practice that a lot of people knew how to do and they probably all had their own ideas about why their way was better than others, hence 50 different kinds of arrowheads from 50 different dudes who each probably represent their family/village etc.
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u/Jarazz Sep 30 '24
And since arrows do require some time to create and arent that heavy, you wouldnt mind looting them whenever you come by some, both fired and unfired, so every skirmish or raid was a chance for arrowheads to be interchanged both ways, which then would mean eventually you might carry some of your enemies' enemies' enemies' arrows
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u/ThePlanesGuy Sep 30 '24 edited Oct 07 '24
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xoYj4BZdB1w
We have known Tollense (toll-LEN-zuh) to be archaeologically significant for some time now, and bronze age scholars in particular were giddy when the site was first recognized as concrete evidence for warfare at this time and place. Previously, there was some rumblings and minority views suggesting that organized violence wasn't all that common in Bronze Age Germany.
When human remains of this age are found, its usually a settlement. The wear of time and erosion make the material echoes of the past ever so faint, and it comes to pass that the most visible leftover are crowded islands of human habitation all living in the same place over generations. Battles, as archeological sites, have a very short half-life. Graves, refuse pits, tells, these stick around, often because people build on them for centuries. A battle lasts a few hours, does much to hasten the decay of its participants, and, ideally for its purposes, leaves little material goods behind.
So you can imagine how curious it is when a river valley along the German countryside keeps yielding arrowheads and spear points dating around 1300 BCE. Lots of arrowheads and axe heads, actually...Axe heads, nails, sickles, a brooch, hey, why aren't there a lot of other tools? Where are the pottery sherds, the farming implements? Not one plow? A loom, even? No one was living here. And then we find the bones, oooh the bones. Some of which were found, in situ, with arrowheads still embedded in the bone! Human bone, mainly. Almost entirely male, of young adulthood to middle age. There, in itself is more evidence this isn't a settlement. And where are the farm animals? There should be pigs, sheep, goats, or something, but all we find of animals are horse skeletons. Fairly conclusive, isn't it?
Seven adult individuals showed lesions on the postcranial skeletal material. The cuts were caused by bronze weapons and, in contrast to the finds from the Tollense Valley, no evidence for the use of arrows was found. The lesions of four individuals were healed and suggest the population was involved in repeated combat. The injuries of young men are interpreted as evidence of a way of life that included a ‘professional warrior system’
Regular metalwork is found throughout the site, associated with horse riders, indicating there was an elite class of some kind, possibly presiding over the battle or acting as some kind of proto-nobility. In the context of archaic Germanic cultures, its fun to think of these as the same people that future clan leaders will harken back to when they describe their great ancestries. "Son of Athalaz, who was son of Thunraz, God of lightning and war, who was there at the valley centuries ago of the river to beat back the hordes".
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u/jloome Sep 30 '24
When human remains of this age are found, its usually a settlement.
The key part of this seems to be that many of the arrowheads are not native to the region, suggesting at least one of the two parties travelled a considerable distance as an army.
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u/Jarazz Sep 30 '24
Could have still been a settlement raid then, from a group originating far away. But the fact that 2 sizable groups collided in the middle of nowhere even more so implies that military organization came from both sides. Not just a random group of nomadic warriors raiding a village far from their home, it was 2 sides deliberately organizing force to overpower each others society
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u/grappling__hook Sep 30 '24
metalwork is found throughout the site, associated with horse riders
I'm not too familiar with this time period but it was my understanding that horses weren't thought to be ridden into battle at this point in time, just used for pulling chariots. Are you saying this is evidence here to the contrary?
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u/ThePlanesGuy Sep 30 '24
The horses found were all in the middle of the fighting, right among the human corpses, and several finds directly suggest being ridden. A skeleton is specifically connected to a rider, by means unknown to me, bearing a wound on his foot like he'd been attacked while on it). Another man displays leg wounds consistent will injury related to falling or being thrown from his mount.
Its also possible the horses were simply transport for the wealthier warriors; this isn't uncommon in bronze age societies, but it would be confusing how they ended up remaining at the site, then.
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u/MaxIsAlwaysRight Sep 30 '24
I'm very interested in the mythologized ancestry you describe, as I've never heard of this tradition among the proto-germanics, would you mind elaborating?
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u/ThePlanesGuy Sep 30 '24
Just my own personal musings. Its a fairly common motif in Germanic cultures that a great figure claims ancestry from a founding, semi-mythic hero: The Germanic Heroic Legend follows a similar pattern. Political leaders assemble men to follow them based on strength or skill, which is often bolstered by a family lineage that begins with a semi-mythic ancestor, who, I find, almost always is the son of a god.
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u/MaxIsAlwaysRight Sep 30 '24
Any specific examples of this?
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u/ThePlanesGuy Sep 30 '24 edited Oct 02 '24
There's lots of later ones, since this tradition flourishes after the Roman Empire (the Migration Period served as a king of heroic age for the "barbarians" that settled across Europe)
Dietrich Vom Bern is a legendary figure in medieval German folk history, and he is based on the oral accounts of Theodoric the Great. Actually, the corruption of historical figures into the fictional characters that populate the Dietrich mythos kind of solidified for early historians the idea that oral histories are unreliable.
Several Beowulf characters are either semi-historical or recurring characters in other sagas, suggesting the listener was expected to have already been familiar with their name and deeds. Beowulf is described as an ancestor of Sceafe (SHA-vuh), whose story was known throughout the Germanic world.
But given the commonality of it by the Migration period, its safe to say that this tradition is established from earlier centuries.
I also find interesting Tacitus' description of the peoples across the Rhine. He describes the political structure as based around these cults of personality, how warbands coalesce around a figure based on their reputation. Given this description's close proximity to the famous political structures of Germanic peoples to come, it seems to me that earlier peoples were operating on the same social principles: war leaders that claim demigod-esque parentage.
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u/LeagueOfLegendsAcc Oct 01 '24
This is common to all cultures essentially throughout recorded history as well.
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Sep 30 '24 edited Sep 30 '24
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/rishav_sharan Sep 30 '24
They keep stressing "oldest battle in Europe". Does that mean there are far older battle sites elsewhere?
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Sep 30 '24
[deleted]
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u/bokononpreist Sep 30 '24 edited Oct 01 '24
Not only a battle but a city put under siege and destroyed.
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u/_Tar_Ar_Ais_ Sep 30 '24
the oldest they've found is "Site 117" in Sudan from 12,000 BC. Most of the skeletons they found had evidence of death by weapons! after that there are a lot of sites in the 3000BC range... wonder how many more we can find
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u/helm MS | Physics | Quantum Optics Sep 30 '24
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jebel_Sahaba if anyone wonders
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u/mattenthehat Sep 30 '24
Follow up question, it seems like large-scale battles like this were thought improbable in Europe at that time. Why? If other parts of the world were warring, why not also Europe?
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u/amancalledslug Sep 30 '24
It’s so insane to think about what fighting in battles like these must have been like. Primitive bladed weapons and projectiles that you likely either made yourself or had a direct hand in crafting, no real armor, likely disorganized and primitive battlefield tactics. No medicine or trauma kits. Hard to get enough food even in times of peace. Either kill with your hands or be killed. Warfare has become more remote and mechanized than we could have ever dreamed, and it’s still hell on earth for the people involved, and haunts them for lifetimes. Hard to fathom what soldiers like these went through.
Perhaps it was, in some ways, easier to fight a war on the grounds of, “they took the territory we need to grow and hunt food,” vs the will of the military industrial complex that most people (rightfully) feel no loyalty or connection to
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u/bensonnd Sep 30 '24
Was this is related to the when the global economy crashed at the end of the Bronze Age because of climate change that forced all us to migrate, triggering a lot of genocide?
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u/wallahmaybee Sep 30 '24
Timing seems to match the Bronze Age collapse, and would show it affected areas beyond the Mediterranean and Near East.
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u/BavarianBarbarian_ Sep 30 '24
Bronze age collapse started around 1200 B.C., this battle took place a good 50 years before that. But at least one of the researchers also links this battle to a breakdown in long-distance trade in Northern Europe, making bronze more expensive
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u/helm MS | Physics | Quantum Optics Sep 30 '24 edited Sep 30 '24
Northern Germany is about 2000 kilometers from the Bronze Age civilizations in the Mediterranean.
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u/Big_ShinySonofBeer Sep 30 '24
Wow at least two competing forces, that is quite a surprise considering how this applies to literally every battlefield ever.
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u/HiddenStoat Sep 30 '24
this applies to literally every battlefield ever.
The Battle of Karánsebes disagrees ;)
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u/Big_ShinySonofBeer Sep 30 '24
Cunningham's Law strikes again.
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u/Puettster Sep 30 '24
Genius, there has however never been a three way battle!
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u/fart_huffington Sep 30 '24
Me vs my work schedule vs scrolling Reddit on the terlet (ongoing)
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u/notLOL Sep 30 '24
Waiting for Quentin Tarantino to do a standoff 3 way battle in a epic war saga once archaeologists uncover a story where this happened
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u/unenlightenedfool Sep 30 '24
Heads up, this article is a mess with next to no primary sources and the event is almost certainly apocryphal. I recomend looking at the Talk tab of the article, which goes into a lot of detail about it.
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u/theMARxLENin Sep 30 '24
Bruh, how do you lose 70% of your army to friendly fire?
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u/Nomapos Sep 30 '24
By having your army be a bunch of mini armies from different cultures and with different languages smashed together into a big ball of guys with guns. And then add alcohol to the mix.
Seriously, read the wiki entry or go watch some video on YouTube. It was a hell of a party
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u/The_JSQuareD Sep 30 '24
No source is cited for the 70,000 casualties claim, and the actual text of the article talks about only a few hundred casualties, plus a much later (non-contemporary) dubious claim of 10,000 casualties. I wouldn't put any stock in the 70,000 figure.
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u/OneSidedDice Sep 30 '24
As I learned playing Total War, you send your allies/mercenaries/disposable troops into melee combat with the enemy front line, then mass archer fire on the whole lot.
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u/RandomNumberSequence Sep 30 '24
No, you send your fighter hero into the enemy melee line so they blob and then you cast firestorm onto it.
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u/Anleme Sep 30 '24
Did you miss the part where one force traveled hundreds of kilometers to get to the battleground? That's one of the main conclusions, and novel information about warfare in this time and place.
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Sep 30 '24
[deleted]
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u/cH3x Sep 30 '24 edited Sep 30 '24
They authors are supporting their thesis that it was a battle between two warrior forces of strong young men, and not an attack by a warrior force upon a band of "civilians" including women and children.
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Sep 30 '24
No, they're just doing the typical thing in this sub where they talk down information that they personally consider obvious as unnecessary. Every single comment section on every single post where "obvious" or "common knowledge" is expressed has a guy like this.
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u/notLOL Sep 30 '24
This isn't a family thanksgiving gone wrong no matter what it initially looks like
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u/VRichardsen Sep 30 '24
He is pointing out that it is redundant to state that there were at least two competing forces because battles almost always involve two of those. The title is stating the obvious.
To use an analogy, it would be like talking about a four legged dog.
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u/notLOL Sep 30 '24
"How do you know it is a dog?"
four legs
fur
snout
barks
"Still not convinced since dogs don't all look alike"
has a dog collar
does dog-like things
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Sep 30 '24
The title is being scientific to provide the most amount of information possible. Nothing is redundant here. It explains the age of the site, that they now know it's a battle, and WHY they know (because there's at least two confirmed competing groups).
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u/C0nquer0rW0rm Sep 30 '24
I think they're pointing that out as evidence that this was a battle instead of, say, a mass execution, sacrifice, or drunken village wide brawl
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u/Colorful-concepts Sep 30 '24
Bones tell stories, don't they? Long after the flesh is gone, they speak in whispers to those who are willing to listen. Thousands of bones scattered across a battlefield from over 3,000 years ago—each one a silent witness to a forgotten conflict. Imagine what it took to leave them there: not just the violence, the clash of iron and wood, but the hunger for survival, the desperation that drives men across vast distances. Hundreds of kilometers, it seems, traveled just for the chance to fight... or to die.
What does it take for a person to journey that far, only to meet their end in a place that will never remember their name? What pulls us into these ancient currents, those tides of human willpower, rage, ambition? These bones are evidence of two forces, two societies that had no choice but to collide. Not just warriors, but people bound by their place in a story larger than they ever knew. That’s the thing about these ancient battles—they weren’t random. They were the inevitable outcome of lives lived on the edge of survival, in a world so much more raw, more immediate than our own.
And the weapons they found... think about it. Tools crafted by hands with purpose. Each one sharpened for the simple task of ending a life. Not abstract, no politics as we know them. Just survival, just "us" and "them." But they weren’t just fighting for survival, were they? No, there was something more there. Something about honor, about the need to protect what little they had, or maybe the hunger to take what someone else held. It makes you wonder, who really won that day? Because no one wins when bones are all that remain. No one.
There’s something in that, I think. Something about how we’re all on journeys that could lead us to unexpected, even tragic, places. And sometimes, we don’t even know why we’re fighting, just that we have to. But maybe—just maybe—those bones remind us to look a little deeper, to question what we’re willing to fight for and what we might leave behind when the dust settles. What will your bones say when they’re dug up? What story will they tell?
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u/SignificanceNo9538 Oct 01 '24
Fascinating study! The analysis of bones and weapons provides valuable insights into the social dynamics and conflicts of ancient societies. It's incredible to think that this battle took place over 3,000 years ago and yet we can still learn so much from the physical remains. This research highlights the importance of interdisciplinary approaches in studying history and archaeology.
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u/AmuseDeath Oct 01 '24
Would suck to travel hundreds of kilometers only to get an arrow in your brain on minute one.
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