Barcelona Part 6: The culture of warfare of Europe's Late Bronze Age

The mysterious Battle of the Tollense Valley. Above, an artist has depicted the wild and brutal combat which occurred during this bloody encounter. A man on the left lies dead or dying from a spear in his stomach. In the upper left, archers shoot their arrows into a mass of flailing warriors. On the right, a mounted man charges into the fray as dead or dying fighters tumble into the river. The previously unknown battle occurred sometime between 1300 and 1200 BC. 

Bones, weapons, and other artifacts from this Late Bronze Age site were discovered in 1996 in the remote Tollense Valley of northern Germany. Studies of the remains indicate that the battle may have involved as many as 5,000 combatants, with as many as 1,000 of them left dead. Its scale stunned archeologists, who had previously believed that no conflict of this size had occurred in Europe during that period.

It has become clear, however, that the Late Bronze Age was a time of ever-increasing militarization and warfare. During the same period as the Tollense Valley battle, Catalonia was invaded and conquered by people from the same culture who used similar weapons, tactics, and levels of ferocity. At the end of this posting, I will provide some of the fascinating details about the Tollense Valley Battle to illustrate how this may have played out in northeast Iberia.

The Urnfield Culture of warrior aristocrats 

The Late Bronze Age in Europe. At its greatest extent, the Urnfields culture stretched from the Balkans to eastern France and from the Netherlands to Italy and parts of Sicily. Archeologists consider the Urnfields people to be an early version of the Celts, whom they call Proto-Celts. Sometime between 1300 and 1200 BC, warriors from the Urnfield Culture invaded and conquered Catalonia. Although successful, they did not gain much ground in the rest of the Iberian Peninsula. 

During the same period, people of the Atlantic Bronze Age dominated the western coast of the Iberian Peninsula all the way up into Britain. Most of Scandinavia was occupied by people of the Nordic Bronze Age culture. Since the Tollense Valley lies very near the Urnfields-Nordic border, the battle may have involved a clash between these two different cultures. However, the identity of the combatants, the exact circumstances of the battle, and the reasons for it are still a mystery.

The Urnfields people are named for their burial practices. Inhumation (burial of bodies) was the standard practice of the Neolithic (New Stone Age), and Chalcolithic (Copper Age) people, as well as the Yamnaya pastoralists from the steppes who conquered them. The Urnfields Culture  broke with this long tradition by practicing cremation. The ashes, mostly from single individuals, were placed in urns and buried in pits, as seen above. Some Urnfields cemeteries contained hundreds of separately buried urns.

The Urnfields culture first arose in central Europe around 1800 BC. It was the successor of earlier cultures which had themselves developed as a result of the Yamnaya conquest. The Urnfields people were organized in tribes led by chiefs and war leaders and were aggressive and prone to raiding. They lived in fortified settlements and were thoroughly familiar with the military technology of their time, including the manufacture and use of bronze weapons and armor.

The rise of the Urnfields culture in central Europe coincided with the collapse of Bronze Age civilizations such as the Minoans of Crete, the Mycenaeans of Greece, and the Hittites of Anatolia. The Egyptian New Kingdom and the Assyrians were weakened but not destroyed. 

It is not clear what role Europe's Bronze Age cultures may have played in the collapse of these civilizations. 

It is possible that some of the mysterious "Sea People" who invaded the eastern Mediterranean during the collapse may have included mercenaries and free-lancers from the European Bronze Age cultures such as the Urnfields. 

Weapons and armor

An armed and armored Urnfields warrior-aristocrat. A man equipped like this would have been the leader of a war band, or even of a small army. While the bronze tipped spear and bronze sword would have been widely available to ordinary fighters, his bronze armor sets him apart as a man of wealth and fighting prowess. In other words, an early aristocrat. These items include his crested helmet, cuirass (torso armor), shield, and greaves (shin protectors). 

Bronze swords, spear tips, and daggers have often been found in Urnfields' grave sites. However, bronze armor (except for greaves) is rarely found there. Shields, cuirasses, and helmets are typically found in "hoards" that have been deliberately buried, either to protect them from theft or to store them for future use. Others were sunk as ritual offerings in bogs. The creation of bronze armor was technically difficult and expensive, so most of it was likely inherited or otherwise re-used. 

Metal workers casting bronze swords. Increasingly, bronze technology was directed toward its use in warfare. Above, several men work at different stages making swords. The casting process included pouring molten metal into a shaped cavity called a mold. The two men on the right are preparing to cast a sword, while the man in the foreground checks the quality of the sword he has just removed from the mold at his feet.  

Scattered around them are the broken remnants of swords and other bronze items. These bits and pieces, possibly recovered from a previously buried hoard, will be melted down and the metal re-used to make new weapons. The outline of the sword in the mold has a U-shaped device on the hilt, revealing it to be an "antenna sword", a term created by archeologists because of the resemblance to antennas used on old fashioned radios and TVs.

An antenna sword in Barcelona's Monjuic Archeological Museum. Antenna swords first appeared in Iberia and elsewhere in the western Mediterranean around the 1000 BC. The sword above would have been lethal in combat, with honed edges on either side of the blade for slashing and a sharp point for stabbing. It would likely have been carried by a mounted warrior-aristocrat. 

Bronze swords first came into use in Minoan Crete around 1700 BC. Previous to the development of swords, the weapons used for stabbing and slashing were daggers of various sizes, made from stone, copper, or bronze. By the Late Bronze Age (1500-1100 BC) bronze swords were widely available, even to the average farmer. In Denmark alone, around 20,000 swords have been recovered in grave sites from this period. The total in circulation must have been much higher.

 

Bronze spear points. These have hollow sockets where wooden shafts could be inserted. A bolt would then be driven through the hole in the side of the hollow end to secure the point. Although spears as weapons date back to Paleolithic times, bronze spear points didn't appear until about 1800 BC, a century before swords. Such points were smaller, simpler, and cheaper to make than swords. Free farmers could easily afford one or more spear points and could make their own wooden shafts.

Mycenaean pottery paintings of this era show that the average foot soldier carried two spears, which makes considerable sense. If he threw, broke, or otherwise lost his only spear, he would be defenseless. The second spear could keep an opponent at bay, particularly if the antagonist was armed with a sword or other weapon shorter than a spear. Shafts from Late Bronze age spears are scarce but those found measured 1.43m (4'8"). 

Bronze Urnfield helmet. The high crest and other decorative elements mark this helmet as the property of a leader or chief. Even the warrior-aristocrat shown in the earlier photo wears a simpler helmet than this one. In the confused swirl of battle, it was important for the combatants to be able to quickly and easily identify their leaders. Distinctive headgear for such men has been found in cave paintings as far back as the Neolithic period.

Urnfield helmets were made in two halves, shaped to fit a head. They were then connected by crimping along the edges of the crest. The areas below the crest in the front and back were connected with plates and rivets. The purpose of the rods extending to the front and rear is not clear, but may simply be decorative. On the side of the helmet, near the bottom, there are three small holes for attaching a strap under the wearer's chin.

Bronze cuirass, or body armor for the torso. This sort of armor first appears around 1500 BC. The Urnfields warriors may have adopted bronze torso armor from contact with the Mycenaean Greeks around 1300 BC. Cuirasses like this show a high level of craftsmanship and it is probable that only high-ranking individuals would have been able to afford them. 

It is possible that a lower ranking fighter might have obtained one by stripping it from the body of a dead enemy chieftain. However, war leaders generally claimed the best of the loot, so it might have been difficult for him to hang on to a cuirass in those circumstances, even if he was the one who killed the original owner.

Cuirasses were carefully hammered to give them the shape of a human torso, including male nipples and a groove for the spine in the back. They were made in two pieces (front and back) which were connected at the sides by rivets and hooks. The armor was worn over a wool or leather jacket to cushion the metal and provide warmth.

Bronze shields were for protection but also acted as a symbol of  rank. Less than 100 Late Bronze Age shields have survived, including some from the Urnfields period. Most were found in hoards or sunk in bogs. For a time, some archeologists believed that shields from this period were primarily for ritual display rather than actual use in combat. Since Tollense, bronze shields have been closely re-examined for so-called "wear", a euphemism for combat damage.

These inspections revealed holes shaped like spear points, dents that could only have been made by sword blows, and other possible damage from arrows. Some shields were intact, meaning that they may have been used for ritual display or that the carrier was a leader who was directing, but not personally participating in, the combat. Because the shields are rarely found in graves, they may not have been personal property, but communally-owned badges of rank.  

The round or slightly oval-shaped shields average 60-70cm (2-2.3ft) in diameter and 1.5k (3.3lbs). A bronze disk of about 20cm (0.65ft) was first cast, then expanded in size through hammering and annealing. The outside edges were often crimped over wire for extra strength against sword blows.  In the final stage, decorations were added. This long and technically difficult process was expensive, so common fighters carried shields of wood and hardened leather.

Late Bronze Age Combat

The Tollense clash may have focused on control of a causeway. A mounted warrior brandishes his bronze sword as he charges into a surging mass of foot soldiers. Several fighters lie dead from arrows on the bridge. One archer at the center right takes aim at a warrior on horseback at the far end of the bridge. On the hilltop, mounted figures survey the ongoing mayhem. One of them may be a chief, very possibly wearing his crested helmet, with the shield denoting his rank slung over his shoulder.

Surveys of the Tollense battle site have disclosed the remnants of a wood and stone causeway leading across the river. The causeway had originally been built 500 years previously, but repairs and improvements were contemporary with the battle. One scenario is that local fighters were attempting to defend their territory from an invading army by using the causeway as a chokepoint.

Another theory suggests that one group was a trading caravan from the Nordic Bronze Age area, guarded by mercenary warriors. The other may have been an Urnfields army sent to seize it by chieftains who wanted to control the route. Causeways such as the one at Tollense were important to the European trade networks. These included the Baltic amber route which carried amber for jewelry to southern Europe and Iberia, passing through this area along the way.

Flint arrowhead embedded in an arm bone. A young man passing by found this artifact protruding from the riverbank in 1996. The discovery set off archeological investigations that have continued ever since. The arrowhead shows that even during the Late Bronze Age, stone weapons were still in use and could be lethal. In the artist's portrayal, the archer firing at the mounted warrior may be the one who shot this arrow, since the arrowhead's trajectory was upward. 

The causeway lies upstream from the mass of skeletons, suggesting that dead or dying fighters may have fallen into the river and floated downstream. Another possibility is that, after the dead combatants of the defeated army were stripped of items of value, their bodies were simply thrown into the water. In either case, the bodies floated downstream to a river bend where they piled up and were gradually covered over by silt.

The bones of at least 140 individuals have been found at the site. 

Before deciding that this was a battle site, archeologists first had to discount a possible cemetery or a site of human sacrifice. As the bones were analyzed, it became clear that the vast majority were from males of prime fighting age (between 20 and 40). A handful of women and children were also present, but they may have been camp followers. Together, the gender, age range, and random distribution of the bones rule out a cemetery.

Bronze Age sacrifices were usually small in scale and very ritualized. The bones at Tollense are from a very large number of people and there is no indication of ritual behavior. The damage was inflicted by a variety of weapons, including sword cuts on bones and bronze arrowheads stuck in skulls. Most bones show no healing, indicating that death occurred the same day. The few long-healed wounds suggest experienced soldiers who had survived other engagements before falling in this one. 

The dead may have totaled as many as 1000 out of a possible 5000+ combatants. However, only about 5% of the potential battle area has been excavated so far. The winning side would probably have honored their fallen fighters properly, according to their culture. The Urnfields warriors, for example, would have cremated their dead and buried the ashes. Therefore the actual number of dead and the overall number of combatants may be even higher than the bones indicate.

So, who were these people? DNA from a selection of the bones shows that they were largely from the central European areas like southern Germany, Poland, and Hungary. This was far from the Tollense Valley, but it was the heartland of the Urnfields culture. Their tooth enamel also shows that they ate millet, which was not grown in the area of the battle but was cultivated in central Europe. Interestingly, a few came from the Baltic area, France and even the Iberian Peninsula. 

This completes my Part 6 of my Barcelona series. I hope you enjoyed it and, if so, you will leave any thoughts or questions in the Comments section below. If you leave a question, please include your email so that I may respond in a timely manner.

Hasta luego, Jim