Aspects of ancient warfare: Multidisciplinary research on war and warriors in Bronze Age Europe

Abstract

The study of warfare among ancient societies – its nature, scale and impacts – has become an increasingly fertile multidisciplinary field of research in archaeology and related disciplines. This is particularly true for the European Bronze Age, an epoch that has produced iconic arte- facts, architecture, images, and written sources that speak about war and warriorhood. Modern research has made it sufficiently clear that, far from being the singular acts of heroic individ - uals, ancient warfare was common, brutal, and well-organized. However, war, as an extreme form of social interaction, has also been a driver for technological and economic development. From Scandinavia to the Mediterranean, the archaeological record has preserved rich traces of the warrior elite that was instrumental in transforming Bronze Age societies. This body of evidence is being studied with increasingly diverse analytical tools, ranging from use-wear analysis of weapons to forensic analysis of human remains and GIS-based spatial analysis. The following is a summary of author’s research on the multiple aspects and archaeological sources that surround the topics of war and warriors in Bronze Age Europe.