The First Warriors of Europe | Bronze Age Warfare

by the late bronze age europe was teeming with warriors armed with swords and spears conflict has always been part of the human story but violence in the earlier neolithic period seems to have been sporadic rather than systemic so when and where did a class of dedicated warriors emerge what weapons did they use and how and why did they fight i'm dan davis i'm a novelist and on this channel i talk about the real history behind my stories and this is the story of the first warriors of europe the natural mummy discovered in the alps in 1991 and nicknamed otzi or the iceman died sometime around 3300 bc which was the copper age also called the calcalithic or e-neolithic he died with an arrowhead in his back fractures to his face and a defensive wound on his hand he was armed with a knife dagger and a bow on arrows and although he died by violence we can't consider him a warrior his tools and hunting kit could be used to inflict violence on other men and we know his dagger and arrows were because they have the blood of three men on them but his role in life was maybe a copper worker or more probably a shepherd or farmer of the high valleys or maybe all of them of course people have always fought there is evidence of intentional killings at jebel sahaba from about 12000 bc and despite the old idea that the neolithic was a peaceful time there are actually multiple massacre sites but although it could be staggeringly savage most violence at this time was sporadic and brief now these outbursts might have been organized campaigns of a sort with one group attacking another in order to wipe them out or drive them off and take over their territory so weren't these people warriors then well it's possible to define a warrior in different ways but really what i want to talk about is the kind of man whose social status was defined by his ability to inflict violence on others a man whose status in life was totally bound up with warfare a man whose tools were not the woodworking acts and adds but the sword and spear a man whose expertise was not farming the land or herding cattle but the cut and thrust of combat and it's not just about the acts of violence themselves it's about the idea the concept of a warrior emerging now this happened in many places in the world but in this video we're talking about europe specifically so otzi lived in the copper age and his gear matches that found in near contemporary cultures on all sides of the alps one of them the rimadello culture of northern italy is known primarily from grave sites and it's here we see arrows and daggers being interred with some of the bodies for the first time in europe so it's been suggested that we're seeing the first hint of a kind of proto-warrior here at the end of the 4th millennium bc certain men who were in some way especially associated with the materials required for interpersonal conflict even if that's not their primary responsibility but these copper age societies of europe were replaced from about 3000 bc onwards by those of the most important people of this era the corded ware culture this culture was formed when step herder men moved across northern europe from east to west and had children with neolithic farmer women bringing indo-european language and culture with them they did retain some aspects of the earlier peoples they replaced however most notably perhaps the stone battle axe now as i have a video about the battle axe i won't discuss it here but this tall weapon first appeared in late neolithic central and northern europe and then became ubiquitous in the corded ware culture probably they were used by men as tools and as weapons when the need arose they therefore took on an important symbolic role becoming associated with the freeborn man slaves and servants did not carry them only men of the clan the masters of their own households these were patriarchal hierarchical people their society was ruled by chiefs and surely the inability to inflict violence and perhaps more importantly the ability to defend their own people from the violence of others was vital to their social value here we have what are the beginnings of some kind of warrior class still though violence in this period was likely sporadic and small scale and based around raiding especially cattle raiding this took courage and daring and was a chance to win fame and wealth deadly violence might occur but it wasn't the primary focus of this activity or these men's lives artistic depictions of warriors appear from this time in the form of these famous stone steely they're known from the pontic step where they continued to be carved and erected for thousands of years and they were erected in europe too they're carved from sandstone slabs and show highly stylized warrior figures they often have a bow slung across the chest and these lodge patterns on the body which are said to be a dyed textile pattern but it looks like it could be primitive armor to me i wonder if they're not perhaps bore tusk plates some of the steely figures carry a battle axe rather than a bow archaeologist and author of the book warriors and weapons in bronzer europe anthony harding says quote they commemorate the glorious dead and remind the living of their ancestors perhaps specific named people who would be recalled by the statues and they impose on the successors the need to emulate the ancestors through the glory of bearing arms and engaging in valiant acts end quote so i think we can say that the corded ware were the first warrior culture of europe but you shouldn't listen to me i'm not an archaeologist or historian just a fan of history and i don't know what i'm talking about in fact harding says the following about an incredibly important descendant culture of western europe quote they are arguably the first group of people in europe who can be unequivocally identified as warriors and they left their distinctive practices too much of what was to follow in the early bronze age end quote so let's talk about the bell beaker people [Music] the bell beaker people were descended from the people of the corded ware culture and were often the first metal workers in the areas they moved into and they were accompanied by their weapons these weapons were copper daggers and bows and arrows the famous amesbury archer discovered in 2002 near stonehenge has been described as the richest beaker burial in britain and maybe in europe dating from about 2300 bc he was buried with about 15 fine barbed and tanged arrowheads as well as three copper knife daggers and two braces or wrist guards for archery and he had stone working at metalworking objects and shale and gold ornaments the oldest gold found in england clearly this was an important man but was he a warrior actually he had an injury to his knee severe enough to give him a limp so was this an injury suffered in warfare well we don't know we do know he was from continental europe perhaps the alps what drew him from his homeland to his distant bell beaker kinsmen at stonehenge we also don't know but this movement of men across the span of the cultural horizon is also seen in the earlier corded ware culture it seems likely that mobility was important at least for the elite men of these societies is this perhaps related to cultural practices like the koreos were these men travelling to take part in combat even did these long distance relationships mean that a chief could call to various kinsmen all across europe to back him up in conflicts we do know that there were specific social requirements for the elite men of this time to be accepted as a man of the clan you had to have wealth usually in the form of cattle and men were expected to marry and be fathers and they had to uphold the traditions and law of their people their initiation rights included recitations of the names of their ancestors and the singing of their ancient deeds the tyres of kin and guest friendships were no doubt a part of these men's social responsibilities coming to one another's aid in times of need might have been one of the driving forces for long distance travel at this early date and clearly they were capable of organizing large groups of people the final stages of construction at stonehenge attest to that harding believes that the sizes of groups undertaking aggressive actions against neighbours were much larger amongst the belbega people than in previous societies he calls them skirmishes and imagines that they started and ended with huge archery volleys against mashed opponents but because daggers were also in use these archery battles must have been followed up in some cases by savage hand-to-hand knife fights however he warns that daggers were still hard to come by at this very early part of the bronze age and the metal was soft and thin and so archery would have been the most common form of combat but it's in the early bronze age that new kinds of weapons emerge for example there is something the archaeologists call a halberd although it's not like a medieval halberd at all but a dagger blade mounted at right angles on the end of a pole these might have been invented in britain and ireland and spread throughout early bronze age europe all the way to hungary and were in use for 400 years until about 1900 bc they were weapons and status symbols some had hafts clad in bronze and others had enormously oversized blades and at least one from scania was gilded clearly by this period weapons were ever more associated with power and wealth but still very few people were buried with them at one cemetery in central europe it was only about two percent of them harding says this about the early bronze age quote the extent to which one can trace warrior identity back into the bell beaker period is not easy to assess their daggers were typically of relatively thin copper which might not have survived prolonged or heavy use in the centuries that followed two trends became apparent the production of much stouter blades and a desire to adorn the weapon with special hilt or blade decoration both speak for a trend to warrior status on the part of the user this was a time of profound change in european societies and the move to warrior hood is one of the most visible and important such changes end quote so in the early bronze age between about 3000 bc and 2000 bc we see a gradual increase in the marshall aspects of these cultures so let's talk about what happened in the middle bronze age after 2000 bc when we really do finally see the rise of the professional warrior a vitally important part of the story is an enormous population boom europe's population doubled between 2000 bc and 1500 bc when it reached maybe 13 or 14 million people that's about as many people as were in the urbanized near east despite europe having no towns in this period most arable soils and grasslands and heathlands became permanently settled so much so that in many regions landscapes transformed by humans were effectively continuous to such an extent that you could travel through settled landscapes from denmark to italy although they were still large forested areas you'd want to go around i'm sure we can all imagine the social impacts of increased population density larger populations led to the gradual formation of more complex more hierarchical societies and warriors became an essential ingredient in maintaining these social structures wool salt and metals were now traded long distances bronze items expanded from being rarities into being present in all spheres of life from weapons and ornaments to working tools such as axes and agrarian tools such as sickles so all communities became dependent on regular suppliers of bronze and other materials new social institutions were established that secured such regular suppliers annually or even monthly by land and sea a stopping supplies would mean severe long-term economic and political consequences this period saw a rise in political alliances and confederations between powerful lords such as those between south germany and jutland which were two highly organized and rich regions agreements that guarantee to the safety of traders these agreements would be enforced by the warrior class and the valuable goods and people moving through these landscapes almost certainly provided opportunities for bandits which required guards there's evidence of increased violence at this time from burials where we see more evidence of wounds caused by warfare limb bone fractures bashed in skulls and missing body parts for example okay so how were these middle bronze age warriors inflicting these wounds on one another there's no weapon more closely associated with warriors than the sword is there the development of this weapon is complicated but fully fledged bronze swords were in wide circulation by about 1500 bc in europe there's another weapon that appears too one that actually perhaps surprisingly doesn't really feature until this point and that's the spear because it was used as a hunting weapon in truly ancient pre-history and it was used extensively as a weapon of war in antiquity and the middle ages you would expect it to be a weapon in the neolithic and early bronze age but not until bronze is widespread do you start seeing spearheads in graves and deposits some were small and may be thrown as javelins while others were for thrusting one or two-handed warrior graves and depictions on rock art of this time have either swords or spears and some have both spear blades are often found damaged and so along with lots of other evidence we know that finally in the middle bronze age we have european society with warriors fighting often this is also when the first armor appears and there are some metal shields that have damage from spear points but very little of this stuff survives let me know if you're interested in a video about bronze age armor so by the period of about 1600 bc to 1350 bc as we cross into the late bronze age we have what is undoubtedly a fully fledged warrior society in europe many more of the burials of this time are of men with weapons it's not possible to generalize but in some places at least maybe 25 percent of the burrows have a weapon of some kind there is evidence for large-scale warfare and killing in the now famous tollens valley battlefield in northern germany which is from a later period between 1300 and 1200 bc okay so there were warriors everywhere armed with swords and spears but what were they actually like who were these men of course they were drawn from the same elites that date back millennia already these are the freeborn men of the clan but now they need not be tied only to managing herds and growing crops they could gain wealth and status by their prowess in battle warriors were essential in providing protection for trading expeditions on land or at sea they could be mobilized as retinues along the lines of chiefly kingships and confederations to form larger armies when needed chiefs and kings from all over europe could now offer them riches in exchange for their service and they might win enough wealth and fame to return home and set themselves up as chiefs in their own right so a new class in society has emerged and these warriors are also now being buried with all kinds of signs of wealth like rings bracelets armbands beads fibula that's the brooch for fastening your cape at the shoulder pins razors combs and tweezers hold on a minute these aren't all about wealth are they combs razors and tweezers this is a male grooming kit isn't it and this actually gives us a fabulous insight into the concept of the warrior that was emerging at this time experts talk about the growing importance of the body and the way it was treated in the development of warrior hood in the bronze age we see ornamentation of their skin with tattooing maybe this is what some of the pins were for their clothing being ornamented by beads and pendants their hair being shaved or braided in special ways and their beards being shaved a concept of the warrior's physical beauty has emerged this was deeply important to the idea of what it meant to be a warrior it wasn't just about carrying a weapon and killing your lord's enemy and serving with honor there were other expectations other ideals to uphold the concept of the heroic warrior seen in later literature and recorded in mythology will need its own video but this cultural development provided a blueprint an ideal for the life and deeds of this new class of warriors christian horn and christian christensen say the following in a book they edited called warfare in bronze age society i've changed it a bit quote the bronze age represents the emergence of a militarized society with a martial culture materialized in a package of new efficient weapons that remained in use for millennia to come it is evidenced in the ostentatious display of weapons in burials and hordes as well as in iconography from rock art to palace frescoes this development has been described in a variety of ways as the emergence of warrior aristocracies linked to the emergence of the hero and his retinue and evidenced through a study of weapons and their indications of use it all comes down to the historical fact that warfare became institutionalized and professionalized during the bronze age and a new class of warriors made its appearance end quote thank you to my patrons for supporting the channel please hit like and also subscribe so you don't miss new videos in the meantime watch this playlist and this video for more pre-history like this thank you for watching you

Channel: Dan Davis History

Views: 765,030

Keywords: bronze age warfare, bronze age, history documentary, ancient history, bronze age europe, prehistoric warfare, bronze age civilization, bronze age warband, history documentary 2021, ancient civilizations, history of europe, prehistoric europe documentary, the koryos, ancient warfare, first warriors, corded ware culture, bell beaker culture

Id: AoRHTxMKrcg

Length: 19min 12sec (1152 seconds)

Published: Sun Aug 22 2021