was a very costly sacrifice to make in Denmark, a land that was not producing its
own copper.
Less spectacular evidence, but more securely tied to chariots, comes from a
few antler tip cheekpieces. In his catalogue of central and eastern European
cheekpieces from the Bronze Age, Hüttel concluded that in all of northern Europe
the only cheekpieces certainly from either the Early or the Middle Bronze Age
are two Stangenknebel (nos. 109 and 110 in his catalogue) from Østrup Bymark,
on the eastern coast of Zealand.^118 Johannsen reports that other Stangenknebel have
been found at a site in northern Jutland, and that still others may lie in Danish
museums,^119 but until one or more of these are published the specimens from Østrup
Bymark are our only verifiable cheekpieces from the Nordic Bronze Age I and II
periods.
The evidence for chariots in southern Scandinavia, or northern Europe, in the
Bz A2 or the Bz B period is limited, but the evidence for militarization is substan -
tial. It seems to have been introduced, ca. 1500 BC, by an organized force from
the Carpathian basin, the leaders armed with Apa swords or with axes and their
followers carrying spears. The motivation for a takeover was probably the amber
along the coasts of Denmark and southern Sweden, although the eastern Baltic—
which was at least as rich in amber—was not taken over (northern Poland and the
Baltic states have not yielded the military artifacts found so frequently in southern
Scandinavia). The language that the military men and, a bit later, their families
and dependents brought with them to southern Scandinavia would soon have been
affected by the language or languages of the native population. If a Proto-Baltic
language had indeed been spoken in much of northeastern Europe since the
middle of the third millennium BC(as is suggested by DNA evidence for a
considerable influx from the eastern into the western regions of the Corded Ware
culture), we would in southern Scandinavia have the juxtaposition of two Indo-
European languages. With due caution and no credentials as a linguist, I will suggest
that the militarizing of southern Scandinavia may have been the origin of the
Germanic subgroup of the Indo-European languages.
Swords in northern Italy
The militarizing of northern Italy—the land between the Apennines and the
Alps—seems to have proceeded from western Hungary, and to have occurred at
about the same time as the militarizing of southern Scandinavia: in the middle of
the second millennium BC. Perhaps northern Italy was attractive because of the
fertility of its soil, but a more compelling attraction would have been the metalwork
done there. In addition, northeastern Italy was important for the amber trade. The
routes through central Europe by which amber was brought down from the Baltic
and the Kattegat sea to the Mediterranean are not very clear, but by the end of
the fifteenth century BCmuch of the amber seems to have been coming overland
through the eastern Alps to the top of the Adriatic, where it was transferred to
ships and then carried to various ports in the eastern Mediterranean. Anthony
Harding and Helen Hughes-Brock, in their study of amber in the Mycenaean world,
Militarism in temperate Europe 161