Violence in temperate Europe in the Early Bronze Age
In central Europe the Early Bronze Age began ca. 2200 BCand is usually divided
into two phases: Bz A1 (ca. 2200–2000 BC) and Bz A2 (ca. 2000—1600 BC).^125
In the historical chronology used in this book those dates will be lowered 100
years. That warfare (in contrast to other forms of violence) was familiar to Euro -
peans through most of the Early Bronze Age has again been assumed but again
is not clear.^126 We are fortunate that a masterful survey of weapons for the period
has recently been published by Anthony Harding.^127 Although I am not persuaded
by all of Harding’s generalizations, his command of the particulars is unsurpassed.
Although violence continued to be familiar to Europeans early in the Early
Bronze Age, I doubt that it often—if ever—rose to the level of an organized hand-
to-hand battle: an engagement, that is, between opposing forces, each of which
was armed and prepared to fight hand-to-hand. Whether anything that we would
describe as a war was fought in Europe during the Early Bronze Age is even more
doubtful. The absence of defensive armor—helmet, corselet, greaves—is not
surprising, because even in Egypt and Mesopotamia metal armor had not yet come
into use. The lack of any evidence for shields may be more significant,^128 but
most significant is the limited set of offensive weapons. The main hand-to-hand
weapon in Neolithic and Chalcolithic Europe had been the axe, and that continued
to be the case through much of the Early Bronze Age. Although bronze was now
available, Europeans continued to make their arrowheads of flint or some other
chipped stone. The short tang of the arrowhead was simply pressed into the wooden
shaft.^129
The Early Bronze Age in central Europe began with the Únĕtice (or Aunjetitz)
archaeological culture ca. 2200 BC. With it also began the practice of including
a bronze dagger among the grave goods to accompany the deceased into the
Underworld. Harding found in this practice “the rise of the warrior” in temperate
Europe. According to his statistics only about 3 or 4 percent of adult male burials
included a bronze dagger, and so small a percentage may suggest that these men
were a warrior elite.^130 I will argue, however, that the man buried with a dagger in
central Europe was not a warrior but simply the proud owner of a bronze dagger.
Supporting the latter possibility is the finding of daggers in the graves of a few
elderly women and even of children.^131 It had long been a common practice of
adult males in the Levant and on Crete to wear a dagger, and these were not warriors
but “ordinary” men.^132 In the tin bronze economy early in the second millennium
BCthe practice evidently spread to temperate Europe, but there—in contrast to
Crete and the Levant—only a few men of the period were rich enough to carry
to the Underworld the daggers they had proudly worn in their lifetime.
In temperate Europe and Italy the dagger and the axe are the only hand-to-hand
weapons attested in the early second millennium BC. Clubs and fire-hardened
wooden spears may also have been in use, but they are not archaeologically
detectible. It is difficult to imagine that well into their Bronze Age Europeans were
fighting in organized battles—as opposed to brawls, mayhem, or surprise attacks
on unarmed villagers—in which the only hand-to-hand weapons made of metal
Warfare in Western Eurasia 83