were hatchets and daggers. No swords from this period have been found in
Europe, but they are not expected because in the eighteenth century BCthe only
swords known in the Near East and the Aegean were the status symbols worn by
men in the elite class.
Much more telling is the absence in temperate Europe and Italy of spears, because
the spear was more effective in battle than the rapier and far less expensive.
According to Harding, “the spear seems to have entered the world of Bronze Age
Europe at the end of the Early Bronze Age.”^133 Metal spearheads had been in use
in the Near East since ca. 2500 BC, and by the end of the third millennium BCthe
tanged version was beginning to be replaced by socketed spearheads. On the Greek
mainland a very few shoed spearheads—less securely attached than the socketed,
but superior to the tanged—were evidently in use in the MH period. Temperate
Europe was therefore remarkably laggard in having no metal spearheads of any
kind until well into the second millennium BC. Smiths and founders in the Únĕtice
archaeological culture had been producing a wide variety of bronze artifacts since
ca. 2200 BC. If battles were being fought in central Europe in the seventeenth
century BC, metalworkers should by that time have long been producing bronze
spearheads, whether socketed, shoed or merely tanged. Only toward the end of
the Bz A2 period did the metal spearhead—socketed—and the sword appear in
temperate Europe, and we shall look at those innovations in Chapter 5. Harding
is certainly correct in saying that it was only during the course of Europe’s Bronze
Age that “for the first time, weapons were developed for the sole and specific
purpose of killing humans rather than animals.”^134 Another way of saying this is
that until late in the Bz A2 period Europeans were not equipped, and therefore
not expecting, to go into battle.
Such settlements as have been found are frequently on hills, and in many cases
the inhabitants must have deemed the elevation itself sufficient protection. At other
hill sites archaeologists have found evidence that the settlement was surrounded
by a wooden fence or a palisade. “If additional strength was required,” Harding
writes,
the provision of a modest ditch and bank at certain weak spots might be all
that was required—and indeed it can frequently be seen that “defences” did
not completely encircle sites, but were confined to small areas. The next logical
step, that of providing a full set of defensive barriers, was one taken in the
Late Bronze Age and more especially in the Early Iron Age.^135In northern Italy, along the foothills of the Alps and usually at an altitude of
several hundred meters, hundreds of castellierihave been identified.^136 Although
surrounded by stone walls these installations seldom show any sign of occupation.
They are more likely to have served as sheepfolds, with walls to keep the wolves
away, than to have had any military purpose.
Temperate Europe was not necessarily a peaceful society in the early second
millennium BC. Certainly many men possessed a weapon: a bow, an axe and
84 Warfare in Western Eurasia