Slaughter at the bridge

About 3200 years ago, two armies clashed at a river crossing near the Baltic Sea.

Excavation of an ancient battlefield in northern Germany revealed signs of a great battle, such as closely packed bones, as seen in this 2013 photo of the site. One area of 12 square meters held 1478 bones, including 20 skulls.

Flint arrowhead embedded in this upper arm bone.

This alerted archaeologists to the ancient violence in the Tollense Valley.

Archaeologists have recovered a wealth of artifacts from the battlefield.

A bronze arrow penetrated this skull, reaching the brain.

This skull unearthed in the Tollense Valley shows clear evidence of blunt force trauma, perhaps from a club.

In 1996, an amateur archaeologist found a single upper arm bone sticking out of the steep riverbank—the first clue that the Tollense Valley, about 120 kilometers north of Berlin, concealed a gruesome secret. A flint arrowhead was firmly embedded in one end of the bone, prompting archaeologists to dig a small test excavation that yielded more bones, a bashed-in skull, and a 73-centimeter club resembling a baseball bat. The artifacts all were radiocarbon-dated to about 1250 B.C.E., suggesting they stemmed from a single episode during Europe’s Bronze Age.

Now, after a series of excavations between 2009 and 2015, researchers have begun to understand the battle and its startling implications for Bronze Age society. Along a 3-kilometer stretch of the Tollense River, archaeologists from the Mecklenburg-Vorpommern Department of Historic Preservation (MVDHP) and the University of Greifswald (UG) have unearthed wooden clubs, bronze spearheads, and flint and bronze arrowheads. They have also found bones in extraordinary numbers: the remains of at least five horses and more than 100 men. Bones from hundreds more may remain unexcavated, and thousands of others may have fought but survived.

“If our hypothesis is correct that all of the finds belong to the same event, we’re dealing with a conflict of a scale hitherto completely unknown north of the Alps,” says dig co-director Thomas Terberger, an archaeologist at the Lower Saxony State Service for Cultural Heritage in Hannover. “There’s nothing to compare it to.” It may even be the earliest direct evidence—with weapons and warriors together—of a battle this size anywhere in the ancient world.

Source http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2016/03/slaughter-bridge-uncovering-colossal-bronze-age-battle

Edit: Title should read Slaughter at the bridge: Uncovering a colossal Bronze Age battle