Slaughter at the bridge: Uncovering a colossal Bronze Age battle

originally posted by: punkinworks10
a reply to: Byrd

Byrd,
According to the discussion about this at Dienekes' blog there is a division in the genetics of the warriors,

Genetic analysis is just beginning, but so far it supports the notion of far-flung origins. DNA from teeth suggests some warriors are related to modern southern Europeans and others to people living in modern-day Poland and Scandinavia

...which was I was joking about... I have recent genetic connections to both groups (L3-N-R-R0-HV.)

I do believe this conflict represents a major cultural shift in the area, with the neolithic communities, EEF(Early European Farmers)/WHG(Western Hunter Gatherers) being over run by more advanced metal using Indo Europeans, and like you said in an earlier post the other group represents the early germanic tribes.

I agree on the major cultural shift, but disagree that it's WHG versus EFF. I haven't seen that there's a big difference in weapons and technology.

I stil believe that the conflict is due to pressure from the med,or more properly southern europe, this is also about the time we see the southern celtic people really starting to assert themselves, and forming larger political entities that goe beyond basic tribalism.

We can certainly poke around and see what evidence there is. But a nomadic HG people coming into a farming territory isn't going to be able to utilize the resources. Take it over and destroy it, yes... utilize it effectively (given how long it takes to recover from human modification), no.

There's also not much reason for the Med folks to head into the far colder north where the plants and animals are not similar to the things they ate at home. I don't see any immediate strong climate events in the area... but admit that my time to search is limited.

What sorts of natural pressures are there that might have thrown these into conflict?

a reply to: Byrd
Byrd,

I agree on the major cultural shift, but disagree that it's WHG versus EFF. I haven't seen that there's a big difference in weapons and technology.

Exactly, i was unclear and misunderstood. The EEF and WHG shared a neolithic technology set, and the WHG were fully absorbed into the EEF, as a population by this time, so i should have just left out the WHG reference.
But reference is apropos to the larger picture of northern european populations at this time, I'll get back to that.

So no its not a conflict between EEF and WHG, it is a conflict between them and newly arriving or asserting themselves germanic people(indo-europeans).

Last night i read a paper that talked about how the different societies, earlier europeans vs indo-europeans, responded to survival pressures, like climate induced crops failures and such.
Since the EEF had lived side by side with the WHG for a couple of millenia, and had eventually absorbed them, they also absorbed some of the culture and knowledge of the WGH. So, even though they lived a sedentary farming lifestyle, they would readily go back to a foraging subsistence in times of hardship, and in times of extreme hardship they would abandon the village altogther and go back to a HG lifestyle, while their IE contmeporaries relied on their livestock, (meat, milk,cheese for food, and fiber like wool for clothing) to survive hard times.
The authors talked about sites that had population/cultural continuity over several millenia, then suddenly slight population interuption or none but a dramatic cultural change when the IE show up. The paper on spondylus and the paper on amber trade also make the point that when the IE showd up and imposed their way traditional activities in an area stopped, or were severely disrupted for a time.

The Helka III eruption ,in Iceland 1159bc, would be your climatalogical imeptuous for movemnts of people.
Although the actual effects of the eruption will last only a couple/few decades, its societal pressures will remain for generations, as people move around and try to adapte to new locales.

originally posted by: Byrd

originally posted by: Anaana

Wouldn't that put it close to the amber route then?

It would... but control of amber wasn't that hotly contested. This is something far bigger than that. My guess would be that it's about control of territory.

I wasn't implying that the battle was about control of amber, just pointing out that the area was connected, via trade, to the Med. Since the Med currently has a better archaeological record of that area which may indirectly inform our understanding.

originally posted by: Byrd
I agree! However, as I said, I suspect they'll turn out to be my kinfolk.

You and a lot of us, that seed's been sowed very wide indeed.

originally posted by: punkinworks10
Anaana,
The trade in baltic amber goes back at least 6k years if not considerably more. What i find very interesting is that when the Indo-Europeans show up the trade of baltic amber comes to a halt, just as the flow of spondylus, a spiny oyster, stops from the med.

Well that was my train of thought almost exactly, just without the racial distinctions

I think this ties in with what was going on in the Med with the Sea Peoples and the more inland raids, and places the hub precisely where we would expect it to be, the areas bordering the Pontic Steppe, the "Eurasian heartland" or "Geographical Pivot", as Halford Mackinder described it.

We know that between the 14th and 12th centuries BC there was a considerable growth in population growth based on settled agriculture around the northern side of the Black Sea, the Sabatinovka Culture. Around the end of the 13th century a significant change in the climate led to colder, drier conditions unsuitable for the agriculture practiced. Some adapted to a subsistence based dry farming, most abandoned settlement though and adopted nomadic pastorialism utilising their horses to manage large herds of sheep and cattle.

Amber was coming from the Baltic reliably from at least 1800 BC, via the Elbe-Oder-Dneister network into the Black Sea. Tin from Britain came the same way, the Unetice Culture having well established links with the British Wessex Culture. The disruption of Amber may not have caused too many feathers to be ruffled, but a break in the supply of tin would have.

Very interesting read!
Just saying thanks for the thread, it's refreshing to see posts like this, I have the feeling that the number of new and interesting ancient history related threads has really gone down in the past few years.
I remember that these kind of threads were one of the reasons I first bookmarked ATS before I even signed up.
I seem to recall awesome history or ancient civilization threads being at the very top of the homepage quite regularly back in 2008 or 2009 when I first discovered ATS.
Now it's become so depressing and dull, politics and fear mongering have taken over basically..... At least, that's what it seems to me.
Ok, this is becoming a rant. sorry