Prehistoric warfare amongst LBK farmers

[Dave Beatty]

A third mass grave has been found in Germany depicting the outcome of some sort of battle apparently between different tribes of LBK (Linearbandkeramik) farmers circa 5000 BC.  A pattern of systematic warfare is emerging toward the end of the 600 year run of the LBK during a period of climate change (no doubt antrhopomorphic due to slash and burn agriculture ). All of the mass graves show extensive blunt force trauma (along with some "arrow wounds"). The graves contain mostly children, men and old women; notably absent are young women. Perhaps we can start to extend our long-held start point for wargame rules from 3000BC to 5500BC? How about this for an LBK army list (5500 - 4900 BC): 1 x General (3Aux or 3Wb), 5 x warriors (3Aux or 3Wb), 6 x archers (3Bw or Ps).
http://news.yahoo.com/scientists-evidence-prehistoric-massacre-europe-190356970.html

[Mark G]

A tad too many archers to extract from some arrow wounds,but otherwise...

[Duncan Head]

The earliest (post-3000 BC) phase of the DBA/M/MM "Early Northern Barbarians" list is mostly archers anyway, isn't it?

[Patrick Waterson]

Same story here, with a couple of incidental details.

Arrowheads:

"As well as the blunt-force trauma injuries to bones, many arrowheads were found in amongst the skeletons."

Other debris:

"But in the pits, the bodies have been dumped in haphazard fashion, and are surrounded by all manner of waste objects."

This is unusual for a 'mass grave', but just what one would expect of victims from a serious flood, all washed up together with broken bones and random debris.  Were there cut marks (as opposed to abrasions and 'blunt-force trauma') on the bones it might suggest warfare.

That said, it is unlikely these people never fought anyone, at least when not being flooded out of house and home, and the presence of arrowheads indicates that archery played a significant part in their lives.  Hence they should at least be eligible for a potential army list.

[Erpingham]

Recalling earlier reports, I pulled up this from wikipedia which may help

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talheim_Death_Pit

Suffice it to say, the latest one is not unique.

[Mark G]

I see, the full quote was many arrowheads, which makes sense

[Patrick Waterson]

I see, the full quote was many arrowheads, which makes sense

Indeed.  It also raises the puzzle why anyone butchering the local population in the crudest possible way would throw, among other things, perfectly good arrows into the pit with them.

Suffice it to say, the latest one is not unique.

Also not unique is this mass demise apparently occurring before the introduction of weaponry into Europe, at least according to some.

"An opposing theory accounting for the violence at Talheim is that Europe was peaceful at the time the victims were living. Hand-crafted weapons, rather than simply hunting tools, did not appear in Europe until 4500 BC at the earliest, a full 500 years after the bodies were dumped at Talheim." - Talheim Wikipedia entry.

One can take this with the proverbial saline pinch, as 'hunting tools' presumably include spears and bows, which could easily double as 'weapons'*.  What I wonder is why a culture would arrange to conduct its raids only near convenient pits into which the victims could be dumped en masse.  The traditional European approach to enemy corpses seems to have been to leave them where they lay for the wolves and ravens.

[*Amerindians of North America traditionally used hunting arrows and war arrows, the difference being the way the feathers were set relative to the arrowhead.  To hunt animals, the arrowhead blade would be upright so as to pass between the ribs of a quadruped.  To shoot men, the arrowhead blade would be flat in order to pass between the ribs of a human being.]

[Erpingham]

  What I wonder is why a culture would arrange to conduct its raids only near convenient pits into which the victims could be dumped en masse.  The traditional European approach to enemy corpses seems to have been to leave them where they lay for the wolves and ravens.

This may indeed be the case but it would be hard to detect archaeologically.  Burial pits are identifiable either in a geophysical survey or if you put a trench through one by accident.  Even if we found a bone scatter over an area, they would likely be broken up (by animals, weather, later human activity like cultivation), so identifying trauma as cause of death would be harder. 

[aligern]

Explanations based upon a sudden, severe climatic incident do not account for the absence of young women from the victims. It would be a strange flood that was gender biased. I hesitate to say it, but maybe there was some element of ritual in the slaughter where the losers were lined up and brained and then thrown in , perhaps in front of their defeated chief with him last to go? The leg breaking could be to prevent the captives from running away.
One is reminded of Tacitus description of the Suebi who raided around their home area to terrorise and cow other tribes and expand their lands, or the Zulu who regularly raided surrounding tribes for much the same purpose.

The idea that humans at this period were essentially peaceable worries me in that it smacks of archaeology with a political messagejust as much as theories which over emphasise the struggle of cultures with the toughest group rising to the top.

[Jim Webster]

It certainly flies in the face of experience

Jim

[Patrick Waterson]

Explanations based upon a sudden, severe climatic incident do not account for the absence of young women from the victims. It would be a strange flood that was gender biased.

True, although one might infer that whoever did not end up in the pit survived the immediate occurrence, e.g. by being packed into the only available boat space.  Young women of breeding age, perhaps with a few selected chaps, would be a high-priority survival category if the event were not wholly unexpected.

And if it did strike without warning, it may have caught the young women attending a mother goddess festival at a different location.

One could also speculate that the population may have been inherently gender-unbalanced on account of a high rate of deaths in childbirth, perhaps resulting from an outbreak of puerperal fever, but that would be pure speculation.

The idea that humans at this period were essentially peaceable worries me in that it smacks of archaeology with a political message just as much as theories which over emphasise the struggle of cultures with the toughest group rising to the top.

And as Jim points out, it is hard to reconcile with known human behaviour.

[Erpingham]

The idea that humans at this period were essentially peaceable worries me in that it smacks of archaeology with a political messagejust as much as theories which over emphasise the struggle of cultures with the toughest group rising to the top.

Having studied archaeology at the peak of the "peaceful co-existence" phase, I have some sympathy.  It led to some strange theories - even stranger than flash floods while women were at a goddess festival because of an outbreak of childbed fever   One of my favourites was fortification arose in the Neolithic because of marauding bands of wolves after the animals.

However, we should remember it was a reaction to an earlier paradigm in which prehistoric societies only interacted by conquering and subduing each other.  It did throw more of a spotlight on other forms of cultural interaction.

[Patrick Waterson]

It did throw more of a spotlight on other forms of cultural interaction.

Some of which are coming to light here.

[aligern]

One does wonder what the impact of farming was on the hunter gatherers after a while. In Both India and South Africa hnter gatherers survive, but they have been pushed out of the pkeasant liwland into deserts and forests. I am with Aristotle? who said or rather git the questioner to say that there will always be war because population increases (or climate change cuts the abilityof land to support the numbers upon it) and this drives communities to seize land from others. So at first the hunter gatherers live in harmhy with the agriculturalists, but eventually they are shouldered aside by the numbers of the sod busters. A stock herding lifestyle, by contrast, removes man from daily dependency upon garnering food and creates time for warfare and conquest of the agricultural peoples whose surplus can then be appropriated.

Roy

[Chris]

Was going to start a new post, but saw this one and figured it was very close to my subject . . .

Blurb in the paper yesterday about the discovery of 7000-year-old bones in ditch revealing massacre (torture and mutilation as well, apparently) of farmers in what is now Germany.

Report appears in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences journal and reference is made to site called Kilianstadten.

Reference is also made to a Linear Pottery culture. Readily admit to not be very familiar with this historical period, so I guess I better start doing some reading and research.

The blurb was sickening but also fascinating. Made me wonder if it's in our nature. Again, time for  reading and research.

Chris