8 - Warfare

Summary

If Homer is to be believed, the Bronze Age Aegean was a world of heroes, whose eminence was measured less by their skills as diplomats than by their prowess on the battlefield. In terms of archaeological finds, this picture finds a reflection in the weaponry, armour and fortifications of the Late Bronze Age. It is a moot point whether one could have reconstructed the heroic age of Greece on the basis of such finds alone. In the barbarian world of Europe, where no literary aids are available, there is much to suggest a heroic era similar to that in Greece, even though the evidence differs in the two areas.

First and foremost, there are the weapons and armour of the period, which are comparable in quantity, if not in quality, to those of Mycenaean Greece. Next, there are the burials which contain such weaponry, usually seen as warriors' graves. And lastly, there are the fortifications of the period, whether built in stone (as in parts of the Mediterranean) or in earth with a wooden framework. The combination of these types of evidence leaves one in little doubt that group aggression, what may here be termed warfare, was a major preoccupation in Bronze Age life. Indeed, Treherne has suggested that the ‘warrior grave’ was the material residue of a ‘heroic’ mortuary ideology; the warrior hero can perhaps stand as a symbol of the age. All these types of evidence combine in the rock art of Scandinavia to give an imposing picture of the Bronze Age warrior (fig. 8.1).