“It’s changing the planet.” Scientists found out who organized the “zero world war”

/Pogled.info/ One of the first battles in Europe became known recently. By Bronze Age standards, the event in the Tolensee River valley is massive – thousands of participants, at least hundreds of victims. However, it is still not clear who fought whom and why. The new discovery brings us closer to the answer, and it also shows that the disaster is part of global processes that have affected human history.

The Bridge Massacre

Today here, in the north-east of Germany, there is a pastoral picture – pouring, gentle curves of the Tolensee, which carries its waters to the Baltic Sea. The name of the river comes from the Slavic dolen – tribes called Dolenians once lived here. Long before that time, however, around 3200-3300 years ago, these places became the scene of a bloody battle – the oldest known on the continent.

The first bone protruding from the river bank was found by a non-professional archaeologist in 1996. A large-scale excavation (even with the participation of divers) began in 2008 and continues to this day. During that time, 12,500 bones of at least 150 people were found. Most of them are young men who were killed with arrows, swords, clubs and other weapons.

Some bones show signs of healing damage – perhaps the remains belonged to warriors. Weapons have also been found – mostly bronze and flint arrowheads and spears, but there is also a war hammer and an ash club. No swords were found, but the nature of the injuries indicated that they too had been used.

Archaeologists have reconstructed the approximate course of events. The number of participants was four thousand, and between 740 and 1000 soldiers died. For comparison: according to modern historians, in the famous Battle of the Ice there were half as many fighters on each side.

Once upon a time there was a bridge over the river. They might as well have fought on it. The accident may have been caused by the cross control. Anyway, the victorious army throws the bodies of their lost enemies into the water. Their bones were carried down the river in a disturbance and covered with silt, which is why they are so well preserved.

Hosts from afar

Since writing was unknown in these places, no information remains about who the participants in the battle were. Paleogenetic analysis of 14 individuals revealed a common ancestry from central and northern Europe.

It was not possible to establish the regional connection in detail. For example, they studied isotopes in bones – chemical signatures that can reveal where a person lived and what they ate. The results were conflicting: the 2016 work showed a southern origin, while the 2020 work showed only a local origin. It is true that scientists have studied a few substances.

Some of the artefacts are even more remarkable as they match objects from the same period found in southern Germany and eastern France. Now a new study by German scientists, published in the journal “Antiquity”, gives another idea.

Archaeologists examined ten flints and 54 bronze arrowheads and compared them with objects found in other burials from the same period. It turned out that some have a typical shape, a “rhombic” base and teeth – the only ones found in the southernmost regions, Bavaria or Moravia (region of the present Czech Republic).

Attempts at explanation raise new questions. “Maybe a warlord or a charismatic leader with his mind provided mercenary services. Or maybe a squad of royalty? Or a coalition of tribes?” says the archaeologist Leif Inselmann, a PhD student at the University of Berlin and the main author of the study.

Although it is difficult to establish specific details, the overall picture of what the battle was about seems more or less clear.

Club of Great Powers

Nothing is known about similar large-scale battles from this period, but archaeological evidence points to an increase in violence in central and northern Europe in the 13th century BC, when more military fortresses appeared. and weapons. It is not clear what caused the enmity of the ancient Europeans. But there is a version of what caused it.

Some scholars believe that the battle in northeastern Germany was part of a global event known as the Bronze Age Catastrophe. At that time, several great kingdoms grew in the Eastern Mediterranean – Mycenaean, Hittite, Mitanian in Mesopotamia, Assyrian, Babylonian and Egyptian. All of them, as some historians have said, made up the “Great Power Club”: close trade and diplomatic ties between the countries led to success for the citizens of each country. The legends of this period are preserved in Greek culture in the image of a lost “golden age”, which is shown, for example, in the Iliad.

But at the beginning of the 12th century BC, about a hundred years after the Battle of Tolensee, the developed civilization of the Eastern Mediterranean suffered great blows from the so-called sea people – barbarians who came from the north. No one knows for sure who they are. It is also not clear the reasons that led them to migrate south. One version is that they were driven from their homes by mysterious tribes from Central and Northern Europe.