Critically examine the character and purpose of violence in middle-late Bronze Age or Iron Age communities, using archaeological evidence.
Introduction
How can we best analyse the use of violence in the past? This question has plagued the minds of archaeologists for decades and is not one that should be taken lightly, because like many difficult questions in this subject, it can lead to false assumptions when treated with disregard. The evidence of violence in the archaeological record can often be ambiguous in nature, leading some archaeologists to develop theories of violent practices in the past which are based on pure speculation. Speculation is not always a bad thing as imagination is a virtue in archaeology, but it can occasionally be problematic because it is not accurate. It is for this reason that we should be careful when interpreting the evidence available to us and not to draw conclusions from ambiguous data, which could lead us to make unfair and unfounded assumptions about past life. It is not very common to find evidence which is unequivocally linked to a certain type of violence. There are certain prerequisites for assumptions of violence in certain cases, as argued in the following quote:
“It is very difficult to demonstrate intentional
attacks from child skeletons unless caused by
weapons, or if the remains come from the site of a
known act of violence, or the bones show several
lesions in different stages of healing.” (Campbell,
2003, cited in Jimenez-Brobeil et al, 2007)
In this essay, I will critically explore the evidence we have for middle-late Bronze Age violence and critically evaluate how much it, and the interpretations of the archaeologists who have studied it, can tell us about the nature, causes and purpose of violence in various middle-late Bronze Age communities across the globe. I will recognise the importance of several factors such as social structure, religious practices, identity and politics in the practice of violence in the past.
Issues
The character of violence even today is hard to pin down, as there are numerous forms in which it takes, such as organised criminal violence, self defence and political warfare. We must not undermine the complexity of Bronze Age culture or indeed human nature and we must consider all options when analysing human remains and artefacts for evidence of violence. The problem we face in trying to determine the character of violence in the archaeological record is that not all injuries are skeletal, and there could be violence we are not picking up on such as strangulation and flesh wounds. Such marks of violence would not show up on a Bronze Age skeleton, and without skeletal damage we cannot really be sure of the nature of violence in the community even if weapons are found.
Domett and Tayles (2006), in their study of Bronze Age inhumations in Thailand, outline some of the problems that osteoarchaeologists face when studying skeletal injuries and evidence of violence in human remains. Not only is it impossible to determine when in the individual's life the injury occurred, but even if the damage left a mark on the skeleton, fractures often heal up so well that they leave no lasting evidence on the skeleton. Fractures that are found on skeletal remains are often indistinguishable from post-mortem breakages. Unless there is a clear shape in the injury of a weapon of some kind then it is difficult to determine how the injury came about, as some individuals may have also been more prone to fractures than others due to bone conditions like osteoporosis, which make seemingly harmless accidents more dangerous and damaging. Thus, it is not easy to draw a solid conclusion about a violent attack on most skeletons.
A clear example of a case in which some of these problems arise is located on the site of Tormarton, Gloucestershire (Osgood 2005), where 4 adult male skeletons from the early-middle Bronze Age were found lying on their faces in a ditch which had been hastily covered in rubble. Two of the men show skeletal trauma to the skull and pelvis in the shape of a spear shaft and blade respectively, which indicates a very humiliating and painful death, however the other two bodies show no signs of injury, although they have been dumped in the same place as their brutally murdered peers which would suggest that they were also murdered. This leads me to suspect that we may be finding bodies similar to these two which show no signs of a violent struggle, and so we may never know if they were actually the victims of a murderous attack. This kind of problem makes an accurate analysis of Bronze Age violence rather difficult, as we may never know just how accurate we really are.
Warfare
However, of all types of violence, warfare is perhaps the easiest to identify. This is because not only do we see evidence of skeletal damage and weaponry as I have mentioned above, but also huge fortifications. Aranda-Jimenez et al (2009) analyse the evidence of warfare in early-middle Bronze Age Argarian communities and point out that cases such as Cerra de la Encina show large defensive structures which would have required extensive and labour-intensive work to construct and to maintain (Aranda & Sanchez 2005, cited in Aranda-Jimenez et al 2009). The fact that these large defensive enclosures were built around these Bronze Age settlements on hilltops where the view was good suggests that they were regularly under threat by neighbouring communities, as otherwise the significant upkeep of the fortifications is difficult to explain.
Aranda-Jimenez et al (2009) go on to explain that other evidence for Argarian violence, such as the presence of specialised weaponry in burials, which has classically been used as evidence for warrior violence in Bronze Age Spain, does not necessarily indicate that the weapons were used in combat. In tombs where weapons such as swords, halberds, daggers and knives were found, there were no other distinctive elements of warrior burials found which could indicate that the men buried were warriors. It is this way that the authors highlight the problem of traditional thought in archaeology of automatically associating the presence of weapons with warriors and functional/political violence. Instead, the authors suggest that the weaponry could signify status and/or wealth in their community, as artefacts like swords and halberds have been proven to be symbolic in that they possess “the highest social value among funerary objects” (Lull & Estevez 1986, cited in Aranda-Jimenez et al 2009:1041). This theory is further supported by the presence of other high status objects such as jewellery.
The idea that symbols of violence and warfare are also symbols of power and status is one that has seen much study. Fokkens (1998) highlights how images of weaponry were often used in conjunction with the symbol of an erect penis to symbolise power and virility. This signifies the link between violence and manliness in Bronze Age communities and is shown through cave art in Scandinavian rock art, where men are sometimes symbolised as having swords in scabbards, standing on boats and having erect penises (Coles 2003 & Fokkens 1998). Treherne (1995, cited in Armit 2011) argues that the aesthetics of the “warrior's body” became a crucial part of the image of masculinity in the Bronze Age. Further evidence to support this image is the Roos Carr figures of the late Bronze Age which symbolise male virility as well as violence and possibly territorial struggles, as symbolised by a boat, some weapons and the intimidating nature of the figures (Hull City Council 2008). This could possibly suggest that virility itself was used as an intimidating weapon in the form of rape. However, this is merely speculation and there is no evidence to confirm that this is true in the case of Bronze Age Scandinavian society.
Societal pressures as a cause of violence
The nautical theme of the Roos Carr figures is not the only evidence to suggest that violence can be caused by arguments over territory. To refer back to an earlier example, the defensive enclosures of Bronze Age Spain also signify a battle fought to keep and protect a settlement and its people. Towards the end of the Bronze Age, communities started building hillforts to defend their settlements, which related to the earlier linear ditches or “ranch boundaries” which were used to separate territories belonging to different people and fields used for farming or grazing cattle (Cunliffe 1990). With this increase in agriculture and permanent settlement in the late Bronze Age, therefore leading to a rise in territoriality, there would have been a similar rise in violence and warfare as people fought to takeover or defend land.
This evidence also signifies an important change to social structure in that individuals and lineage groups in the late Bronze Age were claiming authority over land, which suggests increasing pressure over land and possibly an increase in population size (Cunliffe 1990:335) which in turn made claiming land for lineage groups more and more important as their families grew in size. Linked in with this comes the issue of resource pressure. As Cunliffe (1990:335) says, “pressure for change is seldom monocausal” and we must consider a wide range of factors that would have made people more protective over their land and potentially engage in violent acts, or feel threatened by violence.
There are numerous sorts of pressures which could cause communities to resort to violence, as Fyllingen (2003) in her analysis of two interesting sites in Nord-Trøndela, Norway, in which archaeologists in 1968 uncovered a large collection of human between 20 and 30 skeletal remains dating back to the early-middle Bronze Age. With much evidence of violent trauma and only one real artefact – a bone pin – it raised questions about the character and purpose of violence in this area at the time. She describes one of the sites as the mass grave of “a society in distress” (Fyllingen 2003:31) which was plagued by ill health, hard labour demands and, of course, violence. The injuries shown on the skeletons indicate that a majority of the victims were killed whilst they were trying to defend themselves, unarmed, and that most of the attacks aimed at the victims were intended to kill (as the multiple injures to the craniums suggest). Men, women and children were all violently killed and placed in this mass grave. However, not all victims died from their injuries straight away and a lot of the skeletons showed partially or completely healed wounds. Fylligen states that this evidence suggests that the occurrence of such violence was commonplace in this society.
Fyllingan attributes the regularity of violence in this Norwegian Bronze Age culture to the social hierarchies described by Kristiansen (1982, cited in Fyllingan 2003) which made up Bronze Age communities and led to inequality, which in turn led to conflict and violence. Because the two sites Fyllingan were close together and similar in nature, she hypothesises through Kristiansen's work that Norwegian culture at the time was structured in a way that meant conflict was rife and that every member of the society was engaged in constant warfare, which was brought about by the chiefs. However, she goes on to make some very enthusiastic and unfounded judgements that she draws from social anthropological theories of ritual and war heroes, without backing it up with related archaeological evidence. From the evidence she presents, including the fact that the heads of the adults at one of the sites seem to be arranged in a particular way (indicating post-mortem beheading), I would hypothesise that the violence displayed at these sites in Norway were caused by social inequalities (as described by Kristiansen, cited in Fyllingan 2003) and a longing for elevated social status. I would take this one step further and suggest that the citizens of the community felt pressured by social norms and the expectations of their chiefs to take part in warfare. The purpose in partaking in this form of violence, therefore, would be to gain a desired social status and to appease a chief.
Abstract Thoughts
There are several other slightly more abstract theories that could be thought of to explain the sites at Nord-Trøndela such as personal conflict, like revenge for a past misdeed or an ideological disagreement. However, it is very had to underpin personal conflict in the Bronze Age as there is no record of it. We cannot see what is not buried under the soil, as such we cannot see things like ideologies which may have existed only in the minds of those in the community.
Another cause of violence which has been woefully ignored in the vast majority of archaeological studies is mental illness such as psychosis, schizophrenia etc. A recent study of homicides due to mental disorders in the past 50 years showed that there are fluctuations in the rates of mentally disabled people who commit homicides and it is unclear why, however it is always a prevalent occurrence throughout history (Large et al, 2008). It is also possible that violence could have occurred in the Bronze Age due to alcohol/drug use. From the end of the early Bronze Age, there is a rise in the need of alcohol for feasting and it is possible that when so many people are together in one place, they could become intoxicated and violence could break out. There are clear ethnographic examples in which feasting and intoxication leads to conflict, competition and violence (Hastorf & Johannessen 1993:132, cited in Hamilakis 1999). However, this is another area that has not been studied well enough in archaeology. These cases would suggest that there is not always a clearly defined purpose to violence.
These kinds of abstract theories for violence could very well contain some truth, but the archaeological record does not contain many examples of these theories in practice in the Bronze Age. Perhaps this is because they were not an important part of society, or perhaps it is because there is just no archaeological evidence even though it happened, but I think it is most likely to be due to the failings of the archaeological community over the years to assimilate enough evidence and compile a detailed report on these matters.
Conclusion
To conclude my essay on the character and purpose of Bronze Age violence, I will make some final points. From all of the evidence I have presented here, I can tell that there are many facets of violence and it would take a much longer essay than this to go through all of them, but I have done the best I can to pinpoint which are the most significant aspects. Firstly, political warfare was one of the main ways in which violence manifested itself in the Bronze Age, as it was just beginning to take off towards the middle-late Bronze Age to later flourish in the Iron Age. It accounts for a large amount of archaeological evidence for violence in that time frame and serves the purpose of settling feuds between different communities.
Secondly, resource pressures and other societal problems which put strain on communities, such as famine and personal disagreements often lead to violence as a means of expressing frustration, settling disputes or bringing about justice (such as a punishment for a crime, although this is lacking in archaeological evidence). Thirdly, the hierarchical structure of many Bronze Age societies and the value it placed on status caused people to follow the will of a chief and try to achieve their ambitions.
Finally, I argue that there is a severe lack of archaeological evidence for Bronze Age violence and its purposes, namely the theoretical purposes I have mentioned at the end along with things like human sacrifice (Hughes 1991). There must be more archaeological investigation done before we can say we have exhausted all of the options for this question which cannot be answered with a non-extensive mono-causal explanation.
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