Anthony Harding: Warriors and Weapons in Bronze Age Europe / Archaeolingua 2007

Series Minor No. 25

Budapest, Archaeolingua, 2007
Puhakötés | Paper book, 23.5 × 16.5 cm
228 oldal, színes és fekete-fehér illusztrációkkal | 228 pages with colored and grayscale images

ISBN 9789638046864 / 978-9638046864

Table of contents // Tartalomjegyzék

Description:

The Bronze Age of Europe was a time of major changes in society, economy and technology. One of these was the emergence of a warrior class, equipped with a new set of artefacts that can for the first time be called weapons. This book discusses the evidence for the existence of these warriors, and the stages by which they emerged from the Neolithic and Copper Ages, when farming was the main means of subsistence but hunting was also a prestige activity. From beginnings when dagger graves were the norm, in the Early Bronze Age, to the appearance of lavishly equipped sword graves, complete with armour and items for personal adornment, in the Late Bronze Age, the book charts the rise of warrior elites in Europe over the period ca 2500 to 700 BC, drawing on the specific evidence of weapon distributions and deposition contexts. It considers the rise of fortified hilltop sites, and the evidence for territorial organisation based on them. The emergence of warrior bands, with a fighting mode based on inter-group raiding, is seen as a major component of aggression in the later stages of the Bronze Age. This is coupled with a consideration of what such aggression should be called (whether warfare or something else), and how to identify it from the evidence of prehistoric archaeology.

About the Author:

Anthony Harding is Professor of Archaeology at the University of Exeter, UK, and an authority on the European Bronze Age. He is a Fellow of the British Academy and Chairman of Trustees of the journal Antiquity.

From 2003-2009 he was President of the European Association of Archaeologists. His excavations include the Early Iron Age fortified settlement of Sobiejuchy (Poland), the Bronze Age ritual site of Velim (Czech Republic), and the salt production site of Băile Figa (Romania), as well as a number of sites in the UK.

His recent books include European Societies in the Bronze Age (Cambridge, 2000), Warriors and Weapons in Bronze Age Europe (Budapest, 2007), and Explorations in Salt Archaeology in the Carpathian Zone (Budapest, 2013).