Bronze Age war in northern Germany 1250 BCE

[bicicleur 2]

Too early for that.

It looks like Urnfield pushing west and north-west, into lands of Tumulus.

Urnfield originated in Slovakia and North-Eastern Hungary, the Piliny culture.

or allready beyond Tumulus, a clash between Urnfield and Nordic Bronze?



did Tumulus culture exist this far north?

 

[oldeuropeanculture]

The battlefield lies on the Amber road. Caravans traversed this route going up and down central Europe for millenniums before this battle and continued to do so after this battle. Is it possible that the battle was not a war battle, but an attack on a large caravan going north to exchange goods from the south of Europe for Amber from the Baltic?

This blog post


http://oldeuropeanculture.blogspot.ie/2015/07/tollense-battle.html


proposes that considering the presence of women and children on the battlefield it is much more likely that the battle was an attack on a caravan.


In the article from Science Magazine which is linked from the above blog post, one other thing is mentioned: genetic diversity of combatants.

(...) chemical tracers in the remains suggest that most of the Tollense warriors came from hundreds of kilometers away. The isotopes in your teeth reflect those in the food and water you ingest during childhood, which in turn mirror the surrounding geology - a marker of where you grew up. Retired University of Wisconsin, Madison, archaeologist Doug Price analyzed strontium, oxygen, and carbon isotopes in 20 teeth from Tollense. Just a few showed values typical of the northern European plain (...) The other teeth came from farther afield (...) “The range of isotope values is really large,” he says. “We can make a good argument that the dead came from a lot of different places.” Further clues come from isotopes of another element, nitrogen, which reflect diet. Nitrogen isotopes in teeth from some of the men suggest they ate a diet heavy in millet (...) “This is not a bunch of local idiots,” says Joachim Burger. “It’s a highly diverse population.” As University of Aarhus’s Vandkilde puts it: “It’s an army like the one described in Homeric epics, made up of smaller war bands that gathered to sack Troy”—an event thought to have happened fewer than 100 years later, in 1184 B.C.E. That suggests an unexpectedly widespread social organization, Jantzen says. “To organize a battle like this over tremendous distances and gather all these people in one place was a tremendous accomplishment,” (...)

Well not really an accomplishment if the party that was attacked was a large caravan, consisting of many different parties, from different parts of the great amber road trading route, all banded up together for protection. In that case you would see exactly this composition of people...


Caravan is a living entity. People join caravans on its way. This one was probably going to the amber country to exchange goods from the south (like metal and who knows what else, maybe vine, food, textile...) for amber in the north. Also don't forget that mercenaries from many different places could have been employed as guards as well.

So maybe people see what they want to see, great glorious battles of epic proportions, which sound much cooler than an attack on a southern caravan by the raiding gang from the north.

 

[Greying Wanderer]

no, it was about the same, the Tollense massacre
but indeed attacking a trade convoy shouldn't make thousands of victims

I think they dug more and found there were far more bodies - so originally maybe looked like an attack on a caravan but then got too big.

 

[Greying Wanderer]

I have no clear view on this other than it's a fantastic find and i hope the whole battlefield is dug.

I wouldn't be surprised if through some kind of domino effect its somehow connected to the same event(s) that sparked the Sea Peoples (but it could equally well be a dozen other things).

As a Tolkein fan to me it has a "Battle of Five Armies" vibe to it - like two coalitions rather than two sides - but that's just gut feelz.

love it

 

[bicicleur 2]

I have no clear view on this other than it's a fantastic find and i hope the whole battlefield is dug.

I wouldn't be surprised if through some kind of domino effect its somehow connected to the same event(s) that sparked the Sea Peoples (but it could equally well be a dozen other things).

As a Tolkein fan to me it has a "Battle of Five Armies" vibe to it - like two coalitions rather than two sides - but that's just gut feelz.

love it

note that it is accidently that these bones have been preserved by the right soil conditions
there may have been many more battle fields that didn't leave any traces

it is very interesting indeed, hope to hear more about it in the future

 

[bicicleur 2]

In 2013, geomagnetic surveys revealed evidence of a 120-meter-long bridge or causeway stretching across the valley. Excavated over two dig seasons, the submerged structure turned out to be made of wooden posts and stone. Radiocarbon dating showed that although much of the structure predated the battle by more than 500 years, parts of it may have been built or restored around the time of the battle, suggesting the causeway might have been in continuous use for centuries—a well-known landmark.
“The crossing played an important role in the conflict. Maybe one group tried to cross and the other pushed them back,” Terberger says. “The conflict started there and turned into fighting along the river.”


it looks like a conflict over trade routes
and it was an ideal location for an ambush

 

[LeBrok]

note that it is accidently that these bones have been preserved by the right soil conditions
there may have been many more battle fields that didn't leave any traces

it is very interesting indeed, hope to hear more about it in the future

I bet there was a big flood from this river close by, right after the battle, covering bodies and weapons with thick layer of mud. That's why it all was preserved so well. Otherwise bodies would be buried after the battle and precious weapons collected by winners.

 

[Greying Wanderer]

In 2013, geomagnetic surveys revealed evidence of a 120-meter-long bridge or causeway stretching across the valley. Excavated over two dig seasons, the submerged structure turned out to be made of wooden posts and stone. Radiocarbon dating showed that although much of the structure predated the battle by more than 500 years, parts of it may have been built or restored around the time of the battle, suggesting the causeway might have been in continuous use for centuries—a well-known landmark.
“The crossing played an important role in the conflict. Maybe one group tried to cross and the other pushed them back,” Terberger says. “The conflict started there and turned into fighting along the river.”


it looks like a conflict over trade routes
and it was an ideal location for an ambush

One aspect of that is in later times such a critical crossing point nearly always had a castle nearby to control/protect/tax trade so I wonder if this one did also?

Is there an ancient Troyberg on some nearby high ground?

 

[bicicleur 2]

One aspect of that is in later times such a critical crossing point nearly always had a castle nearby to control/protect/tax trade so I wonder if this one did also?

Is there an ancient Troyberg on some nearby high ground?

no, no cities, no settlements nothing nearby

 

[Greying Wanderer]

no, no cities, no settlements nothing nearby

yes, looking at google maps it is very flat round there

https://www.google.co.uk/maps/place...2!3m1!1s0x47ab94f6251bce27:0x80e2a0795e46ab68

clicking on the various towns and looking at the photos you get a lot like

Neubrandenburg http://213.23.74.38/hotel/fileadmin/grafik/Boxen/Tollensesee_17-crop.jpg

Demmin http://www.mv-travel.de/images/stories/orte/demmin/demmin-stadtpanorama.jpg

Gnevkow https://www.google.co.uk/maps/place...0x47ab943b27b980e7:0x04251ae8ad8489b0!6m1!1e1

which makes me think if there was a Troyberg nearby it would probably have to have been a lake town now underwater

#

looking on a physical map the only bit of high ground that sticks out nearby is the small patch at 116 (i assume metres) to the west of Tollense in between neubrandenburg, demmin and machlin

http://www.zonu.com/fullsize2-en/2011-06-08-13898/Physical-map-of-Mecklenburg-Vorpommern-2008.html

which (guessing) looks it might be Kreisow on the google map

https://www.google.co.uk/maps/place...2!3m1!1s0x47ab92da4020e909:0x89bab9658a4e6d4b

maybe this (almost) hill is the 116?

https://www.google.co.uk/maps/place...0x47ab92da4020e909:0x89bab9658a4e6d4b!6m1!1e1

looks a bit small to be a Troyberg but if there was a trade route passing through over a giant swamp/lake terrain then maybe a rest stop along the way?

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just messing about really but if there's an important trade route crossing between a town A and a town B then it makes you wonder where A and B were and if not local (which seems plausible given the terrain) then A and B would be somewhere that makes sense for the route i.e. Tollense would likely be a path of least resistance between A and B at the time.

Another thing that popped up on my googling may give a hint

https://photos.tripsite.com/assets/files/1272/malchin_to_berlin_final.jpg

If it's amber trade (plausible) then that lagoon is maybe where the Troyberg was and the Tollense crossing was one of the routes to it.

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wild speculatin for fun

#

edit

one last map centerd on the battle site

https://www.google.co.uk/maps/place...2!3m1!1s0x47ab94f6251bce27:0x80e2a0795e46ab68

i'd think the easiest route from the SW (around the Machlin area) to the lagoon would be via the Peene river through Demmin to Anklam (which has had some kind of fortress to guard/extort access to the lagoon since at least viking times)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Altes_Lager_(Menzlin)

however interestingly looking at the map Tollense is pretty much equidistant as the crow flies between Machlin and Anklam.

#

what would be cool with all this would be a place name translator

#

edit2

also hard to tell distance accurately on the map but notice Kriesow is c. 15-20 km from Machlin - days journey for traders?

if there was an overland route Machlin -> Anklam then you might also expect a rest-stop on the other side of the Tollense river crossing - maybe somewhere around Breest