"Battle of Tollenzee" revisited

Angela

Angela

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Reality seems to always turn out to be different than the somewhat juvenile fantasies of agenda driven, ethnicity obsessed amateur pop geneticists would have it.

See:
https://www.archaeology.org/news/9167-201027-tollense-valley-massacre

A massacre it was, but not a battle between a "northern" and a "southern" ethnic group. Looks more perhaps like the Native Americans raiding a huge trading caravan with women as well as men, animals and goods. They weren't even settlers, because there were no kinship ties.

"MECKLENBURG-WEST POMERANIA, GERMANY—According to a report in The Times, new genetic and chemical analyses of an estimated 145 sets of human remains unearthed in what had been thought to be a Bronze Age battlefield in northern Germany’s Tollense River Valley suggest that the dead were not members of a local army, but had come from many different regions. In addition, few of the individuals shared kinship ties. Wear and tear on the bones of the lower body also shows that some of the dead had been used to carrying heavy loads. “The picture that is emerging does not necessarily correspond to the picture of a warrior, but rather to the picture of people who spent their lives transporting things,” said Detlef Jantzen, chief archaeologist for the state of Mecklenburg-West Pomerania. The remains of women have also been found among the bones, in addition to gold rings, cylinders made of bronze, and glass beads from Egypt and Mesopotamia. Jantzen and his team think the site could be the remains of a large caravan of merchants who were attacked by raiders. “These are luxury goods we have found here and they have a very long journey behind them,” he explained. "
 
I guess it was a dominant chieftain on this march into subdued territory, showing off strength and not caring too much for his or his company's protection, but with his guard and part of the army on his side. They just moved into a trap by the locals.
 
They were a group of merchants carrying trade goods who got massacred. Read the paper, although I'm sure you will still prefer your fantasy.
 
Makes perfect sense. There were no haplogroups associated with modern populations of the area, save the I2-M223 guys. There are two possibilities for the natives of the area, either Germanic (which would have been high in I1 and R1b-U106) or Baltic (high in R1a) and that is not the case with the dead here.
 
Angela said:
Reality seems to always turn out to be different than the somewhat juvenile fantasies of agenda driven, ethnicity obsessed amateur pop geneticists would have it.

See:
https://www.archaeology.org/news/9167-201027-tollense-valley-massacre

A massacre it was, but not a battle between a "northern" and a "southern" ethnic group. Looks more perhaps like the Native Americans raiding a huge trading caravan with women as well as men, animals and goods. They weren't even settlers, because there were no kinship ties.

"MECKLENBURG-WEST POMERANIA, GERMANY—According to a report in The Times, new genetic and chemical analyses of an estimated 145 sets of human remains unearthed in what had been thought to be a Bronze Age battlefield in northern Germany’s Tollense River Valley suggest that the dead were not members of a local army, but had come from many different regions. In addition, few of the individuals shared kinship ties. Wear and tear on the bones of the lower body also shows that some of the dead had been used to carrying heavy loads. “The picture that is emerging does not necessarily correspond to the picture of a warrior, but rather to the picture of people who spent their lives transporting things,” said Detlef Jantzen, chief archaeologist for the state of Mecklenburg-West Pomerania. The remains of women have also been found among the bones, in addition to gold rings, cylinders made of bronze, and glass beads from Egypt and Mesopotamia. Jantzen and his team think the site could be the remains of a large caravan of merchants who were attacked by raiders. “These are luxury goods we have found here and they have a very long journey behind them,” he explained. "
Click to expand...

Thanks Angela, indeed it was food for the wildest genetic typology ;)

May be in the end connected with this?

r1rj18dx.30.04.png
 
It could explain the vaste possible geographic origin of the diverse autosomal results. End?
 
If this was a caravan of merchants, where were they headed? I would think a trade route to invite such a caravan would be connecting major cites and caravans such as this would not be wondering aimlessly into the frontier. Were the valuables thrown in the river deliberately or dropped? If this was simple highway robbery, the best loot would have been transported away. The various weapons used, including spears, swords, knives, clubs, sickles, and bows and arrows suggest an organized large party was involved. Was this a sacrificial site or did the climactic finale of this violent episode occur in the river? Whether it was a massacre of non-combatants or a battle, something epic happened here, and that would affected the economies and relationships of all parties involved. As for tell-tale signs of an existence heavy, back-breaking lifting for those whose skeletal remains have been studies, this does not prove they were merchants or slaves. Roman soldiers worked skilled and non-skilled, laborious work when they were not engaged in military training, parade or combat. Even during military campaigns, soldiers engaged in a lot of back-breaking labor.
 
In such ancient times it would have to be imagined that the impulse to act would be rapid and what mentality should they have?


The merchants would probably dump some of the loot into the river when they were docked.


It is like trading with eggs from thousands of km, salmonellosis is served, it must have been one of the first chemical weapons that emerged in such remote times.
 
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We'll probably never know, but I somehow doubt that a group of warriors would deliberately take their bead bedecked women and their priceless foreign luxuries to the battlefield with them.

I also sort of doubt that we know where all the great trading centers of Bronze Age Central and Eastern Europe were located.

I read a James Michener book called "Caravans" once about Afghanistan and up into Central Asian and the yearly or twice yearly treks traders would make to temporary trading marts set up in the middle of nowhere. Marriages were also arranged to cement trading partnerships. I guess it was also a good way to prevent too much inbreeding.

Maybe that's why their speculation resonates with me.
 
Angela said:
They were a group of merchants carrying trade goods who got massacred. Read the paper, although I'm sure you will still prefer your fantasy.
Click to expand...

They found way too much bodies of experienced warriors (proven by survived wounds and training, physical stress signals) and weapons, especially arrowheads per m2 in the excavated area. Since they were looted, especially those on higher ground, more weapons were presen. If this was just a regular trade caravan, this would be too much effort both for the guards protecting it and those attacking the group. This was much bigger than anything like that.
 
Well, obviously the raiders were armed and trained, and no large trading caravan would have ventured out without trained fighting men guarding them.

I don't see the problem, but hey you're free to speculate as you wish.
 
Angela said:
Well, obviously the raiders were armed and trained, and no large trading caravan would have ventured out without trained fighting men guarding them.

I don't see the problem, but hey you're free to speculate as you wish.
Click to expand...

Basically its a question of magnitude. Its too big for that. And if the caravan was quite diverse, more of the dead would have been males of different ages, females and so on. Not just males in best fighting age, trained, with stress markers and wounds from earlier fights, so like experienced, even professional and elite warriors. Doesn't fit, because arrows in particular don't make a difference if raining down on a group of people. It was a big battle for its time, no way around it.
 
Battle in the Tollense Valley The Lusatian culture emerged in the mid-fourteenth century BC. mainly in the Polish lands and the adjacent areas of the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Ukraine as well as in southern, central, north-eastern Germany). The Lusatian culture was created by the descendants of people who previously created the Trzciniec culture and previously the Corded Ware culture. The genotype of this population living between the basins of the Odra River and the Vistula River has existed in this area for at least 5,000 years and indicates the continuity of settlement of people of the same biological origin. This is confirmed by the discoveries in the field of archeo-genetics, population genetics, descriptive linguistics and comparative linguistics (e.g. studies by Prof. Frederik Kortlandt). These discoveries allowed the German linguist prof. H. Haarmann for the statement that the medieval Polabian Slavs are the descendants of the peoples creating the Lusatian culture. The occupation of new lands by the communities forming the Lusatian culture met with resistance from other groups. This is evidenced by the discoveries on the Tollense River in today's northeastern Germany, showing that a great battle was fought there, involving at least 4,000 warriors. The numerous remains of the fallen and artifacts dated by the radiocarbon method prove that the Battle of the Tollense Valley took place 1250-1300 BC. The concentration of such a large number of soldiers in one place required the existence of a larger community organism that would be able to provide the organization and gathering of warriors from many centers. The victorious group buried their fallen according to the custom, that is, their bodies were burned. The corpses of the people who lost the battle were robbed of valuable items and left on the battlefield without being burned at the funeral pyre. Who were the warriors who lost the battle? The DNA samples taken from the bone fragments of the fallen warriors in the Battle of Tollense contain: nine hg Y-DNA I2, seven hg Y-DNA derived from R1b1a2. In addition, there is one sample - not further defined - hg Y-DNA R1. Due to the proximity of the coexisting cultures during the battle in the Tollense Valley, it can be assumed that the fallen left on the battlefield represented the Scandinavian Bronze Age community. However, there is no good evidence for this hypothesis. The haplogroup Y-DNA R1b1a2 does not appear in DNA samples taken from the bone remains of humans living in the Northern Bronze Age and the area of the Northern Bronze Age. Among the analyzed remains of the Scandinavian Bronze Age from 1800 to 500 BC Y-DNA haplogroups were separated: I1, R1a1a1, R1b1a1a2a1a1. This means that people living in and around the Norse Bronze Age lack the Y-DNA haplogroup R1b1a2, the one that was found among the fallen in the Battle of Tollense. Among the selected areas from which the participants of the battle came, people of the Elp culture (1800-800 BCE) can be indicated. This culture ranged from what is now the Netherlands to the base of the Jutland Peninsula, an area that was then within the reach of humans carrying hg Y-DNA R1b1a2. The R1b1a2 haplogroup is a derivative of the human Y chromosome DNA which characterizes the population of Celtic origin. It is most common in men from Western Europe, but not Scandinavia. Economic factors explain the armed rivalry that manifested itself in the Battle of the Tollense Valley. Central Europe, and especially the area of the Odra River basin through the mouth, was of great importance at that time, because it was rich in items extremely valuable to people of that time: amber, copper and especially tin - a metal then more important than gold due to the necessity for the production of bronze, from which the deadly metal was cast. weapon. Baltic amber was a commonly desirable commodity. From the earliest times, it was considered a remarkable, electrifying material for making ornaments and also for medicinal purposes. The scope of its export is evidenced by, for example, Baltic amber ornaments found in the tomb of Pharaoh Tutankhamen from 1323 BCE, or in the royal tomb in Qatna (Syria) from 1350 BCE. According to Roger David Penhallurick, one of the most important centers of European mining and processing of copper and tin was the area of the Ore Mountains, i.e. the region of Lusatia, where the extraction of these metals began around 2500 BC. Tin has become especially valuable as one of the main products of the so-called the amber route. Tin from the Ore Mountains was used in closer and further metallurgical centers. One of them was an ancient stronghold in Bruszczewo (Greater Poland Voivodeship). In Bruszczewo - an international team led by prof. Janusz Czebreszuk (University of Poznań) and prof. Johannes M?ller (University of Kiel) - discovered a leading European steel center from around 1600 BC. At that time, it was the largest such center north of the Alps. There was no similar center in western Germany, or in France, Great Britain, Sweden or Russia. Its origins date back to the period of the Unietic culture. Archaeologists unearthed a warehouse full of finished bronze products in Bruszczewo. Control over amber deposits and tin mining and bronze production, as well as over their distribution routes, gave a monopoly position and the resulting material benefits, as well as technological and military advantage.
 
The Lusatian culture emerged in the mid-fourteenth century BC. mainly in the Polish lands and the adjacent areas of the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Ukraine as well as in southern, central, north-eastern Germany). The Lusatian culture was created by the descendants of people who previously created the Trzciniec culture and previously the Corded Ware culture. The genotype of this population living between the basins of the Odra River and the Vistula River has existed in this area for at least 5,000 years and indicates the continuity of settlement of people of the same biological origin. This is confirmed by the discoveries in the field of archeo-genetics, population genetics, descriptive linguistics and comparative linguistics (e.g. studies by Prof. Frederik Kortlandt). These discoveries allowed the German linguist prof. H. Haarmann for the statement that the medieval Polabian Slavs are the descendants of the peoples creating the Lusatian culture. The occupation of new lands by the communities forming the Lusatian culture met with resistance from other groups. This is evidenced by the discoveries on the Tollense River in today's northeastern Germany, showing that a great battle was fought there, involving at least 4,000 warriors. The numerous remains of the fallen and artifacts dated by the radiocarbon method prove that the Battle of the Tollense Valley took place 1250-1300 BC. The concentration of such a large number of soldiers in one place required the existence of a larger community organism that would be able to provide the organization and gathering of warriors from many centers. The victorious group buried their fallen according to the custom, that is, their bodies were burned. The corpses of the people who lost the battle were robbed of valuable items and left on the battlefield without being burned at the funeral pyre. Who were the warriors who lost the battle? The DNA samples taken from the bone fragments of the fallen warriors in the Battle of Tollense contain: nine hg Y-DNA I2, seven hg Y-DNA derived from R1b1a2. In addition, there is one sample - not further defined - hg Y-DNA R1. Due to the proximity of the coexisting cultures during the battle in the Tollense Valley, it can be assumed that the fallen left on the battlefield represented the Scandinavian Bronze Age community. However, there is no good evidence for this hypothesis. The haplogroup Y-DNA R1b1a2 does not appear in DNA samples taken from the bone remains of humans living in the Northern Bronze Age and the area of the Northern Bronze Age. Among the analyzed remains of the Scandinavian Bronze Age from 1800 to 500 BC Y-DNA haplogroups were separated: I1, R1a1a1, R1b1a1a2a1a1. This means that people living in and around the Norse Bronze Age lack the Y-DNA haplogroup R1b1a2, the one that was found among the fallen in the Battle of Tollense. Among the selected areas from which the participants of the battle came, people of the Elp culture (1800-800 BCE) can be indicated. This culture ranged from what is now the Netherlands to the base of the Jutland Peninsula, an area that was then within the reach of humans carrying hg Y-DNA R1b1a2. The R1b1a2 haplogroup is a derivative of the human Y chromosome DNA which characterizes the population of Celtic origin. It is most common in men from Western Europe, but not Scandinavia. Economic factors explain the armed rivalry that manifested itself in the Battle of the Tollense Valley. Central Europe, and especially the area of the Odra River basin through the mouth, was of great importance at that time, because it was rich in items extremely valuable to people of that time: amber, copper and especially tin - a metal then more important than gold due to the necessity for the production of bronze, from which the deadly metal was cast. weapon. Baltic amber was a commonly desirable commodity. From the earliest times, it was considered a remarkable, electrifying material for making ornaments and also for medicinal purposes. The scope of its export is evidenced by, for example, Baltic amber ornaments found in the tomb of Pharaoh Tutankhamen from 1323 BCE, or in the royal tomb in Qatna (Syria) from 1350 BCE. According to Roger David Penhallurick, one of the most important centers of European mining and processing of copper and tin was the area of the Ore Mountains, i.e. the region of Lusatia, where the extraction of these metals began around 2500 BC. Tin has become especially valuable as one of the main products of the so-called the amber route. Tin from the Ore Mountains was used in closer and further metallurgical centers. One of them was an ancient stronghold in Bruszczewo (Greater Poland Voivodeship). In Bruszczewo - an international team led by prof. Janusz Czebreszuk (University of Poznań) and prof. Johannes M?ller (University of Kiel) - discovered a leading European steel center from around 1600 BC. At that time, it was the largest such center north of the Alps. There was no similar center in western Germany, or in France, Great Britain, Sweden or Russia. Its origins date back to the period of the Unietic culture. Archaeologists unearthed a warehouse full of finished bronze products in Bruszczewo. Control over amber deposits and tin mining and bronze production, as well as over their distribution routes, gave a monopoly position and the resulting material benefits, as well as technological and military advantage.[/QUOTE]
 
Mecklenburg-Vorpommern was still hunter-gatherer territory later than 2980 BC (<5000 BP in the map below):

Most certainly pure SHG or pure WHG (or SHG-WHG mix) people survived there until PIE Steppe folks arrival:

wVTGuDr.png


This can explain why WEZ warriors have such elevated % of WHG/SHG - higher than any modern population.
 
Tomenable said:
Mecklenburg-Vorpommern was still hunter-gatherer territory later than 2980 BC (<5000 BP in the map below):

Most certainly pure SHG or pure WHG (or SHG-WHG mix) people survived there until PIE Steppe folks arrival:

wVTGuDr.png


This can explain why WEZ warriors have such elevated % of WHG/SHG - higher than any modern population.
Click to expand...

There was more WHG survival in the Netherlands too, yet the LBA inhabitants had LESS than neighbouring groups from e.g. Denmark. I think this should caution us against such quickly made conclusions about a continuity which might not have existed or at least didn't exist all the time, for all groups and regions in a wider zone.
 
Riverman said:
There was more WHG survival in the Netherlands too, yet the LBA inhabitants had LESS than neighbouring groups from e.g. Denmark. I think this should caution us against such quickly made conclusions about a continuity which might not have existed or at least didn't exist all the time, for all groups and regions in a wider zone.
Click to expand...

Your argument is valuable in some way, but doesn't distroy the Tomenable's one. And from where were the Netherlands LBA samples?
 
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