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More than 3,000 years ago, a violent clash unfolded along the Tollense River, in what is now northern Germany.
Around 1250 BCE, armies of about 2,000 warriors – some estimates believe the number to be as many as 4,000 – fought against each other on what would become known as Europe’s oldest battlefield.
Scholars are still unsure about the crucial details of the battle, such as who the combatants were and why they were fighting – especially considering the unprecedented level of violence for the Bronze Age.
Now, a study on arrowheads used during the battle is unveiling new insight into what caused the bloodshed.
“The arrowheads are a kind of ‘smoking gun,’” Leif Inselmann, lead author of the study, said in a statement. “Just like the murder weapon in a mystery, they give us a clue about … the fighters of the Tollense Valley battle and where they came from.”
Inselmann and his colleagues analyzed bronze and flint arrowheads unearthed at the Tollense site and compared them with more than 4,700 arrowheads from other parts of Europe. While most matched local designs, a few stood out that bore distinct shapes that are typical of regions much farther south, such as Bavaria and Moravia.
Historians have been divided on whether the battle was exclusively among locals or involved foreigners. But the new findings suggest that foreign warriors from Central Europe joined the fray, possibly as part of a larger coalition or even a mercenary force.
The battle took place during a tumultuous period in European history known as the “Late Bronze Age Collapse,” when societies across the Mediterranean and parts of Europe experienced widespread turmoil.
While the exact reasons for the conflict in Tollense remain unknown, researchers suspect that regional tensions, competition for resources, or the rise of organized warrior classes may have played a role.
And evidence from nearby burial sites suggests that warrior elites were becoming more common, and fortifications built around this time required large, organized armies to defend them.
Study co-author Thomas Terberger told National Geographic that the findings challenge earlier assumptions that the period was largely peaceful and show that “large violent conflicts were a part of Bronze Age life.”
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