Tollense battle: Bloody slaughter for women and horses

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Archaeologists have a fundamental problem.

Since most of their finds do not mention who they come from, they have to use style comparisons, material studies and clever chains of evidence to find out what historians can gather from written sources: what kind of story can and will be a shard, a rusted sword or a split bone tell?

The scientists who have been investigating one of the most spectacular archaeological sites in Germany since 2009: the valley of the Tollense north of Neubrandenburg in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania also have this handicap.

In the 1990s, volunteers from the State Office for Culture and the Preservation of Monuments came across a series of bones on the boggy banks that initially suggested a prehistoric cemetery from the Bronze Age.

The Tollensetal north of Neubrandenburg in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania

Source: LAKD MV, Landesarchäologie;

Photo: F. Ruchhöft

The nature of the injuries, the weapons found and the sheer number of human skeletal remains soon helped another hypothesis to break through: a real battle must have taken place here, the oldest one of which traces have so far been preserved in Central Europe.

They seemed to prove that opponents were fighting each other even in the barbarian land without writing, when the high Egyptian and Hittite civilizations fought their famous battle at Kadesh (1274 BC) in the Middle East, the first battle found in written sources.

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Detlef Jantzen now offers another option to this interpretation of what happened on the Tollense, which has already found its way into highly reputable publications.

"Perhaps there was no battle between armies on the Tollense, but an attack," he says with the authority of the state archaeologist of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, who in this role is also responsible for the excavations.

And he refers to the latest research on the human bones that were found there.

"They tend not to have the physical stress characteristics that we would have to expect from warriors."

The most recent examinations of the skeletal remains have shown that the victims were not exposed to particularly heavy loads in the area of ​​the arm bones or shoulder blades, as would be expected for experienced fighters.

In contrast, the strain on the leg bones and the spine suggests that their owners lifted and carried heavy loads, perhaps even over long distances.

The examination of the recovered horse bones also produced a result that does not fit into the picture of a battle.

The animals were too young to carry riders.

“Maybe they were used to carry or pull loads,” concludes Jantzen.

“But they could just as well have been a commodity.

Horses were valued as status symbols in those days. "

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That would fit in with other finds that have so far been interpreted more as the personal property of individual combatants.

Gold rings, for example, or tools such as hammer and anvil.

But above all, rings made of tin point into the economic sphere.

In connection with copper for the production of bronze, tin was an almost strategic commodity that was traded over long distances.

This belt box came to light on the Tollense.

Did it belong to a woman?

Source: LAKD MV, Landesarchäologie;

Photo: D. Jantzen

With the new interpretation, women get a completely different meaning on the battlefield.

Their presence is evidenced by traditional costume components, vestments or belt boxes.

But was it really her job to spur and feed the warriors?

Or were they slaves who were being traded, or simply companions of a caravan?

“Basically, we have no definite evidence that the people killed were warriors,” says Jantzen, summarizing the research results.

This also applies to the latest DNA tests that were carried out at the University of Mainz.

According to this, the genetic make-up of twelve men and two women, whose bones were unearthed on the Tollense, resembles that of today's northern and central Europeans, people were not related to one another.

"From this we can conclude that it was not simply a question of locals and foreigners who fought against each other." The temporarily cherished idea that an invading army from the south had encountered people from the area should be off the table.

Source: Infographic Die Welt

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All these indications therefore make it probable that there were no armies here around 1300 BC.

BC, but a larger group of highwaymen had chosen a large trade caravan as lucrative booty, the members of which, however, did not want to part voluntarily with their treasures.

Because the fact that there was an outbreak of violence on the Tollense is undeniable.

In total, more than 12,500 bone finds have so far been made on the approximately 500 square meters excavated.

"We still assume that the battle raged several hundred meters along the Tollense," says Jantzen.

From this it was concluded that there were 4,000 to 5,000 fighters involved, real armies that had to be brought together and supplied, and which therefore required a large degree of organization of power and division of labor.

State archaeologist Detlef Jantzen with a skull with a bronze arrowhead

Source: picture alliance / dpa

In comparison with the loss rates in the early modern period, up to 1,000 deaths were assumed, numbers that Detlef Jantzen no longer wants to hold onto.

"We can certainly find just under 140 dead individuals." Most of them are likely to be those who have been attacked, the losers of the fight.

The victors will have recovered their dead and taken them with them.

“The fact remains that the Tollense was certainly the scene of a major violent conflict,” says Jantzen, “but we can also imagine smaller groups as attackers.” Analyzes of the injuries have shown the brutality involved.

The victims have numerous stab wounds and cuts, but also blow injuries in the upper body.

Several skulls were hit by clubs

That it could have been the attack on a trade caravan is supported by a completely different finding made by the excavators on the Tollense.

They found the remains of a stone and wood-fortified dam through the valley, the radiocarbon dating of which showed an age of 3900 years.

The way was around 1300 BC.

BC still existed and made it possible to get across the then much wider river.

Here an old route, which led in an east-west direction, apparently met a waterway that could be used with light boats from the Baltic Sea over the Peene.

From the upper reaches of the Tollense it was only a good dozen kilometers to the Havel river network.

It is quite possible that the boats were pulled the short distance across the watershed - a process that the Swedish Varangians used in the early Middle Ages to cross the narrow land bridges between the rivers of Russia.

"The situation of the victims shows that they were no longer able to escape from the valley," says Detlef Jantzen

Source: picture alliance / imageBROKER

This eye of the needle on the Tollense was ideal for an ambush.

“The situation of the victims shows that they were no longer able to escape from the valley,” says Jantzen, describing the bloody scene.

Further investigations will show whether this interpretation remains.

Many of the finds are far from being fully processed.

Their evaluation has priority over further excavations in the area of ​​the battlefield.

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Even if it turns out in the end that the "oldest battlefield in Europe" was only evidence of the drive of Homo sapiens to violent acquisition, the Tollense should still be one of the most exciting archaeological sites.

Precisely because no contemporary has written his story.

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