Bronze Age Warfare

Other things are going on outside corona crisis (which thankfully, appears to be getting better in our neck of woods:)

A team led by Newcastle University examined thousands of marks on Bronze Age swords and staged experimental fights using replica weapons to better understand how they might have been used in the Bronze Age and the combat techniques that were needed.

Bronze - cast by mixing copper and tin – is softer than steel, meaning that it can be easily damaged. Until now, much speculation has focused on the possibility that because they are easy to damage, the ancient weapons were ceremonial rather than intended for battle.

However, the research findings, published in the Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory, indicate that not only were they used in active combat, but would have required fighters to use lots of skill and very particular techniques to minimise the amount of damage.

Read the whole article (and watch a video) over here:

Bronze age swords