Description: Warfare in Bronze Age Society takes a fresh look at warfare and its role in reshaping Bronze Age society. The Bronze Age represents the global emergence of a militarized society with a martial culture, materialized in a package of new efficient weapons that remained in use for millennia to come. Warfare became institutionalized and professionalized during the Bronze Age, and a new class of warriors made their appearance. Evidence for this development is reflected in the ostentatious display of weapons in burials and hoards, and in iconography, from rock art to palace frescoes. These new manifestations of martial culture constructed the warrior as a 'Hero' and warfare as 'Heroic'. The case studies, written by an international team of scholars, discuss these and other new aspects of Bronze Age warfare. Moreover, the essays show that warriors also facilitated mobility and innovation as new weapons would have quickly spread from the Mediterranean to northern Europe.
Brief description: Kristian Kristiansen is Professor of Archaeology at the Göteborgs Universitet, Sweden. He is co-editor of the book Organizing Bronze Age Societies (Cambridge, 2010). He is the author of Europe before History (Cambridge, 2000) and co-author of The Rise of Bronze Age Society (Cambridge, 2006), which was awarded best scholarly book in 2007 by the Society of American Archaeology. He received the Prehistoric Society's Europa Prize in 2013, and the British Academy's Graham Clark Medal in 2016. His most recent work has been the European Research Council advanced grant The Rise. With a team of scientists it has been possible to document trade in woollen textiles, metals, as well as large-scale migrations in western Eurasia during the Bronze Age.