Europe's Earliest Battle? - The Mystery of the Tollense Valley // Ancient History Documentary
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- Опубликовано: 29 июн 2019
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@@romelnegut2005 I just need to learn how to stop working occasionally. Thanks!
@@HistoryTime Why? You're welcome.
As an American, I enjoy learning about European history. Your voice is clear and form which is pleasant for a learning experience... you could use some help on German pronunciation, however. But I do enjoy your work. Keep it up.
I'm also working the festival. Great video again 👍
meanwhile on the 'history' channel: "today we try to explain how these strange momuments from the ancient world were built by aliens"
Or we try to determine how much a button from Elvis' coat is worth at the pawn shop.
@@TheJMBon, "Sorry man, best I can do is two bucks."
Its a fair point. Evidence is stacking up all the time to suggest that we may have risen to a relative high level before a deluge or catastrophe sent us backwards and we had to start again. Much that doesn't fit archaeologies narrative is put aside, hidden or maybe even destroyed. People in high places control our history and what is taught, pretty obvious now they have been lying and brainwashing our kids. Who knows how long for?
@@BooneofthePlains No worries brother. I saw your video and just went looking for more info is all. Great job though.
Is that really as crazy as what we are supposed to believe. There is a lot of circumstantial evidence of prior civilizations to what we are taught, yet current scholars say it isn't so. If it isn't so, what else could explain it? Aliens would be the only explanation. I'm not saying aliens are real, but it's more plausible than anything else if we are to believe what we are taught about our history. They don't give us much choice to explain the things which we don't have answers to, and even questioning them makes you look like a quack. We should be trying to answer these questions instead of dismissing the people that ask questions which can't be answered.
Imagine being an archaeologist and having to wait ten years to start excavating on a large scale. I would lose my mind wondering what was down there.
I hate blue balls.
"A.... a DELOREAN!?"
IE it was the case of Sutton Hoo burial site. It had been discovered in 1939, just before the start of the war, and the archaeologists had to wait until the end of it to start excavations.
Archeologists have no minds to lose anymore.
I came across a site while hunting near Algonquin park in Canada that looked like an old indigenous settlement. I contacted many museums and archeologists about the site and was basically told it was almost impossible to get the paperwork done to do any kind of exploratory excavating done today. It is sad we can no longer seek knowledge due to the many roadblocks that have been put up.
Greetings from an "Altentreptower", inhabitant of a small city in the tollense valley, and hater of our mayor who declined to display the findings there
@anny791 if only....
What?! Did he give you a reason
@@XJonAye something along the lines of "for whom? we are not a tourist city" - that we could have changed, idiot...
on the otherhand he is proposing to dig out the "Großer Stein", which is the 4th (?) biggest foundling stone in europe, and roll it up a hill for display ....as I said, he is an idiot
is he Pakistani?
@@Khavatarion nah man, he's my former PE teacher turned mayor :D
I absolutely love ancient history. When I retire I am pursuing a doctorate in the subject to fill my permanent and well deserved down time. As a military man, subjects like this always fascinate me. I study military history as one of my historical hobbies but I have never heard of this. This is why I subscribed to your channel. It must be most exasperating for scientist to have to wait on bureaucrats to get off of their duffs and let us learn about our history. I work for the government of the United States so I feel their pain. I hope they find out who these people were and what happened.Thanks for finding all of this amazing and enlightening knowledge. Keep up the great work!!!
That's me right now. I retired last year.
Dude same
23098 AD, the found combustion based barrel weapons from the 2000's seem to have served a purely ceremonial purpose.
Any idea or conclusion proposed by an archeologist will of course be tainted by his own ideas and conclusions. As well as the conclusions and beliefs of his society. Take Plato and Atlantis. Did Plato use Altantis as a metaphor? I'm sure he did. Was Atlantis a real place?. As described I don't think so. But I do think Plato drew his description from stories or legends about a place that existed. As to Troy. Schleiman used Homars description in the Illiad to place it at Hisilric. The same location Classical Greece, the Roman's and others placed it at. Did Troy involve a beautiful woman capable of launching a thousand ships? I doubt it. Were the conflicts in the region and did some, but not all, involve people from the area we call Greece? Of course there were. But given Troy's (or Illium, Troad, Willusia) location they almost certainly involved disputes over the control of trade through the Dardenelles. An analogy today would be the Sraits of Hormuz or the region off of Somalia. The Kings of Troy most likely encouraged or tolerated piracy or charged tolls for passage. At different times the threat of piracy or the tolls became too much and someone took action. Wars are usually over something tangible. Land, which comes down to food production. Resources, which could be anything from water to oil. Or trade or the control of it.
@@mpetersen6 Plato wasn't an archeologist....
@@swirvinbirds1971
Never said he was.
@@mpetersen6 well when you are talking about archeologists and use Plato for an example then I am not sure what else you could possibly have been trying to say.
@@swirvinbirds1971
OK, perhaps I wasn't as clear as I could be. My point is that there are people who take Plato as the gospel truth and reject anything that archeologists say. Rather than reading Plato's writings about Atlantis as a morality tale. Is there a historical basis for Atlantis? I don't know. And until irrefutable evidence comes to light I doubt anybody else does for sure. The ravings of Edward Cayce aside. Myth and legend usually have some factual base to them. The destruction of Atalntis may be related to events that were remembered from pre-history. Just as I suspect that the flood myths have an origin rooted in the end of the last Glacial Advance. For the Middle Eastern flood myths the flooding of the Black Sea Basin and of the Persian Gulf are likely sources.
I love the assumption that the Bronze Age was a "relatively peaceful period", like do they even understand humans? If there are more then two people on the continent you can expect wars.
only execption is very early japan whcih is mindbuggling we have yet discover sighns of warfare between humans of that time period though near the end things went bad
Especially with that continent being Europe!
This is the first site showing any signs of war, though...
@@ME-ex3yz
Define war. If Stone Age cultures on New Guinea and the San of South Weat Africa are anything to go by war and vendetta are a fact of the human psyche.
Ireland has had centuries of warring tribes, Centuries of fighting the British and centuries of fighting in other people's wars. And people wonder why the Irish drink.
I like that you speak slowly and do not worry that the video must fit within 15 minutes or whatever.
Agreed.
I was able to play this video at 1.5x with no difficulty understanding what he was saying. Excellent.
Will anyone who witnessed the violence please contact German federal police.
*arrests cavemen*
😂😂😂
the police man teleports into the past using state funded time travel technology and arrests the combatants on the day of battle
It was the police who did it, as usual. The government they worked for declared that they owned all the land - just like today - and the locals had been 'squatting' on it for thousands of years without paying taxes.
@Frank DeFalco gone sexual
It is interesting to hear how the myth of the noble savage lives on in the minds of archaeologists. It seems pretty naive to think that bronze age people didn't fight.
We are learning about the North American natives as well. They clobbered the shit out of each other pretty regularly. It was a brutal existence by any measure.
Savages? What makes a savage?
@@vercingetorix6950, good question. I don't know the definition, but it is probably relative. The phrase 'noble savage' was current in 18th century English society.
@@MrNecryptic No it isn't you dumb ass.
@@vercingetorix6950 according to the Romans, the drinking of milk was the true mark of a savage.
I don't think the archaeologists believe the noble savage to mean the people were peaceful and didn't like war. This tends to get twisted from the conservative archaeologist statement that "we didn't expect to find evidence of such large-scale, repeated organized conflict in this area during this time period." It doesn't mean the people didn't fight, it means that they're surprised to find that they fought THIS much, when previous evidence (and lack, thereof) indicated the people in this area were not organized enough to have armies of this scale clashing with each other.
Take Egypt and Mesopotamia, for example. These areas are cradles of civilization. They saw the size of battles go from small to rather large by the standards of all civilizations around them. Watching Egypt and the Hittites go to war probably seemed like the end of the world for people at the time, because they'd never seen such scale of warfare before. Now imagine finding not 5000 dead on either side of a possible 20 000 strong army each side, imagine finding 200 000 dead of a possible 400 000 strong army on each side. It would indicate these people were FAR more sophisticated than previous evidence indicated if there was a political structure at the time which was capable of raising an army of 400 000 when most other kingdoms of the period struggled to raise 20 000 strong.
The North Americans probably went to war in large numbers, too. The South American Inca empire had a civil war shortly before the arrival of the conquistadors, and they had a battle with 100 000 strong on either side. They were able to raise such large numbers because of the way their political structure was arranged, but they did raise that many men. People don't hear about this because there's little evidence, it's of little urgency, and numbers don't really mean all that much if they're not special, even though an army of 100 000 strong was larger than most armies in Europe until the 1200s.
The Danish National Museum is amazing. If you're ever in Copenhagen - you can spend at least half a day there.
@Petrazenka Half a day for Denmark? My, my.
Half a day in a Museum? I'd be there for two.
@@TheLittledikkins That's why I wrote "at least" :)
It is definitely big enough for more than that. I think I've spent something like a full day there (didn't have more time for this) and didn't cover it 100%.
shurik121
No stupid, you can spend 0,67 days there. Everyone knows that.
12 hours?
"For a moment the water below him looked like a window, glazed with grimy glass, through which he was peering. Wrenching his hands out of the bog, he sprang back with a cry. 'There are dead things, dead faces in the water,' he said with horror. 'Dead faces!'"
“Dead things in the woods. Dead things in the water.”
from?
@@thefool1086 Lord of the Rings
Is it possible that the Norse myth of the war between the Aesir and Vanir is a retelling of this event? Something this catastrophic had to have left a mark in the cultural memory of the region, on both sides.
Just an observation, as extreme historic events tend to give birth to some of the myths that get passed down in the tribes and nations of the survivors.
@Kevin Warburton I thought the aesir were the gods from inside the fence and the vanir from outside the fence ( as in the aesir seem to be more related to town life and have halls, where the vanir are more associated with nature and the wilds)
i could be wrong though my recollection of Norse/germanic mythology is hazy.
It's not unreasonable to guess that memory of this battle may have been preserved in later legend, much as battles involving the Burgundians and the intrusion of Attila the Hun into central Europe is remembered in the Nibelungenlied. It may indeed be this one. The Aesir are described as fighting by standard, honorable military tactics; the Vanir were reputed to have fought by spells and magic. Perhaps this is a reflection of the different levels of technology found at the site. Bronze may have seemed like a magical substance to the side that fought with clubs and stone-tipped arrows.
I don't think so. It would have been conflated with the battle seventeen years before and the battle thirty one years later and all the many battles before and after those - battles whose casualties were not lucky enough to have been preserved in a bog or to have been discovered millennia later. When the Germanic tribes were described as 'war-like', it was not just a figure of speech. Norse tribes were not known as 'Spear-Danes' and 'War-Geats' and so on because they were peaceful. Valhalla did not admit those who died in their beds.
@Kevin Warburton Actually the opposite, I believe. The Vanir mythology seems more primitive than the Aesir and the Aesir pantheon also seems similar to other Indo-European ones (e.g. Wodenaz, Woden, Odin, Oden, etc.) whereas Yngvi Freya is part of the Vanir pantheon. My guess is that this was an accommodation to the indigenous after the Indo-European invasion-colonization.
@@jackkessler9876 Glad to see someone who understands that "Norse tribes" are Germanic. In fact (I'm sure you know), the Germanic ethnic, cultural and language group began in Scandinavia and spread southward, displacing Celts. "Spear-Danes" (Gardena in Beowulf) and "War-Geats" are the very epitome of war-like. And they are Norse (if, by that, you mean those from the Nordic countries or even Norway). Most of the invaders-colonists of Great Britain after the Romans left were Scandinavian--that is, Norse. A couple of petty "English" kingdoms were established by Svea Norsemen--from the area of Sweden that gives it its name. Fast forward to the Viking Age. As you obviously know, most of England was invaded and colonized for around 100 years by "Spear-Danes". Later, a true "Norseman", Rollo Ragnvaldsson, took the now-French province of Normandy in exchange for not burning down Paris. His great, great grandson--William the Conqueror--invaded, burned out and then ruled all the British Isles starting with the Battle of Hastings in 1066. So, the Germanics and all the nations they founded (Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Island, Finland, Iceland, Germany, Russia, France, Netherlands, Belgium, England--among others) came via Southern Scandinavia (roughly from Trondelag, Norway around and up to Uppsala, Sweden). But the Indo-Europeans were the invader-colonists from present-day Ukraine and Russia who founded the Scandinavia culture (Nordic Battle Axe Culture).
"Bogland: good for archeology". Love it!
Outstanding topic, presented beautiful; especially given the huge lack of information in the historical record. One of your best yet!
@@mongolchiuud8931 I don't know what your point really is. First, he didn't steal anything that can be described in words or displayed in data from Wikipedia. He has his own real opinions and data. He didn't just copy and paste so otherwise to be proven false and fall before this accusation. Second, I can't tell if you are trying to smear him or Wikipedia. If you meant to go on him, obviously you've already done that. If you are trying to discredit Wikipedia, be my guest, do the hardest you can, continue do it in the clueless fashion. Finally, I wonder why you would even leave this comment. Hippies are a huge web crowd who at best do exactly copy-and-paste in daily life. You came here, saw some fancy advanced ideas and googled it, suddenly you saw Wikipedia, didn't bother to even read pages on wiki, whoosh you're here, suspecting he would only do what you did, suddenly he's below you. What do you even know others don't? And with mistaking words yourself, you still just really can't see someone complimenting someone, ain' it?
A very nice topic - but the visual material is only good enough for about half the time span, hence some images are repeated over and over again, somewhat spoiling an otherwise engaging presentation.
@@vincitinaeternum8317 Really, I don't think you understand: he literally just read the wikipedia article and maybe changed every 30 or so words from "probably" to "maybe" and so-on. The graphics are also similarly ripped, and do not match the content in any specific way, except as being generally related. But hey, if you are happy then enjoy and watch on.
Would DNA sequencing reveal the ancestry of either or both of the groups involved in the battle?
DNA analysis: (fixed)
eurogenes.blogspot.com/2017/10/tollense-valley-bronze-age-warriors.html
Isotope analysis:
www.academia.edu/34119122/Multi-isotope_proveniencing_of_human_remains_from_a_Bronze_Age_battlefield_in_the_Tollense_Valley_in_northeast_Germany
@@anotherelvis Thanks a lot.
I would think so...if there are representatives of both adversaries found there at the battle field. Thanks to "Another Elvis" for the links to this kind of information.
Many of the warriors were genetically closely related to modern Slavic peoples, most notably modern Poles
@@en6064 Does this conflict at all with migration period? Sons of Lech, Czech and Rus had an uncertain homeland.
Me: **Murders someone with flint tipped arrows**
Forensics team: “its ok, he died in the Nordic bronze age. Nobody panic.”
John Woods. Remember that time you broke Walter on Pat's bed? Classic!
And to further throw off investigators, murderer kills an extra 500 people and bury them in the vicinity.
Break their carbone dating equipment.
@@thombrick The carbone's connected to the scooterbone.
Don't let the police catch you knapping, lol!
I like your melodic narration style; it kept me engaged, and there was some excellent things to learn here. Superior work, thanks.
When I first read about this find, I was hugely interested and at the same time puzzled why it didn't get more attention. You are the first one I've seen who made a video about this. Great work!
Video from German ARD TV from 2016: ruclips.net/video/H8fj70enl1Q/видео.html
@@IntyMichael Also: ruclips.net/video/xoYj4BZdB1w/видео.html
I swear to god, archeologists need to be banned from using the word “ceremonial”.
i heard when they say "this probably had a ritual purpose" that means they don't actually know
They’re regularly set on creating a conjecture-driven narrative that is only loosely based on the hard evidence they do find. Really frustrating. It’s so easy to see the political nature of their interpretations.
It was a ceremonial bloodletting. Ceremonial warfare. Ceremonial conflict.
As an archaeologist, I can confirm, whenever you hear/read the words "ritual", "ceremonial" or "cultic". It's 7/10 times, us just not really knowing wtf is going on.
Any ceremony would be a ritualistic, “sanctified” enactment of an event or activity that those men considered important anyways. Just as vases and utensils were offered to the gods/dead as tools for nourishment, weapons would have no place in a ceremony if battle didn’t carry some significance for a people, be it for commemoration or idolization of the warriors. So it seems rather empty to classify a finding as purely ceremonial.
1000s of years from now they will do the same. Oh ya those firearms and tanks were ceremonial...... "War before Civilization" great book
That was hysterical, great comment.
Yeah its always such a funny thing to hear. Another classic was "Axes were currency" XD and yes a fantastic book.
What a stupid comment, 1000s of years from now this period will be called "Made in China" with clear evidences of global domination of this superior China culture and technology.. :P
I am fascinated by the people who would take the time to give something like this a thumbs down.
Thanks for this video. I knew of it, but not the current status of the research.
Morons...they clearly see the topic...if they're such "scholars" they should do a presentation!
I’m very interested in the topic indeed, and wouldn’t give a thumbs down, but the endless repetition of facts and images annoys me greatly. How many times did we see the same picture of the skulls and bones? How many times did we hear ‘north east Germany’ before we got there? Does make you wonder though that for every recorded battle, how many more went unrecorded?
When I saw this thumbnail and title pop up in my feed, I got embarrasingly excited!
Why? Why not lust excited? IT's your peoples hard work, since the beginning of evolution. And yet we still stand why? Because we are great, and meant for many great things. We owe our ancestors much. At the least we can do, is continue our race, our people, and our lives. We owe them that much.
Just sit down and cover it with newspaper on your lap or something, if you are in public place.
....sounds like a comment from a shill.
Me, a bronze-age boi: ‘makes a sword that is used as a weapon of war for battle, defence and conquest’
Archaeologist: “wELl cLeArLy iT wAs mAdE fOr CerEmONiAL pUrPoSEs”
Yeah, that line really bothered me. You can't have ceremonial shields and swords until you have military shields and swords. They don't have use against wildlife and they're too highly specific of shapes to be made by chance. You can certainly have ceremonial copies of weapons, but the weapons come first.
Otzi the Ice Man was shot with an arrow about 5300 years ago so we know there was one on one violence going way back. That groups would wage war early on is not a big leap.
But to assemble that many people from an area that sparsely populated would require a polity that stretches over a very expansive stretch of territory. For a government or even a confederation of tribes to stretch out over that much territory at such an early period, when technologies were so primitive and population densities were so low, is surprising.
@@AminCad And even more difficult over land, seafaring groups could travel farther.
wonder if they had "Arrow" laws in effect yet, na, arrow lobby too strong
Possibly these were the inhabitants of two rival towns. In Mesoamerica there were civilizations able to field large armies wielding weapons of stone and volcanic glass.
Thats around the time where war in europe became a option. In stone age before the agricultural revolution people lived in small groups and war was impossible. After that there was actually somthing to fight about.
Great work, man! As student of both history and political science I find this absolutely fascinating. It shows that the organizational skills and level of this period of Bronze Age Europe most likely was lot more advanced than previously thought. If you know of any papers etc written about this find, please share the links. Keep it up!
Indeed, our ancestors were as adept at killing each other as more modern people.
There are a bunch. Here's the Google Scholar page which includes the academic journal/papers/books/other credible sources. Some aren't but most are in English scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C44&q=tollense+valley&btnG=
When were human "Peaceful " in our history .
anatoli p expand your time frame out a hundred years and that changes
This tollense valley in 1300 BC was the border of coltures nordic , lusatian , urnfield .
Same time frame roughly as Troy and the invasion of the Sea People into the Middle East.
Imagination running wild with predictions, could this battle have been a largar part of a cause for the Sea People migration?
@@dohnjoe4100 I think the women and children could indicate the movement of a people, as described by the Egyptians in their description of the Sea People.
Maybe genetic studies will help.
Pecu Alex Maybe the Cause was an earlier edition of Algore’s apocalypse, still caused by manmade CO2, of course. LOL!
Yes, if you consider the French revolution as roughly in the same time frame than the actual war in Siria. To be fair, maybe they are much closer than that, or may be they are even more far apart in the timeline, just a friendly reminder.
World war 0?
Found your channel from the video you did on the Nordic bronze age. I've been digging into Nordic history recently and I'm just blown away by the depth and production quality you put out. Keep it up!
The site of a battle dated 1250-1300 BC. it is located about 100 km from today's Polish-German border, at an altitude slightly above Szczecin.
Analyzes of DNA polymorphism and the content of strontium, carbon and nitrogen isotopes in the teeth were interpreted as an indication that many of the fallen most likely came from areas distant or very distant from Tollense, even outside the Central European Plain. Some of them allowed themselves to be associated with today's southern Europeans and people living in contemporary Poland and Scandinavia. The later publication is more cautious, which points to the diversity of the struggling in origin and diet. The fact that the research indicates that some of them consume millet is not a proof of their southern origin, because the grains of this grain were found in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern in a settlement from the Bronze Age, dating back to the 15th century BC; There are also known burials from this area and period with analogous results of isotope analyzes. He agrees, however, based on the sheer number of combatants that this could not have been a purely local conflict, and suggests further research that should shed additional light on the issue. The results of a study published in 2019 based on the isotope composition of strontium, lead, oxygen and carbon have distinguished two main groups of dead in the Tollense Valley. The local group is rather homogeneous in terms of provenance and diet. The non-local group appears to be more diverse, suggesting a rather mixed group of backgrounds. The origins of the non-local group are difficult to distinguish in terms of the available isotopic data. The widely varying isotope signatures of some non-local individuals suggest that the non-local group included a diverse group of fighters. The lack of results for the ratio of 87Sr / 86Sr isotopes above 0.720 suggests that the warriors did not come from the Scandinavian Peninsula. While it is not possible to establish the origin of non-local deceased, most of the evidence points to the territory of modern Bohemia as a probable location".
It's a shame we'll never know the story behind this war, which must have been every bit as epic as the Homeric legends of the time.
it may well have been preserved in "myth" (so called). the aesir and the vanir?
@@timetravellerregisteredtra850 Probably as long as the winners' culture survived in any way or form. Because a thousand years without letters is a long way to go...
but there may have been
written language just unacknowledged
@@Flex2212
@@timetravellerregisteredtra850 Maybe but then again probably not.
ogham? runes? the "calendar" marks? oral tradition with tallysticks? standing stones with "markings"?
personally wherever there is war I look for the hidden hand of the Phoenicians.
@@Flex2212
Fascinating. I like your style. Like a BBC documentary minus a talking head (a positive). I hope they figure this one out.
BBC is no better than History Channel with everything dumbed down.
If it were BBC the people would have been diverse with black people everywhere
@@stevenpaddybwoy cry me a river 😂
One of your best videos to date. The writing was almost poetic.
The writing seems lifted sometimes word for word from Wikipedia
What was going on around 1200BC? We had the 'long rains', collapse of the Eastern Med empires, Fall of Troy and Tollense. It has to all be connected even with the miles between each considered.
Wow, very fascinating. Thanks for the upload.
Ppl of the north have always been warriors and I’m sure that there was a lot more ppl here and a total different history than we think there was.
Thank you for this great video.
Jan Pålsson too bad they couldn’t write yet
These kind of discoveries should teach us not to rely too much on current historical theories and allow for room for growth...like Toynbee says, in order to cultivate river valleys, a drastic amount of coordinated effort is required, meaning it's likely people already had the ability to do so when they settled those regions... nor are those regions entirely possible to live in for people who havent taken the means to shape the environment to allow for mass cultivation. Toynbee argued that river valleys were not the birthplaces of civilization as we know it, and that even the way we define civilization is problematic.
I dont se why it is likely that ppl who settles in river valleys already had those abilities.. It is not like you have to have a complete set of skills to survive there , or near there. I think it is possible to live near there, hunt gather, and gradually learn what you need. Most lijkely, in my opinion, ' civilizations' do not appear out of thin air. One might change overnight, relatively speaking, as new technology is traded / discovered and or some kind of revolution takes place. Like the horse indians. native amreicans.
There's better agriculture methods than the ones that turned city-states and their eventual empires into wastelands.
wrong. The settlement of the US west is an example
@Pecu Alex
Your so right, but unfortuanly archeology is so dogmatic since it needs to fit the narrative the powers that be want us to follow.
PLEASE! over 40% of the people in my country do not believe in science at all and think the planet was created in 6 days. Global Warming is a myth created by scientists to make themselves rich. Over 20% are not sure we actually landed on the moon. And half could not tell the difference between an obnoxious, egotistical female in a pantsuit and an outright fraud and criminal. How about we start with "baby steps" first?
Incredibly insightful video! Thanks so much!
I must say I think what you do all alone, is incredible.
Beautiful photography and excellent narration. Thank you for this creative presentation of fascinating history.
This seems like it has great potential for the basis of a work of historical fiction.
A real-life Conan-type story. It sounds like a winner to me.
Another amazing video and narrative. Thank you for your hard work on gathering this information for us to enjoy!
I know everyone has their own preferences for how they like their history presented but this channel is, for me, the perfect presentation and I just love it.
Fascinating, I haven't heard about this.
Given the location and types of weapons used I have to conclude this must have been a conflict between the Hansa Rostock and St Pauli tribes.
Absolutely fascinating video. Thank you for making it!
Exceptionally well done, very high quality and interesting, thank you
The history of Mankind. This war, that war, the other war: this weapon, that weapon, the other weapon
Great video. I’ve said it for years. God only knows the history that is long lost. We know little of what went on in Europe. It’s a shame though. The struggles,heroes,good men or bad. We will never know.
Yes it is astounding how much conversation about history in general is about what we know yet we do not even understand much of what happened during the last decade! We know nothing about history of "people without historians" and even them weren't scientists for the most part but portraying reality to someones liking (thinking of the Romans or Genghis Khan's scrivener etc.)
There is far too much deduction going on especially in prehistory and it very often doesn't make much sense. What do you think? Is it a general problem of how science work? ...
Flex2212 it’s more of a propaganda tool to alter the physiological make up of the host population. Change the past to influence narratives of the future. They don’t want the truth or care about it. They need the history to reflect a narrative that suits the direction of where they want us to go in the future.
Perfect example is Egyptian archaeology. The oldest classes of rulers resemble European blonde/blue eyed type. Fast forward today, that narrative does not sit well with the brown Arabic population of today. A minor example.
@Imagination Is Power It was a very different time and you are completely foolish if you think humans have risen above any of that. We had the bloodiest war in human history not even a hundred years ago, we're one massive catastrophic event away from going back to our darker tendencies. Blaming every ill on religion is foolish and shows you aren't thinking in the context of the times and how brutal it was to be a human in these times, religion was absolutely necessary to keep people going and you can easily argue it still is.
Well, we do have countless bodies of men and women who died peacefully after erecting standing stones and inventing agriculture. They were the true heroes of our time and their struggles are pretty well known. Shouldn't that be enough?
A well-produced video with a fascinating topic. You have my subscription.
super brilliant upload..thanks man..
Amazing - I was going to recommend this subject as one needing your skills. I almost suggested it on your last film. Seeing this made my day. Puts kettle on...............
Oof, simultaneously fascinating and disturbing.
I really didn’t think that region would have been capable of assembling so many people in one place at the time. Can’t wait to see what else they find here!
It’d be interesting to compare the surviving tools and pottery of the region to see if there was any evidence of a sudden influx of a new culture and population.
Never, assume anything.
no pottery found on the battlefield and they haven't found any settlements in the immediate area as of yet. Not much of any settlement would be left other than firepits and post holes though there might be some wood in those post holes if the ground is and was wet.
Climate in Europe in those times was warmer and wetter than today, especially in north. Thats why was so dense population in southern Scandinavia and north Europe. Also North and Baltic sea had coastline many km far northern then now.
Fascinating history come to light. Thank you for your fine presentation.
Amazing! Never heard of this battle. So good! You’re the best!
I was pretty sure we had record of older battles in Greece and the Mediterranean? Also I could’ve sworn I’d watched a video on what was presumed to be a ~4-5000 year old battle in modern day southern Germany
Really wish we had time travel so we could go back and see this for ourselves 😔
Gets shot whit farroflintw instantly.
@@iplaygames8090 > whit farroflintw
Is this Old English? Are you a time traveler?
How did I not know about this?!
Great video as always man, thanks!
Brilliant. TFS your educated outlooks, hypothesis, and opinions on our history. This is the primary channel for knowledge on RUclips- hands down. I look forward to new episodes from you and your brother on Voices, and for new videos on this fascinating channel. Queen Bee sayin' HowDee! from the heart of the Great State of Texas. Long Live the Queen Bee! (and their central area Texas beekeepers!)
lindybeige did it very well and you filled any detail gaps beautifully, nicely done
@I Like Biscuits why would that be?
Great vid! It's so fascinating to get a snap shot in time from so long ago. Reminds us of how the past isn't really the past. These people led lives every bit as complicated as ours.
Love the topic, great stuff!
Bloody well done, mate
While there are much older depictions of warfare in Europe, those are vague depictions of unknown engagements that could have happened anywhere in the region, while this is an actual archaeological site that states an actual battle taking place at a precise location, so yes, this is indeed the oldest known battle in Europe.
@Jon Goat Do tell.
Battle of Dołęża/ Tollense- there’s nothing to compare it to in the ancient world
4,000 warriors from Central Europe fought in a battle on the site in the 13th century BC
... but half were pent into the deep-flowing silver eddied river, and fell therein with a mighty noise, and the steep channel sounded, and the banks around rang loudly...
(The Iliad of Homer)
There’s nothing to compare it to.” It may even be the earliest direct evidence-with weapons and warriors together-of a battle this size anywhere in the ancient world. "
Thousands of bone fragments belonging to many people have been discovered along with further corroborative evidence of battle; current estimates indicate that perhaps 4,000 warriors from Central Europe fought in a battle on the site in the 13th century BC. As the population density was approximately 5 people per square kilometer, this would have been the most significant battle in Bronze Age Central Europe known so far and makes the Tollense valley currently the largest excavated and archaeologically verifiable battle site of this age in the world.
As Archaeology professor at Aarhus University in Denmark Helle Vandkilde puts it: “It’s an army like the one described in Homeric epics, made up of smaller war bands that gathered to sack Troy”-an event thought to have happened fewer than 100 years later, in 1184 B.C.E. That suggests an unexpectedly widespread social organization, dr. Detlef Jantzen (Leiter Abteilung Archäologie Landesamt für Kultur und Denkmalpflege Mecklenburg-Vorpommern) says. “To organize a battle like this over tremendous distances and gather all these people in one place was a tremendous accomplishment,” he says.(...)
Ancient DNA could potentially reveal much more: When compared to other Bronze Age samples from around Europe at this time, it could point to the homelands of the warriors as well as such traits as eye and hair color. Genetic analysis is just beginning, but so far it supports the notion of far-flung origins. DNA from teeth suggests some warriors are related to modern southern Europeans and others to people living in modern-day Poland and Scandinavia.(...) It’s a highly diverse population.” (...)
And yet chemical tracers in the remains suggest that most of the Tollense warriors came from hundreds of kilometers away. The isotopes in your teeth reflect those in the food and water you ingest during childhood, which in turn mirror the surrounding geology-a marker of where you grew up. Retired University of Wisconsin, Madison, archaeologist Doug Price analyzed strontium, oxygen, and carbon isotopes in 20 teeth from Tollense. Just a few showed values typical of the northern European plain, which sprawls from Holland to Poland. The other teeth came from farther afield, although Price can’t yet pin down exactly where. “The range of isotope values is really large,” he says. “We can make a good argument that the dead came from a lot of different places.” (...)
... strong evidence suggests this wasn’t the first battle for these men. Twenty-seven percent of the skeletons show signs of healed traumas from earlier fights, including three skulls with healed fractures. “It’s hard to tell the reason for the injuries, but these don’t look like your typical young farmers,” Jantzen says.(...)
Standardized metal weaponry and the remains of the horses, which were found intermingled with the human bones at one spot, suggest that at least some of the combatants were well-equipped and well-trained. “They weren’t farmer-soldiers who went out every few years to brawl,” Terberger says. “These are professional fighters.” (...)
https:/www.sciencemag.org/news/2016/03/slaughter-bridge-uncovering-colossal-bronze-age-battle
Interesting and Thought provoking! Cheers
Another excellent addition to your work!
I love how willfully ignorant a lot of historians are, they find something they don't understand or especially something that goes against mainstream theories and just arbitrarily label it "for religious purposes" or "ceremonial".
Know, O prince, that between the years when the oceans drank Atlantis, and the rise of the Sons of Aryas, there was an Age undreamed of, when shining kingdoms lay spread across the world like blue mantles beneath the stars -
Hither came Conan the Cimmerian, black-haired, sullen-eyed, sword in hand, a thief, a reaver, a slayer, with gigantic melancholies and gigantic mirth, to tread the jeweled thrones of the Earth under his sandalled feet...
Thats the best character description ever written. And its done in a single sentence.
@Nerdy Geek I think Robert E Howard once wrote that he felt the spirit of Conan standing over him, sword in hand, threatening to cut hi head of if he stopped writing...
Dr Jung, Dr Jung... paging Dr Jung... your 3:30 appointment is here...
This was bronze age...Conan was iron age.."You can't trust the Gods, but you can trust steel"
@@joshmaxwell7968 Hyborian Age actually
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hyborian_Age
Wow, the landscape and the river is amazing!
Thanks for this video keep them coming :)
Yet another fantastic vid! Love your work.
Anyone think this could be a battle between Proto-Germanics vs pre-indo-Europeans?
it probably wasn’t a battle, more like a last stand. lindybeige did a video on it a while back.
No!
Maybe... Maybe able to find evidence of it in mythology such as the merging of the aesir and vanir or other myths I'm less familiar with
I think it is a bit too early to make a division between Germanics and Celts at this point in time, but it sure may be Indo-European invaders that brought some religious and linguistic concepts into Europe. But I am much less sure there was some total genetic replacement. Perhaps these were what was later called the Aesir gods, with later merged with the local Vanir. Who knows, the commander may have been called Odin/Voden/Wotan.
Probably not. The Indo-European Corded Ware Culture is archeologically attested in mid-3rd millennium BC Hälsingland, Sweden (Ölsund man) as well as Lofoten, Norway and Eulau, Sachsen-Anhalt, Eastern Germany. I.e. in the late neolithic. The Tollense finds are later, dating to the bronze age
This is really quite interesting and very well done. Hopefully the funds necessary for a thorough investigation of the site/area will be forthcoming. Cheers!
This is very well made and interesting. Thank you.
Hallo from Denmark again . Bravo sir another great video . Again this does not come as huge suprise to me . Because the Trade routes from Denmark went straight through that area . If you as local ruler controlled the routes . That brought huge power and prestige .Because there was no things like police back then . If merchants carried came by with things of high value. They were in danger of being attacked. So as local ruler you coud offer protection and armed escort in excanche of protection tax (If merchants came through your area with 10 bronze bars . Then by paying you 2 bars . They woud get a armed escort through you territory).. So wars were fought over control of Trade routes. And of course also in Germany for control of Trade routes (and properbly Denmark too). Now lets get to trade routes. From Denmark things like Baltic amber, tools wool were brought South via ships or Trade caravans to Germany and sold . Scandinavian amber had great value. Almost as gold , silver or gems. Then through middlemen amber was brought down southern Italy. Where mycenean Greek Trade woud Pick it up and sell it in eastern Mediterranean sea in places like egypt, syria etc.... Scandinavian amber has been found in Royal tombs in Greece as part of jewlery, in egypt and north of Syrien Capital damascus. Now mycenran Greece was known producer of luxery goods ... Mainland Greece is 80-90 procent mountains. So there a few areas where crops like wheat and grain Can grow... But Greece is perfect for growing grapes and olives. So olive Oil and Wine were ancient Greece biggest exports. The greeks also imported are matrials and reworked them into somthing Else for exports. Egyptian sources mentions mycenean Greece as place where they imported beer from . So with imported barley(and licoal proced). Bronze age greeks produced beer and sold it down in egypt. But they also produced goods for curtain markets. Mycenean pottery in syrisk design has been found. And was to be sold in syria ... Now greeks imported tons of copper, tin , bags of wheat and grain from egypt and the Black sea region . The copper and tin was reworked into bronze bars and weapons . And Greek ships then brought that to southern Italy. Where they sold their goods and bought amber ... The Greeks also sold glass from egypt . Blue Egyptian glass pearls has been found in Denmark . And from the Trade goods like bronze was back up to Germany through middlemen . And in Germany danish Trade caravans woud them Pick up the and transport them back north . Where they sold localy or exported into the rest of Scandinavia to places like norway or sweden via Trade ships . Bronze produced in cyprus has been found in sweden . Denmark was the gate to Scandinavia in the bronze age .... So properbly the war was fought over control of the Trade routes . Huge profits coud be made from international Trade with Mediterranean World South of alps ...
If this event is related to control of trade routes in my mind it places it in the same class as any of the conflicts that happened around Troy.
@@mpetersen6 Speaking of Troy in Anatolia (now Turkey), I'm very skeptical about this video's claim that this is Europe's earliest known battlefield. Surely there's at least one in Greece dated to the Mycenaean period?!
@@ericconnor8251 2 months late, but this happened during the same time as the Mycenaean empire existed so it is technically dated to their period they may of even heard of this happening in the north and thought nothing of it. These guys probably traded with people from Mycenaea as this guy was saying.
@@ericconnor8251 This battle happened when the Mycenaean empire existed, they may of even heard of this battle in the north and thought nothing of it, in fact the Mycenaean's probably through indirect means traded with these guys or people in their area.
I live near the Tollense on Rügen :)
Great vid. Ty for sharing.
Interesting video as always
Remarcable.
A battle that far north and with those numbers really shouldn't even be possible!
I believe it was a battle between the migrating peoples of the Indeo Europeans and the original inhabitants
@@randomname5083 That is a possibility It could also have been Celts being pushed out by Germans.
But your theory has a lot of merit to it... It would make sense though some of the artifacts looked similar to for example helmets that various Celtic peoples would use later... It could have been from this unknown tribe they got it from...
@Superfly29rr Yep and in Sweden the regime are melting down iron age artifacts like junk...
@@fredgarvin9262 Not even remotely likely as Polacks didn't even exist yet as the slavs were nowhere near migrating there at this time.
probably not even Germanic had started any major migrations yet.
@@Fenris77 "Polacks didn't even exist yet as the slavs were nowhere near migrating there at this time." Why do you present lies/unproven theories as facts?
This seems to me like it could have been a battle between the locals, a settled farming community of original Europeans coming together to fight invaders, specifically, horse riding invading Indo-Europeans. Even the genetics suggests so. We know that today's Basques and Sardinians are the closest descendants of the original Europeans, thus why some of the DNA is closest to those people. It doesn't mean that the invaders were from the south. More than likely that DNA is of the natives, while the DNA related to the Slavs is that of the invaders since they are are the closest descendants of the original Indo-Europeans.
Hello :) I agree with you. This is not the first time I have come across a similar explanation. Your thoughts speak to my Slavic "head". Best regards from Gdańsk :)
They sampled the DNA of the human remains found there and they most closely matched that of the modern day 1. Poles then 2. Scots then 3 Austrians. So it is possible what you have suggested about Indo-Europeans invading the lands of the original Europeans, or it was some type of a border skirmish between the three cultures bordering there. Indo-Europeans invaded 2000 BC, 700-800 years before this battle took place, so it was either a late-stage of this invasion, or perhaps the other way around, the Scandinavian tribes pushing south on lands held by the Slavic tribes for several hundred years. In the aftermath it seems the Scandinavian Vandals came to dominate much of this area with the Slavs pushed back east into Belarus and Ukraine. Who ever the defenders were, they must have lived there since around 1900 BC when the bridge was built.
Excellent video really enjoyed it
WE GUNNA LEARN AGAIN TODAY!!!! Man this is insane can you image being the people who find this how awesome that feeling had to be. Great job again on the video!!
Why are people never happy just staying where the hell they are at? Nothing has changed
harsh weather conditions, war spillovers, famine, disease, overly densed population. lists goes on. stop commenting stupid stuff
Why? Its our destiny, next we will conquer the stars.
Why assume a casualty rate of 30%? It seems entirely possible they were massacred to the last man
Assuming a casulty rate of 20-25% really is a huge assumption to make - casulty rates fluctuate profoundly from conflict to conflict. That being said we can assume that if there are 750-1500 dead, likely more than double that number took part in the battle as the victors casulties in this day and age is probably be fairly low in comparison to the defeated.
That being said: How many of the dead were part of which camp? Did one side lose 100%, the other only a minor number with a total wipe out for one faction? 2500-4000 people might be a good estimate then. Was it a clash that resulted in casulties for both sides but didn't have a decisive outcome? Then we might look at vastly greater armies.
And it would be interesting to hear how many children and women were found - and if there were also the bones of old people present. More of those indicate a decisive defeat for one faction, presumably in their own settlement.
Great stuff, keep up the good work
Amazing job, as usual
Excellent work. So professional. Great narration, nice science, and engaging. I give you 92%. ;)
I hope they can get some DNA. By now, everytime I hear of new archeological finds, which is regularly, I always say "I hope they can get some DNA." That would really shed new and interesting light on this find.
Another Elvis commented:
DNA analysis:
eurogenes.blogspot.com/2017/10/tollense-valley-bronze-age-battle.html
Isotope analysis:
www.academia.edu/34119122/Multi-isotope_proveniencing_of_human_remains_from_a_Bronze_Age_battlefield_in_the_Tollense_Valley_in_northeast_Germany
@@mrid5850
Thanks!
@@mrid5850 thank you very much!
@@mrid5850 conclusion:
non local combatents DNA did not come from scandinavia. possible origins might be bohemia but it's not entirely clear.
Wonderful presentation. Thank you for your time and talent!😊
Great stuff, keep up the good work. I studied German history and literature and had never heard of this site. Wonderful!
Strictly speaking this battle isn't part of German history - during that time the Germans hadn't crossed over to Europe from Scandinavia (had they even reached Scandinavia then?) so the people that fought this battle must have been Slavs, Celts or Baltic people.
The presence of large numbers of horse in the absence of chariots would indicate that they were used as cavalry which in itself is remarkable because the advent of cavalry was thought to have come into use nearly 500 years later with the Assyrians if my memory serves me correctly. Pretty amazing really.
Unless the horses were part of the food supply, that is always possible.
the chariot could be made of plant materials, soaked in water for a long time; i don' think they can still be recognized by now..
@@oldrabbit8290 So you're suggesting more than likely these horses were used to move chariots or maybe utilized as pack animals? I hope more excavations are done at this site.
@@RobbyHouseIV It could be chariot, mounted infantry (like Nordic nobles during the Viking Age), or proper cavalry - i can't really say anything, since i don't have much information about this battle outside a Wikipedia article.. Or they could simply be butchered to feed the army before and after the battle (a feast?); it makes sense to eat the pack animals once you've eaten all the grain they carried.
For now, it's hard to know how many horses take part in the battle.. While we found the bones of about 140 humans, the horse bones belong to about 5 individuals.. ~50? horsemens is simply not enough to function as a cavalry force, especially again a few thousands strong enemy..
So cool. Thank you for sharing a completely new (to me, anyway) topic.
You have the perfect voice for this type of video👌 as always, amazing content!
So interesting. Thanks.
Nordic Bronze Age mega-mystery. Outstanding!
*Germanic
I thought the first battle was shown in Kubrick's film 2001-the battle of the muddy hole.
This made me fucking laugh. What an absolutely appropriate comment. 👍👍👍
Ah but that was in Africa
@@thatguy6919 -correct-it also implies we
became human the moment we realized we could use tools to kill off other rivals.
Stunning video like always. After finding content like this I only have the TV on for my dogs 🙃. Amazing retelling of so much history and archaeology 😍. Definitely my favourite channel on RUclips.
I just subscribed. I love your channel. Very well done and interesting documentaries. Written well and you have a great voice for narration.