Humans engaged in a large-scale WAR in Europe 5,000 years ago – 1,000 years earlier than thought, study claims

Humans were engaged in large-scale warfare in Europe 5,000 years ago – much earlier than previously thought – according to a new study.

Analysis of more than 300 sets of skeletal remains suggests that dozens of individuals may have been victims of the early period of the war in Europe.

The study pushes the first evidence of large-scale battles back more than 1,000 years, and suggests that periods of conflict lasted for several months in a row.

The warriors used bows and arrows, axes and blades during their bloody conflicts, with many being found with head injuries.

Previous research has indicated that conflicts during this period, known as the Late Neolithic, consisted of short raids that lasted no more than a few days and involved small groups of 20 to 30 individuals.

The assumption has therefore been that early societies lacked the logistical capabilities necessary to support longer and broader conflicts.

To investigate this, a team including scientists from the University of Oxford examined the remains of 338 individuals from a single mass burial site in northern Spain dating back 5,000 years.

They discovered that about a quarter of the individuals had skeletal injuries, and 107 head injuries were identified.

Most head injuries can be attributed to blunt force trauma, which may be caused by axes, wooden clubs, slingshots, or stones.

The researchers also found that the majority of infections occurred in adolescents or adult males, a much higher rate than in females.

The findings indicate that many individuals at the burial site were exposed to violence and may have been victims of conflict.

The relatively high rate of healed injuries also indicates that the conflict continued over several months.

About 50 flint arrowheads were discovered at the same site, in addition to 64 blades and two polished stone axes.

“The individuals killed and buried at (the site) were likely primarily defenders in a scenario in which their settlement was attacked or their lands or resources were raided,” the team wrote in the journal Scientific Reports.

Most head injuries can be attributed to blunt force trauma, which may be caused by axes, wooden clubs, slingshots, or thrown stones.

“The evidence that many of the individuals killed were buried at (the site) indicates, first, that the site of the confrontations was not far from the site and, second, that this defense was essentially successful or at least that there were sufficient military personnel.” The community is alive to bury them.

The authors speculate that there may have been tension between different cultural groups in the region during the late Neolithic period, leading to conflict.

Researcher Teresa Fernandez Crespo explained what life was like 5,000 years ago.

“The Neolithic population of the Rioja Alavesa region, where (the site) is located, were large groups formed with up to a few hundred people,” she said.

Their livelihood depended on growing grains, especially wheat and barley, and raising livestock including sheep, goats, cows, and pigs.

Hunting and gathering may also have played a role, as suggested by the accidental discovery of red deer and boar bones and some acorn shells.

“It was interesting to see how reviewing the ancient skeletal collection deposited in the museum for decades led us to challenge basic assumptions of Neolithic warfare.”

What do we know about the history of the Stone Age?

The Stone Age is a period in human prehistory characterized by the original development of stone tools covering more than 95 percent of human technological prehistory.

It starts with the earliest known use of stone tools by hominins, the ancient ancestors of humans, during the Paleolithic, starting about 3.3 million years ago.

About 400,000 to 200,000 years ago, the pace of innovation in stone technology began to accelerate ever so slightly, a period known as the Middle Stone Age.

By the beginning of this time, hand axes were being made with exquisite craftsmanship. This eventually gave way to smaller, more diverse tool sets, with an emphasis on small tools rather than larger, basic tools.

The Stone Age is a period in human prehistory characterized by the original development of stone tools covering more than 95 percent of human technological prehistory. This photo shows Neolithic jadeite axes from the Toulouse Museum

These toolkits were created at least 285,000 years ago in some parts of Africa, and between 250,000 and 200,000 years ago in Europe and parts of western Asia. These tool sets persist until at least 50,000 to 28,000 years ago.

During the later Stone Age the pace of innovation increased and the level of craftsmanship increased.

Groups of Homo sapiens experimented with various raw materials, including bone, ivory, and antler, as well as stone.

The period between 50,000 and 39,000 years ago is also associated with the emergence of modern human behavior in Africa.

Different groups sought their own distinct cultural identity and adopted their own ways of making things.

Later Stone Age peoples and their technologies spread out of Africa over the next several thousand years.