Violence and Warfare in the Nordic Corded Ware Complex: an Interdisciplinary Approach

The News continuously reports acts of violence and warfare, and it seems to be never ending. There are different types of violence; domestic violence, gang related violence, civil wars, and wars between states. Different types of violence affect single individuals differently. There are however patterns of who gets affected, and their interrelatedness.

Is this a new phenomenon or has it always been this way?

In this project, we investigate how common violence has been within the Nordic Corded Ware complex (c. 2900-2300 BCE), in relation to continental Europe.

The purpose is to increase the understanding of how violence and warfare was related to social roles, kinship, and migration.

C. 100 individuals from Sweden and Denmark will be included for analysis and compared to c. 600 individuals from Germany. The project is interdisciplinary.

Through studies of the skeletal remains together with biochemical analyses of isotopes and ancient DNA, we can answer questions of who was at risk of violence, how these individuals were connected to each other and other groups within the Corded Ware complex, and perhaps get insight in how and why these groups were at conflict.

This kind of interdisciplinary approach provides encompassed opportunities for new knowledge about prehistoric warfare, the mechanisms behind violence and warfare, and the importance of violence among groups with a warrior ethos in the dawn of Bronze Age society.