According to a recent study, violence and fighting were widespread in many Neolithic communities across Northwest Europe during the period ᴀssociated with the adoption of farming.

Examples of blunt force trauma in Neolithic crania from Northwestern Europe: (A) Belas Knap, England (unhealed); (B) Schöneck-Kilianstädten, Germany (healed); (C and D) Halberstadt, Germany (unhealed). Credit: PNAS (2023)

Archaeologists discovered weapon injuries in more than 2300 early farmers’ skeletal remains from 180 sites dating from around 8000 to 4000 years ago.

Contrary to the view that the Neolithic era was marked by peaceful cooperation, the team of international researchers says that in some regions the period between 6000 BCE to 2000 BCE may have been a high point in conflict and violence with the destruction of entire communities

The findings also imply that the rise of growing crops and animal herding as a way of life, rather than hunting and gathering, may have laid the foundation for formalized warfare.

Human skeletal remains from Denmark, France, Germany, the United Kingdom, Spain, and Sweden were studied using bioarchaeological techniques.

The team collated the findings to map, for the first time, evidence of violence across Neolithic Northwestern Europe, which has the greatest concentration of excavated Neolithic sites in the world.

The researchers from the University of Edinburgh, Bournemouth University, Lund University (Sweden), and the OsteoArchaeological Research Centre in Germany analyzed the remains for evidence of injuries caused predominantly by blunt force to the skull.

More than 10% showed injuries that might have been caused by frequent blows to the head by blunt tools or stone axes. Several cases of penetrative injuries caused by arrows were also discovered.

Some of the injuries were linked to mᴀss graves, which could suggest the destruction of entire communities, the researchers say.

“The study raises the question of why violence seems to have been so prevalent during this period. The most plausible explanation may be that the economic base of society had changed. With farming came inequality and those who fared less successfully appear at times to have engaged in raiding and collective violence as an alternative strategy for success, with the results now increasingly being recognized archaeologically,” said Dr Martin Smith, ᴀssociate Professor of Forensic and Biological Anthropology at Bournemouth University.

Map of Northwest Europe showing archaeological sites with violence-related injuries in Neolithic skeletal remains (red) and settlements/enclosures/mᴀss fatality sites with evidence for collective violence (blue). Credit: PNAS (2023)

Dr Linda Fibiger of the School of History, Classics, and Archaeology at the University of Edinburgh stated: “Human bones are the most direct and least biased form of evidence for past hostilities and our abilities to distinguish between fatal injuries as opposed to post-mortem breakage have improved drastically in recent years, in addition to differentiating accidental injuries from weapon-based ᴀssaults.” —Bournemouth University

The findings are published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

More information: Linda Fibiger et al, (2023). Conflict, violence, and warfare among early farmers in Northwestern Europe, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2209481119