Kings of Bronze Age Europe: The Únětice Culture
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- Опубліковано 22 тра 2024
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Over four thousand years ago in the early bronze age, great princes emerged to rule over central Europe. They controlled copper and tin production, creating vast amounts of bronze that made them rich. These powerful rulers also facilitated the amber trade along the so-called Amber Road, transporting the precious material from the Baltic to the civilisations of the Near East. They were so rich they could afford grand burials beneath enormous barrows, their tombs laden with gold weapons and jewellery. To protect their wealth they had standing armies of axe wielding warriors and officers bearing halberds and huge daggers. And they created the incredible Nebra Sky Disc, oldest depiction of astronomical phenomena in the world. This is the story of the Únětice Culture.
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Sources
The Oxford Handbook of the European Bronze Age: amzn.to/3ZXIGh0
Papac et al, Dynamic changes in genomic and social structures in third millennium BCE central Europe (2021)
Haral Meller, Princes, Armies, Sanctuaries the Emergence of Complex Authority in the Central German Únětice Culture (2019)
Penske et al, Kinship practices at the early bronze age site of Leubingen in Central Germany (2024)
Nicklisch et al, Bioarchaeological investigations of the princely grave at Helmsdorf attesting to the violent death of an Early Bronze Age leader (2022)
André Spatzier, The enclosure complex Pömmelte-Schönebeck (2019)
Pavol Jelínek, Interpretation possibilities of the so-called collective graves in the milieu of the Únětice culture
The above links include affiliate links which means we will earn a small commission from your purchases at no additional cost to you which is a way to support the channel.
Thank you
Ancient Europeans for use of artwork: / ancienteuropea1
Únětice village reconstruction by Filip Ševčík: www.artstation.com/seva_3d
Video Chapters
00:00 The Únětice Culture
02:32 MyHeritage
04:20 Origins of the Únětice Culture
07:45 Houses and settlements
09:00 Únětice burial traditions
10:05 DNA and Family Structure
10:58 Pömmelte “Germany’s Stonehenge”
13:04 The Princely Graves
16:52 Bronze Hoards
22:22 Trade and the Amber Road
24:52 Early Bronze Age Europe
26:39 the Nebra Sky Disc
28:09 The Únětice legacy
Buy a DNA kit here: bit.ly/DanDavisHistory_DNA Use the coupon code DAVIS for free shipping. As an added bonus, you can start a 30-day free trial of MyHeritage's best subscription for family history research.
Thanks for watching! Please smash your bronze axe into the like button. Cheers!
not a good idea
Does My Heritage tell you your y-DNA and mtDNA haplogroups?
@@user-eh6fi1yp7n If you've ever had your blood drawn in a doctor's office, your DNA is compromised.
thank you very much for this video:))
They were menalated people
It's a great Sunday morning when Stefan Milo and Dan Davis History synchronize their video drop at the exact same time to the minute.
Oh no, he didn't, did he? Damn 😭
This dude got the vibes
Exactly what I was thinking 😂.. spoiled for choice this morning!
Don't tell Stephen but I watched yours first😅
This my type of guy
Thank you from Únětice, Czech republic 🇨🇿
Ta výslovnost mě triggeruje celý video
@@andyfrolik3961 Ale už je to lepší, od "únetiki" jsme se dostali do Itálie, a Věstonice v jiném videu už má skoro dobře ("věstonica) :D
it's a nice day in 1605 BC and the first thing you hear is that BROPEC will cut down production to keep bronze prices up
UA-cam asked me to rate your comment. I marked it as good and funny.
that probably actually happened.
Thanks, I like your humour 😀. Yes their was even politics with cavemen.
@@GSXK4
Greed ,?
Humans?
Ubiquitous.
that moment when a history youtuber starts talking about a village you lived close to for decades
I also clicked on it because I recognized the village name (actually, I know the beer first!)
Take pics for research
Bronze Age Europe is so fascinating. I really like the stylistic expression of the period. Really wish I could go back and see what it was like, without dying or being enslaved..
ConontheBinarian A shitty day is still a shitty day even if you don't have to wipe your butt with a cob of corn, I promise.
@@cris_ad You get me in quite a mood for the coming monday morning 😩😅.
@@cris_ad It would be a really shitty having to wait around 4000 years for corn cobs to be available for arse wiping ...
ConontheBinarian modern day problems are a different kind of shit, mostly because they're a kind of bad that's mostly man made instead of the natural world doing as it does. the long work days and school sysems are designed with the idea of breaking the spirit and will of it's workers for pre world war factories, but mistakenly the ruling class decided to put their kids through it and now it's all people know. The only thing stopping us from getting the best of both worlds, the materialist ideology that everyone who may be in charge of anything major gets indoctrinated in.
@@clasdauskasburdock then.... 😊
Thank you! I live in Germany and visited the places you mentioned. Also Landesmuseum Halle/ Saale, which i can highly recommend. Very interesting and suitable for the whole Family.
My favourite museum! I love going to their special exhibitions.
Thanks from Poland👍🇵🇱
Videos like this are why I enjoy Dan’s channel. Not many people cover ancient Europe since they don’t have the well known empires like the Bronze Age Middle East but have such fascinating and advanced cultures. Happy Dan is showing these cultures love.
Greetings from Únětice, Dan :-) great work as always. Keep it coming.
Thank you very much.
God bless everyone! Thanks Dan for your hard work! It's really nice to be able to learn about historical eras that are often left out by mainstream history creators.
Thank you so much, that's so nice to hear.
@@DanDavisHistory Very welcome!💪🏻🤝🙌🏻🙏🏻
Thanks Dan, I was looking forward to this video. The Bohemian massif has always been a strategically important fortress. Even in the last war it was called "the arms factory of Europe".
Can imagine, the destruction , visited upon ancient sites by weapons of war in , more recent times. We will never know ,what was lost to us forever,whether by that or all the other ways that time takes its toll. Thank you for your clear and well informed presentation of these ,otherwise unknown people of the past . Keep enlightening us , and bringing all of those who came before back to life ,not to be forgotten.❤as always fascinating !
You always narrate an incredible journey! Thank you, Dan!
You made my Sunday! Like always, brilliant, thank you.
Well, you made my Sunday. Thanks for watching, glad you enjoyed it.
Great presentation of my favourite prehistoric epoch. I was born and raised in the area where this culture thrived (east saxony near the czech border) and I recognised almost all landscape shots. If you're in the area, don't miss out on visiting the Museum of Prehistory in Halle a. d. Saale where the Nebra Skydisk and many of the mentioned hoard finds are displayed. What the author missed to mention was that a major pillar of wealth for the regional powers came from trading with salt. In Halle were natural salt springs where the brine was processed on a early industrial level. It's even in the name of the city Halle where 'Hal' is a indo-germanic word stem meaning salt and also the river Saale is associated with salt with the 'Sal' stem. You find this word roots in other place names like Hallein or Hallstadt all over central Europe where salt was also sourced since the bronze age.
Thank you! Great museum, they do good work. I thought I did mention salt in passing but have talked about this in a few videos now - salt trade in bronze age also thought to increase population growth due to better meat preservation.
History of European prehistoric salt production and trade is on the video list.
I had about 10 mins of footage from Hallstatt for this video but will save it for a hallstatt and/or salt video.
@@DanDavisHistory Thank you, I very much look forward to this 😃! Perhaps you could also mention the different means of salt production in different locations. In Hallstatt as I remember they mainly mined for stone salt, wheras in Halle they used Briquetage (elongated clay vessels) on open hearths to reduce the naturally occuring salt brine.
Wonderful video! 😁
Not that I can find on your channel, would you be interested in eventually covering the Egyptian and Mesopotamian cultures during the Copper Age (or even the Copper Age as a whole?)
Thank you for your efforts, really enjoy the vids.
Much love from Amsterdam ✌️
Thanks for watching!
Absolutely stunning document. I'm history lover from Czech republic and i appreciate that.
Thank you! 👏
Another great video! Thanks, Dan!
i never miss your uploads Dan, much love
Today is AWESOME! Dan AND Stefan? It’s like a mini intellectual Xmas 😂
Woo!
Maybe we we should coordinate our releases more often.
@@DanDavisHistory lol.. that’d be great! .. one of those days that you plan on being unavailable elsewhere 😁..
‘it’s History Sunday ! Of course I’m not attending your function..
the cool history guys on YT are way more interesting by FAR!’ 😜
Thanks a bunch for sharing this with us Big Dog!
Another great video! I actually got a tattoo of the Nebra Sky Disc on my back a couple of years ago to represent my love all all things history and archaeology!
That's a cool idea for a tattoo.
Fascinating! Thank you for these great videos.
Love your work Mr. Davis! Keep it up!
Your vidéos are so good! Please keep them coming sir !
Really looking forward to this when I have the time later today! Thank you for covering a topic from my homeland. And kudos for a better pronunciation today, I watched the intro and you did a good job! ;)
Cheers Dan, another great video
A fantastic adventure is always narrated by you!
Amazing work as usual
Thank you Dan! I just love these videos!
Excellent! ✨ Thank you for your research and sharing this video. ❤
As always Dan, a sumptuous feast for the eyes and ears, your videos are just superb! 👏👏👏 appreciate all the hard work you put into them, they really are wonderful 👌
Love it man. Another great dive into Historical Knowledge. 👏
I love all your videos, Dan.
It was an informative and wonderful historical coverage video about pioneer unetic culture civilization in the Central Europe area ,early settlement of corded ware & bell beaker culture...,shared by an amazing ( Dan Davis history) channel ...thanks for sharing
Great video! I've been down an early Bronze Age rabbit hole lately and this is just the sort of presentation I'm always looking for.
Thank you, My Heritage, for sponsoring the video!!
More like Israel trying to buy the very few good video producers left on UA-cam.
Thank you!!
I'm noting a pattern with these bronze age cultures. They start nomadic with men freely moving to new regions, then by late bronze age they unify into permanent states with immensely wealthy landlord-kings, then it all terminates with cold and dry conditions
The Longhouse strikes again.
Another great explanation and treatment of an important culture of the ancient world. Thanks Dan!
Love your videos. Thank you for continuing to use “BC” and “AD”.
Yo Dan, your vids are awesome. So glad I found your channel
Thanks for watching. I'm glad you found my channel too 👍
As soon as I heard your description of the men's houses, I immediately thought of Beowulf.
Longhouses? Yep
Me too. I am from Spain, and I wonder why archaeologists have recently found "Germanic" longhouses in Madrid. They date back to the year 1100 BC. You can search for more information if you type "Villaverde Longhouses".
@@juancolladocanas4989 are they germamic or celtic?
@@cal2127 Germanic. In fact, their descendents, who are established in the area of "Castilla-La Mancha"some centuries later, are called "The Oretanni Germani" by the Roman historians.
@@juancolladocanas4989 fascinating
One of the best documentaries you've done yet.
I have no theory of my own on the burial of the Nebra Sky Disk but the theory put forward here sounds very plausible. It's tantalising when you have evidence for ancient life but knowing you'll never have definitive proof (unless a time machine is built).
Thank you, pleased to hear it. I started wondering if I'd made it too boring.
@@DanDavisHistoryno such thing. i could watch a 3 hour doccumentary on this stuff if there were that much evidence.
@@DanDavisHistory your core audience likes 'boring'.
We appreciate your work reading the journals and distilling all that into these videos.
Where else can someone learn current archeological progress?
Well done once again.
I really like this video. The use of period documents and lots of maps and photos was great. The artwork was amazing and i prefer all of this relevant material to random stock footage. What a fascinating culture!
Fantastic! Thank you so much for your entertaining and very informative video!
Very detailed
great video
A note of contribution to the sun disk burial with the pairs of objects within in, from a weapons collector. It may not mean much in context of the burial, but a common thing about weapon enthusiasts is owning multiples of certain weapons they really like. The addage typically being "Two is one, one is none." Basically if your primary pistol or rifle gets broke, you have a backup of the exact type. Or maybe you can lend one to a friend if they need one. Or sometimes it's just youre a fan of that weapons system so you just want another just like it. It's a common thing I see among other weapons collectors.
Maybe the person who did that burial sacrifice with the sun disk wanted the burial to be significant, so he gave up both of his daggers. And maybe this was common among most other warriors of his time as well, the one spare dagger usually being the one they'll give for a burial.
my man Dan and his amazing mini documentaries
Fascinating.
Just found your channel, very fascinating. Great to watch on a cold Saturday here in New Zealand 🙂
Thanks for covering these ancient civilizations who never made it into written history. I am German, and I have visited these sites. The Nebra disc is fascinating and beautiful. t's very interesting that it has been altered, and it's original purpose may have been forgotten by it's later owners for whom it might've become a prestige object!
I took a DNA test a couple of years ago, and the result was totally unexpected. I actually know a lot about my ancestors, and the ancestors from my father's side were French huguenots who had left France because they had become the target of violent religious prosecutions. Many huguenot families settled in Kassel since they had been invited to stay by the local rulers. My father's family had lived in Kassel for several hundred years, and their surnames reflect their French roots. I had therefore expected to have a generous amount of West and Middle European genes because that's the area were all of my known ancestors had lived. However, the test revealed that l have no genes at all which would connect me with these areas. I have neither "German" nor "French" genes. 80% of my genes are Scandinavian and the remaining 20% are Slavic and from the Iberian peninsula. This was a great surprise because none of my known ancestors lived in those areas. Some friends jokingly said that my mother might've had an affair with a very attractive young Scandinavian sailor, while my parents were living in Hamburg, which has an important international port, and my father was away on frequent business trips. But since I and also my eldest son are the spitting image of my paternal greatgrandmother, this possibility can be safely excluded 😊 Someone else suggested that a gene cocktail of Scandinavian, Iberian and Slavic genes matches the raiding routes of the Vikings, who went deeply into East European territory with their longboats, and they also surrounded the Iberian peninsula 😊 Who knows? But the Middle European territory which is Germany today, was crisscrossed by many different populations since ancient prehistoric times, and while the routes of these people have never been written down, they left archeological records and they are preserved in our genes. It's a fascinating subject. It also shows how silly Adolf Hitler's idea of pure blooded Germans was!
Good video
Awesome.
Dear Dan
Thank you to exist😊
Great job 👍🏽
Amazing video
Fascinating! Still enjoy your videos a LOT 👍
Greetings from the Netherlands 🇳🇱, TW.
Just finished up at the gym. Perfect time for a Dan Davis video
Absolutely adore your content and your novels!
Any idea when we might get more audio books?
This channel deserves an Oscar!
It would be so fascinating to use a time machine to go back and study these people. Their cultures are so alien to us, yet so very human. Excellent video as always!
Thank you
Hi Dan, thank you very much and kudos to your next fragment of restoration of the early European archaeological history! Please please please keep them coming! I'm only a common man interested in archaeology. I'm working at the intersection of linguistics, brain science, and computer wicca. I naturally took up historical linguistics but used to be sort of dismissive of the link between languages and cultures (Latin all over Europe or Normann French in England as a societal stratum are counterexamples showing that language ≠ culture). There is a correlation on the whole, but what language which culture spoke is more often is a conundrum than not. I was surprised to learn that Anthony's “The Horse, the Wheel and the Language” has received so much critique, entirely undeservedly if you ask me, from both the linguistics and archeology communities. This at times rose to a grotty level: the burials at Sintasha/Arkhanar(sp?) and smaller surrounding settlement so precisely match the funeral ritual in Rig Veda that it at the least should have been at the least interesting to the archeologists... IMO, the studies combining historic linguistics and archaeology are sorely wanting.
1) A question: were the Únětice culture PIE-speaking? The kurgan burials seem to suggest so, if what you're describing are in fact classified as kurgans.
2) A note: It's been known that the trade around the Mediterranean has not developed money at all, all the way until the 12c. collapse. It's so surprising that a culture of a smaller scale had possibly invented _fiat(!)_ money (there's no intrinsic value in these globular clay tokens) centuries earlier, if it's reasonably confirmed. If so, that attests to the great power of the chiefs, as fiat money are trusted only as much as their guarantor.
Rather than money, couldn't they be records of payments, goods quantities, receipts, etc? I think the Sumerians or other early traders from that area had things like that with elaborate systems to show no tampering or substituion takes place.
You ask for comments on the Nebra disk. This comment is about the social nature of ritual of the period, practices that actually had Neolithic origins, but carried over to the Bronze Age due to the nature of the transition, with Neolithic holy sites remaining holy for some centuries in many cases. Ritual sites seem to have been places where people gathered from vast distances, for events taking place at the solstices, and the winter solstice in particular, in spite of the difficulty of winter travel. Travel was by water when possible. A gathering was not always the assemblage of some existing entity such as the land of a high king; rather it was the gathering of many clans or regions (perhaps each clan had a region: Scottish clans did, Scythian clans did not). They participated in the gathering by region, with each region (or clan) having a designated segment of the site. There may have been a high king in some cases, but the clans (or regions) remained important. A holy gathering place was not primarily a residential site, although a few people lived there year round. It was not the high king's great hall. It was not primarily a cemetery. Participants built boothies for the winter gathering. The main ritual activity was a procession. An important person, priest or king or priest-king, arrived (often by water) and went up a processional avenue to a circular site, and then went around it. So outside the outermost ring of posts was the processional circle, and outside that, a barrier between the ritual space and the ordinary space beyond. The ordinary space was divided like the segments of an orange, with each segment belonging to one clan or region. Work to build or improve the site was organized by clan, with each clan being responsible for a section; the splendor of the work was the clan's honor.
The processional way came to the circle from the direction of a solstice sunrise or sunset, and the king or priest arrived just as the setting or rising solstice sun shone on his face. On the cart he rode, was a disk, bright on one side and dull on the other, and at the climax the disk was turned around, or they used two disks, for day and night. The Nebra disk is the night disk.
The point of all this calendar sky-watching was to determine, or set, on which day of the lunar month did the winter solstice occur. This number was carried back home by the participants, and was necessary for the practical functions of a calendar, that is to make appointments and have people show up on the right day. Without a calendar you can't have scheduled markets or religious festivals, and you don't even know whether the coming year will have 12 lunar months, or 13. Determining the date of the solstice is difficult, and if two places both try, they will often set different dates. A single central site must set the date of the solstice, but only a single number, the day of the lunar month that it fell on, needs to be carried back home by each party, for the whole region to enjoy the benefit of everyone using the same calendar.
Awesome as aways.
Thank you.
I had so many dna matches from this area and time, that I wondered what on earth was going on.
Now I know more.
Excellent
Just giving you a heads up, I have bell notifications on, and was not made aware of this video by UA-cam.
That's a shame. Thanks for letting me know.
youtubes largely becoming hostile to smaller non corporate channels.
Same here
@@DanDavisHistoryDan I wasn't notified as well and I have bell icon on.
Can you do a video on the Natufians?
Hi from Germany and thank you for the great video.
Once I visited Poemmelte when they were excavating the site.
Wow that's cool, you are very fortunate.
My father side of the family comes from the area in the centre of the Únětice culture according to this map and a good chunk of my mothers side actually comes from the eastern edges according to the map shown in the video. It’s pretty cool that for once I’m feeling a real connection to a historical topic.
But keep in mind that between them and us modern Europeans there were plenty of other migration waves. I also was born and still live within that area, but I doubt I have much relation to those people.
There were Germanic tribes and Slavic tribes coming in a millenium later, who settled in this area. I'm probably more related to them.
This is a quality video.
Great video thanks interesting wise video info you are amazing story teller and I think everyone agrees and I love science cheers
Interesting to show that the advent of bronze and Unetice go hand in hand, it explains why it is around Bohemia that the culture developed, where copper was easily mined.
Couldn’t have thought of anything better to turn on while making breakfast.
very enjoyable, I enjoy the genetic testing and science, my own Y haplogroup descends from the early Neolithic Farmer peoples of the G2a type, I would enjoy a program on the LBK culture as well, the one on the Vinca Culture was quite good.
Another excellent video, Dan. As I'm watching these I always experience a peculiar feeling of past recognition--- I have no idea what it is. Like during the video you may say, "well, it could be this or it could be that for the reason why this was done"... and I always have an idea in my head that firmly sides with one of the theories.
I ❤ all Your content
I love you dan, youre videos are so well made. I would read transcripts of your vides to my girlfriend when she couldnt sleep, it was so wholesome.
Had a DNA test done recently and, despite my family being in America for around 500 years, I'm still 60% English, 20% Scottish, with the rest split between Germanic, the Netherlands, and Scandinavia. Highly recommend getting this done by a reputable organization, as mentioned by Mr. Davis...and no, I had mine done by a different site, so I'm not trolling. 😊
Unless your family came from one of the few early Spanish settlements, it is probably 400ish years for UK, France, Netherlands, Sweden settlements.
@@mrbaab5932 Nope. Plymouth colony, 1630, and he came from Wales.
@@RaisinBran-ir4iq and even before Plymouth there were immigrants from what later on became the German nation who settled in America and helped found or build some significant settlements.
Do your math again 2030 would be 400 years
@@danielrempel9839 Oops. Yes, that's true. I guess I was more focused on the places and events. Thanks!
Regarding the longhouse with the axeheads buried infront of them: I imagine in times of peace the men were living with their families, in their own houses and farmsteads. Then when war came they met and slept in the longhouse together, to form a bond among the warband and then they'd collectively dig up their weapons, go to fight whichever enemy and then when war was over they'd bury the axes, daggers and their "military insignia" again, thereby ritualistically and also psychologically laying the trauma and violence to rest. When there was a decision to go to war again, they'd repeat the process etc.
And when these cultures slowly transformed or people left their settlements to start a new life elsewhere, this practice was forgotten and so we still can find their war stashes today in some cases.
That's possible.
I have been to Helmsdeep virtually.
I’m so grateful to Dan Davis for teaching us about these great ancient European civilizations. I hope some day the history books will start teaching about Bronze Age Europeans the way that Dan does, rather than just treating them as decentralized barbarians who only existed for the purpose of getting the Eastern Mediterranean “real civilizations” their amber and tin
19:00 - Nicely braided wall texture by the artist.
Great video, as always. I will say, at 11:30 - the press' idea that Stonehenge is a rare example of a solstice aligned enclosure is always silly to me. Henges, in general, have their openings facing the southeast / northwest, or flipped. The many big stone circles of Cumbria, Oxfordshire, Wales, and Ireland, often have openings facing that direction. Essentially, it's the predominant alignment of mid-to-late Neolithic ritual enclosures, observable far more obviously outside the Stonehenge landscape. Not unusual.
Thanks Adam, much appreciated. Generally speaking, the long barrows tend to face (wide end) eastwards too, depending on the local geography. I wonder if their ceremonies in the courtyards took place at dawn and whether that was related to rebirth.
@@DanDavisHistory I think the East / West alignment was predominant in the Early Neolithic. Even unusual monument varieties, like long cairns, share that alignment, as do many m causewayed enclosures / cursus monuments. This, during a mostly wooded period. I think in Britain, at least, there’s a monumental shift in ritual practice around 3200 BC - as stone axe quarries shut down and an Irish influence takes hold along the west coast. The maximum of deforestation may be to blame, as the sky was revealed and began to be revered, as in the continent.
I'm not very into astronomy, but the aesthetic of the disk has always interested me
Thanks
Yeah the aesthetic is incredible, it's no wonder people thought it was a fake / hoax.
Thank you for using BC
Damn, I was not even recommended your latest banger :/. Superb video as per usual though
I'm just starting Godborn 2 from my amazon account. I'm excited.
I just seen my last name on the part where you showed the various surnames. Pearson. Trippy how that shit works.
Brilliant: lots of maps!
I want that guys tunic 😍
Could you do a companion documentaries to this talking about the Tumulus, Urnfield, and Hallstatt cultures?
That's the plan! Might take me a while but they're all on the list.
Hi Dan. After the Peninsula Campaing in 1814, a lot of british soldiers opted to stay in Portugal. Thats one of my familly origens due to a Brandon surname of one branch.
Maybe that also explains those 21% of your Iberian heritage.
Really awesome video, I found the part about their warrior's unit composition really interesting. Was wondering though, is there any evidence of archers or other ranged infantry among the warrior males? The Bell Beaker Culture heavily valued archery, and I find the shift to a more melee focused method of combat quite interesting.
No they dropped the bow and dagger combo and used the Corded Ware style melee fighting but swapped stone battle axes for copper and then bronze axes.
It's hard to know for sure about these things as they only show up archeologically in the burial traditions or hoards. Maybe they used bows but they weren't seen as part of the warrior identity enough to be included in burials or hoards, you know?
Sadly bronze age archaeology in the past heavily concentrated on the metallurgical aspect of the material culture. Also way less settlements from Únětice culture are found and studied than those from the predating and following epochs. When I was studying prehistoric archaeology many years ago I was looking for all the (very scarce) material on non-metalic artefacts of that timeframe. There were definetly many archers around at the time but almost all arrow-heads were still made from flint, although they were perfectly able to craft bronze ones (there are a few examples) but they mainly choose not to. Instead they continued Bell Beaker traditions and styles of flint points. As a matter of fact even the Myceneans used flint and obsidian arrowheads until their late phase either out of practical or traditional reasons. Also flint daggers were a thing in lower rank Únětice graves mimicing the more prestigeous bronze ones. Flint tools and implements for every-day-use continued well into the iron age when metal tools finally became affordable even for simple folks. The study and publishing of stone artefacts of the bronze age is sadly a bit neglected by sholarship in relation to the more shiny metal stuff.
@@DanDavisHistory However we have quite a few finds of flint arrow heads combinded with other weapons and every-day-objects from Únětice grave fields (I just checked Kirschner 2013 "Studies on the finds of the Early Bronze Age Aunjetitz (Únetice) culture of Moravia" and Ernée 2011 "Ausgrabung des frühbronzezeitlichen Gräberfelds der Aunjetitzer Kultur von Prag-Miškovice..." just for reference) so it's not entirely true that evidence for range weapons vanishes from the archaeological record in early bronze age. What, in my eyes, can be observed in contrast to the prior Bell Beaker and Corded Ware era is that grave and grave-goods culture becomes extremely diverse during early bronze age, especially if you compare the stereotypical "Big Men" burial-mound funerals to the grave fields of the "commoners". There you get a wide range of grave forms (with or without wood-coffins / stone lining / stone boxes / bones in clay-vessels (pithos-grave) / cremations etc.) with all kinds of grave-good-combinations where you can't pinpoint at a institutionalised warrior elite but you find a widely diversified grave population which may reflect the social and occupational diversification in civil society which took place during that time which I find most fascinating.
@@DanDavisHistory I replied to your comment but allmighty YT in their unfathomable wisdom decided to delete it, although there were no external links or other incriminating stuff in it. So here I try it again:
However we have quite a few finds of flint arrow heads combinded with other weapons and every-day-objects from Únětice grave fields (I just checked Kirschner 2013 "Studies on the finds of the Early Bronze Age Aunjetitz (Únetice) culture of Moravia" and Ernée 2011 "Ausgrabung des frühbronzezeitlichen Gräberfelds der Aunjetitzer Kultur von Prag-Miškovice..." just for reference) so it's not entirely true that evidence for range weapons vanishes from the archaeological record in early bronze age. What, in my eyes, can be observed in contrast to the prior Bell Beaker and Corded Ware era is that grave and grave-goods culture becomes extremely diverse during early bronze age, especially if you compare the stereotypical "Big Men" burial-mound funerals to the grave fields of the "commoners". There you get a wide variety of grave forms (with or without wood-coffins, stone lining, stone boxes, bones in clay-vessels (pithos-grave), cremations etc.) with all kinds of grave-good-combinations. So you can't pinpoint at a institutionalised warrior elite anymore but you find a widely diversified grave population which may reflect the social and occupational diversification in civil society which took place during that time. That I find most fascinating.