Arrowheads reveal the presence of a mysterious army in Europe’s oldest battle
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Today, the lush, green valley surrounding the Tollense River in northeast Germany appears to be a serene place to appreciate nature.
But to archaeologists, the Tollense Valley is considered Europe’s oldest battlefield.
An amateur archaeologist first spotted a bone sticking out of the riverbank in 1996.
A series of ongoing site excavations since 2008 has shown that the thousands of bones and hundreds of weapons preserved by the valley’s undisturbed environment were part of a large-scale battle 3,250 years ago.
The biggest mysteries that researchers aim to uncover are why the battle occurred and who fought in it. These are questions that they are now one step closer to answering.
ozens of bronze and flint arrowheads recovered from the Tollense Valley are revealing details about the able-bodied warriors who fought in the Bronze Age battle.
The research team analyzed and compared the arrowheads, some of which were still embedded in the remains of the fallen. While many of these weapons were locally produced, some bearing different shapes came from a region that now includes modern Bavaria and Moravia.
The outliers’ presence suggests that a southern army clashed with local tribes in the valley, and researchers suspect the conflict began at a key landmark along the river.
Back to the future
Scientists are harnessing the power of artificial intelligence to detect hidden archaeological sites buried below the sand of the sprawling Rub‘ al-Khali desert.
The desert spans 250,000 square miles (650,000 square kilometers) on the Arabian Peninsula, and its name translates to “the Empty Quarter†in English. To unravel the secrets of the desolate terrain, researchers are combining machine learning with a satellite imagery technique that uses radio waves to spot objects that may be concealed beneath surfaces.
The technology will be tested in October when excavations assess whether predicted structures are present at the Saruq Al Hadid complex in Dubai, United Arab Emirates.
Separately, an AI-assisted analysis uncovered a trove of ancient symbols in Peru’s Nazca Desert, nearly doubling the number of known geoglyphs, or stone and gravel arranged into giant shapes that depict animals, humans and geometric designs.