Conflict Archaeology

In the past two decades, conflict archaeology has become firmly established as a promising field of research, as reflected in publications, symposia, conference sessions and fieldwork projects. It has its origins in the study of battlefields and other conflict-related phenomena in the modern Era, but numerous studies show that this theme, and at least some of its methods, techniques and theories, are also relevant for older historical and even prehistoric periods.

This book presents a series of case-studies on conflict archaeology in ancient Europe, based on the results of both recent fieldwork and a reassessment of older excavations. The chronological framework spans from the Neolithic to Late Antiquity, and the geographical scope from Iberia to Scandinavia.

Along key battlefields such as the Tollense Valley, Baecula, Alesia, Kalkriese and Harzhorn, the volume also incorporates many other sources of evidence that can be directly related to past conflict scenarios, including defensive works, military camps, battle-related ritual deposits, and symbolic representations of violence in iconography and grave goods. The aim is to explore the material evidence for the study of warfare, and to provide new theoretical and methodological insights into the archaeology of mass violence in ancient Europe and beyond.

Manuel Fernandez-Gotz is Reader in Archaeology at the University of Edinburgh, Executive Board Member of the European Association of Archaeologists, and winner of the Philip Leverhulme Prize in Archaeology. His main areas of interest are Iron Age societies in Central and Western Europe, the archaeology of identities and the comparative archaeology of the Roman conquest.

Nico Roymans is full professor of West European archaeology at VU University Amsterdam. His research interests include the social organisation of Late Iron Age societies, the archaeology of Celto-Germanic societies and their integration into the Roman world, ethnicity and ethnogenesis in the Roman Empire and the archaeology of mass violence and genocide.