Breakthrough of the Nordic Bronze Age: Transcultural Warriorhood and a Carpathian Crossroad in the Sixteenth Century BC

Abstract

The breakthrough of the Nordic Bronze Age (NBA) c. 1600 BC as a koiné within Bronze Age Europe can be historically linked to the Carpathian Basin. Nordic distinctiveness entailed an entanglement of cosmology and warriorhood, albeit represented through different media in the hotspot zone (bronze) and in the northern zone (rock). In a Carpathian crossroad between the Eurasian Steppes, the Aegean world and temperate Europe during this time, a transcultural assemblage coalesced, fusing both tangible and intangible innovations from various different places. Superior warriorhood was coupled to beliefs in a tripartite cosmology, including a watery access to the netherworld while also exhibiting new fighting technologies and modes of social conduct. This transculture became creatively translated in a range of hot societies at the onset of the Middle Bronze Age. In southern Scandinavia, weaponry radiated momentous creativity that drew upon Carpathian originals, contacts and a pool of Carpathian ideas, but ultimately drawing on emergent Mycenaean hegemonies in the Aegean. This provided the incentive for a cosmology-rooted resource from which the NBA could take its starting point.

Big-Men and Small Chiefs: The Creation of Bronze Age Societies

“…IB and especially Per. II) we see the breakthrough of the Nordic Bronze Age as also stated by Vandkilde (2014a). Of course, it is difficult to pinpoint social transformations in terms of specific dates; however, it seems that from c. 2000 BC development was accelerating towards the establishment of Bronze Age societies leaving no turning back to the less formalized and less elitist social structures of the Neolithic.…”

“…However, she retains the chronological division into LN I, LN II, and Period IA (Vandkilde, 1993;1996: 263, 294, fig. 134;2014a, 2014b.…”

Branded Axes, Thrown into a Pool? The Hoogeloon Hoard and the Shape‐Based Bronze Economy of the North‐West European Bronze Age

“…We thus are dealing with a ‘ koiné ’ – that is a common, trans‐cultural, visual language – in this case one apparently held in common on both sides of the Channel (cf. Vandkilde and Versluys for the koiné concept; cf. Sørensen for a comparable point without using this term).…”

Horses and the Embodiment of Elite Masculinity in the Dolenjska Hallstatt Culture

“…Horses have long been noted as an aspect of elite male status in many parts of Hallstatt Europe Kmet'ová 2013a;2013b;Kmet'ová and Stegmann-Rajtár 2014). They are often discussed as part of the elite warrior package that developed as a transcultural phenomenon in the Bronze Age, and that continued to be an important expression of elite masculinity in the Early Iron Age (Harding 2007;Kristiansen 1999;Potrebica 2001;Robb 1997a;1997b;Shennan 1993, 144-54;Treherne 1995;Vankilde 2006;2014). I propose that these elite warriors probably represent a hegemonic masculinitythat is, a masculine ideal utilized to maintain a system of privilege (Alberti 2006, 406;Carrigan et al 1987, 89-100;Skogstrand 2010, 40-1).…”