Bronze Age Swordsmanship: New Insights from Experiments and Wear Analysis

<div>The article presents a new picture of sword fighting in Middle and Late Bronze Age</div><div>Europe developed through the Bronze Age Combat Project . The project investigated</div><div>the uses of Bronze Age swords, shields, and spears by combining integrated</div><div>experimental archaeology and metalwork wear analysis. The research is grounded in</div><div>an explicit and replicable methodology providing a blueprint for future experimentation</div><div>with, and wear analysis of, prehistoric copper-alloy weapons. We present a four-step</div><div>experimental methodology including both controlled and actualistic experiments. The</div><div>experimental results informed the wear analysis of 110 Middle and Late Bronze Age</div><div>swords from Britain and Italy. The research has generated new understandings of</div><div>prehistoric combat, including diagnostic and undiagnostic combat marks, and how to</div><div>interpret them; how to hold and use a Bronze Age sword; the degree of skill and</div><div>training required for proficient combat; the realities of Bronze Age swordplay including</div><div>the frequency of blade-on-blade contact; the body parts and areas targeted by</div><div>prehistoric sword fencers; and the evolution of fighting styles in Britain and Italy from</div><div>the late 2 nd to the early 1 st millennia BC.</div><div>All primary data discussed in the article are available as supplementary material</div><div>(Appendix) so as to allow scrutiny and validation of the research results.</div>