A prehistory of violence: Evidence of violence related skull trauma in southern Sweden, 2300-1100 BCE

Warriors and warfare have become common themes within Bronze Age archaeology the past 10 -20 years. Recent reporting of Neolithic and Bronze Age massacres and battlefields in Germany supports endemic violence in these regions. But what about in southern Scandinavia? This paper explores the evidence of violence related skull trauma from a pooled sample of 257 individuals from 40 different localities in southern Sweden. The results show that there is a relatively large difference in the frequency of skull trauma depending on burial type. Due to the common practice of Early Bronze Age reburials in Late Neolithic gallery graves, the high frequency of trauma in gallery graves and barrows is probably linked to increased violence rates in the Early Bronze Age. The majority of cases are caused by blunt force, and up to 13% of the individuals were affected. Most of the traumata were healed, especially among males. It is probable that the high levels of blunt force skull trauma in southern Sweden mirrors a society with endemic warfare during the Early Bronze Age.