A huge mass grave in Alava, Spain appears to mark the site of one of the first great battles. Not in History, but Prehistory. For this was the Neolithic, 5400 years ago when there were no books or Youtubers. According to Miguel Criado of El Pais,[1] there are hundreds of jumbled skeletons many bearing trauma wounds; many others probably died of bleed wounds which left no mark on the bones, according to the experts. No monument marks their passing. The Cause for which they died remains unknown.
Did they march to battle singing tribal songs, marking the rhythm of that last journey? Were there elite units of spearmen and bowmen, eager to win glory? Were there reluctant recruits, thinking of families and the girl they left behind? Were the words of the tribal elders still echoing in their minds, with tales of the enemy’s iniquity, and of their own righteousness and good? Let’s hope the tales were worth dying for, so it wasn’t all in vain.
That war is over now, Whatever it was about-land rights, grazing, religious practices- must have been forgotten thousands of years ago. By the time the Iberians of the Iron age arrived, the graves were long overgrown, and they never knew what had happened. And so it was with Phoenicians, Carthaginians, Romans, Visigoths, Moors, Castillians, and moderns who passed over the land in utter ignorance of that day of fear and savagery so long before. Gone. Forgotten. Blown away in the dust of history. Actually, it doesn’t seem to have mattered much at all in the bigger scheme of things.
Will anyone in the Middle East read this?
here’s miguel’s link to the original paper
[2] https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-023-43026-9
#neolithic #war #archaeology
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