Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-gtxcr Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-23T09:15:10.468Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

A weapon of choice – experiments with a replica Irish Early Bronze Age halberd

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2015

Ronan O'Flaherty
Ronan O'Flaherty*
Affiliation:
Ballyhitt Lane, Barntown, Co. Wexford, Ireland
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

The halberd – a famous weapon of prehistoric Europe – is thought by some to have had a symbolic rather than a functional purpose. To find out if, and how, it might have worked as a weapon, the author tested a replica on a number of sheep's heads, finding it highly effective in administering killer blows. Studies taking off from these experiments show that the halberd probably performed both in fighting and ritual, and in ritualised fighting, during its predominance in the Early Bronze Age.

Keywords

Early Bronze AgeNorth-west Europeexperimental archaeologyconflicthalberdsrock artwarfare
Type
Method
Information
Antiquity , Volume 81 , Issue 312 , 1 June 2007 , pp. 423 - 434
Copyright
Copyright © Antiquity Publications Ltd. 2007

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Abelanet, J. 1986. Signes sans paroles: cent siècles d'art rupestre en Europe occidentale. Poitiers: Hachette.Google Scholar
Allen, I.M., Britton, D. & Coughlan, H.H.. 1970. Metallurgical reports on British and Irish Bronze Age implements and weapons in the Pitt Rivers Museum (Pitt Rivers Museum occasional papers on technology10). Oxford: Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford.Google Scholar
Anglo, S. 1991. ‘Le Jeu de la Hache’: a fifteenth-century treatise on the technique of chivalric axe combat. Archaeologia CIX. Brandherm, D. 2003. Die Dolche und Stabdolche der Steinkupfer- und der älteren Bronzezeit auf der Iberischen Halbinsel (Prähistorische Bronzefunde, Abteilung VI, Band 12). Stuttgart: Steiner.Google Scholar
Anglo, S. 2004. ‘Porteurs de hallebardes?“. Varia Neolithica 3: 279–334.Google Scholar
Bridgford, S. 1997. Mightier than the pen? An edgewise look at Irish Bronze Age swords, in Carman, J. (ed.) Material harm: archaeological studies of war and violence: 95–115. Glasgow: Cruithne Press.Google Scholar
Brück, J. 1999. Ritual and Rationality: some problems of interpretation in European Archaeology. European Journal of Archaeology 2 (3): 313–44.Google Scholar
Carman, J. (ed.) 1997. Material harm - archaeological studies of war and violence. Glasgow: Cruithne Press.Google Scholar
Carman, J. & Harding, A.. 1999. Ancient Warfare. Stroud: Sutton.Google Scholar
Chagnon, N.A. 1967. Yanomamö social organisation and warfare, in Fried, M., Harris, M. & Murphy, R. (ed.) War: the anthropology of armed conflict and aggression: 109–59. New York: National History Press.Google Scholar
Chenorkian, R. 1988. Les armes métalliques dans l'art protohistorique de l'occident Méditerranéen. Paris: CNRS.Google Scholar
Davis, R. 2006. Basal-Looped Spearheads. Typology, chronology, context and use (British Archaeological Reports International Series 1497). Oxford: Archaeopress.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Divale, W. 1973. War in Primitive Society. Santa Barbara: ABC-Clio.Google Scholar
Drews, R. 1993. The End of the Bronze Age: Changes in Warfare and the Catastrophe ca.1200 BC. Princeton (NJ): Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Edmonds, M. & Thomas, J.. 1987. The archers: an everyday story of country folk, in Brown, A.G. & Edmonds, M.R. (ed.) Lithic analysis and later British Prehistory (British Archaeological Reports British Series 162): 187–99. Oxford: British Archaeological Reports.Google Scholar
Ferguson, R.B & Whitehead, N.L.. (ed.) 1992. War in the Tribal Zone. Expanding states and indigenous warfare. Santa Fe: School of American Research Press.Google Scholar
Flanagan, L.N. 1966. A bronze halberd from County Armagh. Ulster Journal of Archaeology 29: 95–6.Google Scholar
Fried, M., Harris, M. & Murphy, R.. 1967. War: The Anthropology of Armed Conflict and Aggression. New York: The Natural History Press.Google Scholar
Guilaine, J. & Zammit, J.. 2001. Le Sentier de la Guerre - Visages de la violence préhistorique. Paris: Seuil.Google Scholar
Harbison, P. 1969. The Daggers and the Halberds of the Early Bronze Age in Ireland (Prähistorische Bronzefunde, Abteilung VI, Band 1). Munich: Beck.Google Scholar
Hedges, R.E.M., Housley, R.A., Bronk Ramsey, C. & Van Klinken, G.J. 1991. Radiocarbon dates from the Oxford AMS system: Archaeometry date list 23. Archaeometry 33: 121–34.Google Scholar
Herity, M. & Eogan, G.. 1977. Ireland in Prehistory. Oxford: Routledge.Google Scholar
Keegan, J. 1994. A History of Warfare. London: Pimlico.Google Scholar
Kristiansen, K. 2002. The tale of the sword - swords and swordfighters in Bronze Age Europe. Oxford Journal of Archaeology 21: 319–32.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Louwe Kooijmans, L.P. 1993. An Early/Middle Bronze Age multiple burial at Wassenaar, the Netherlands. Analecta Praehistorica Leidensia 26: 1–20.Google Scholar
Macalister, R.A.S. 1949. The Archaeology of Ireland (second edition). London: Methuen.Google Scholar
Mallory, J.P. & McNeill, T.E.. 1991. The Archaeology of Ulster from Colonization to Plantation. Belfast: Institute of Irish Studies, Queen's University Belfast.Google Scholar
Mount, C. 1991. Early Bronze Age burials - the social implications. Archaeology Ireland 5 (2): 21–3.Google Scholar
Oakeshott, R.E. 1960. The Archaeology of Weapons. Woodbridge: Boydell Press.Google Scholar
O'Flaherty, R. 2002. A consideration of the Early Bronze Age Halberd in Ireland - Function and Context. Unpublished PhD thesis, University College Dublin.Google Scholar
O'Flaherty, R., Rankin, B. & Williams, L.. 2002. Reconstructing an Irish Early Bronze Age halberd. Archaeology Ireland 16 (No.3): 30–4.Google Scholar
O'Kelly, M.J. 1989. Early Ireland. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Ríordáin, S.P, 1937. The halberd in Bronze Age Europe. Archaeologia 86: 195–321.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Osgood, R. 1998. Warfare in the Late Bronze Age of North Europe (British Archaeological Reports International Series 694). Oxford: Archaeopress.Google Scholar
Osgood, R. & Monks, S.. 2000. Bronze Age Warfare. Stroud: Sutton.Google Scholar
Raftery, J. 1942. A bronze halbert from Carn, Co. Mayo. Journal of the Galway Archaeological and Historical Society: 54–6.Google Scholar
Schumacher, T.X. 2002. Some remarks on the origin and chronology of halberds in Europe. Oxford Journal of Archaeology 21 (3): 263–88.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sharples, N. 1991. Warfare in the Iron Age of Wessex. Scottish Archaeological Review 8: 79–89.Google Scholar
Treherne, P. 1995. The warrior and his beauty: the masculine body and self identification in Bronze Age Europe. Journal of European Archaeology 3.1: 105–44.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Väyda, A. 1976. War in Ecological Perspective. New York: Springer.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Waddell, J. 1991. The earlier bronze age, in Ryan, M. (ed.) The Illustrated Archaeology of Ireland: 68–71. Dublin: Country House.Google Scholar
Waddell, J. 1998. The Prehistoric Archaeology of Ireland. Galway: Galway University Press.Google Scholar
Woodward, A., Hunter, J., Ixer, R., Maltby, M., Potts, P.J., Webb, P.C., Watson, J.S. & Jones, M.C.. 2005. Ritual in some Early Bronze Age gravegoods. Archaeological Journal 162: 31–64.CrossRefGoogle Scholar