An Experimental Approach to Prehistoric Violence and Warfare?

Despite the wealth of recent research into prehistoric warfare, our knowledge of how early weapons were handled and used in combat encounters remains limited. The Bronze Age Combat Project aims to investigate the problem through a combination of wear analysis of prehistoric swords, spears, and shields from various UK museum collections and through extensive, rigorous field tests with purpose-built replica weapons. The chapter discusses the multidisciplinary research approach devised by the team. The focus is on the development of our research methodology and experiments. We review our experimental methodology in the light of previous tests with replica weapons and highlight the advantages and shortcomings of our own approach to weapon testing.