By Andrew CurryBronze swords have been found by the thousands in graves, rivers, and bogs all across Europe. But because the alloy is so soft—and easy to mangle compared with later iron weapons—historians have long wondered whether these swords were battlefield tools or mere status symbols.
Now, a team of archaeologists has staged modern fights with bronze swords to measure the resulting microscopic dings and dents.
Sword-on-sword contact was a “big part” of Bronze Age fighting, they found, done with specific, artful moves that spread from region to region over time.Unlike axes, spears, or arrows, “swords are the first objects invented purely to kill someone,” says University of Göttingen archaeologist Raphael Hermann, who led the new