Aftermath of War in Ancient Societies

Uroš Matić, Vladimir Mihajlović, Uroš Matić, Vladimir Mihajlović

• Publisher: Oxbow Books
• Year: 2026
• Topic: History
• eBook ISBN:
  9798888572474
• Subtopic: European History
• Index: History

Examines the long-term social, biological, and material impacts of warfare across prehistoric to medieval archaeological contexts.

The archaeology of war has often focused on combatants and weaponry, prioritising the conflicts themselves over their aftermath. Yet in today’s world, with ongoing and emerging wars, archaeology must also address the precarity and long-term consequences of armed conflict for all parties involved.

This edited volume examines how the short- and long-term impacts of warfare appear in the archaeological record from prehistory to the medieval period. For the defeated, consequences may include poor diet, ill-health, physical trauma, and higher mortality – visible in bioarchaeological evidence. Victorious communities may benefit from plundered resources, leading to wealth and improved living conditions. Conflicts can also trigger migrations, whether through forced displacement or deportation, well-documented in historical texts but harder to trace in periods without written records. Finally, warfare can leave settlements and landscapes destroyed, rendering them less hospitable.

Understanding the trauma of war requires examining its corporeal and material dimensions. This volume explores who gains and who suffers in the wake of conflict, through case studies from prehistoric Iberia, ancient Egypt and Nubia, Roman Britain and Pannonia, the Middle Danube “Barbaricum”, the Late Antique Balkans and eastern Mediterranean, Viking Scandinavia, and medieval Anatolia.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Contents
• Preface
• Chapter 1 - Aftermath of war in ancient societies: towards a relational approach
• Chapter 2 - Timing, nature, and societal impacts of Late Neolithic warfare in north-central Iberia
• Chapter 3 - Encountering an expanding predatory state: Nubia during and after the first wars with Egypt (ca. 3600–3000 BCE)
• Chapter 4 - Outsourcing precarity in the aftermath of war: import and integration of foreign labour in Late Bronze Age Egypt
• Chapter 5 - The elderly in the aftermath of war: old age, precarity, and ancient Egyptian warfare
• Chapter 6 - Balancing the narratives of Julius Caesar in Kent
• Chapter 7 - What actually happened to Segestani after the Roman conquest?
• Chapter 8 - Roman–Germanic confrontations in the Middle Danube region: a multi-proxy approach towards the war consequences and aftermath
• Chapter 9 - “Fear and looting” in Late Roman Remesiana: disturbing the dead after the Gothic War?
• Chapter 10 - Not on the destruction layer alone! The misconception, misinterpretation, and misidentification of the effects of war in the 6th and 7th centuries eastern Mediterranean
• Chapter 11 - Kennelling the dogs of war. The aftermath of war in Viking Age north-western Europe
• Chapter 12 - Preliminary bioarchaeological results of the first archaeological study conducted on the Battle of Manzikert 1071