Aftermath of War in Ancient Societies

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. AUTHORS: Uro Matic is a lecturer at the Institute for Classics, University of Graz, Austria and a senior research fellow of the College for Social Sciences and Humanities of the University Alliance Ruhr in Essen, Germany. His main expertise is in war and violence in ancient Egypt, ancient Egyptian interrelations, settlement archaeology, and gender studies in archaeology. Vladimir Mihajlovic is a professor of archaeology at the Department of Archaeology, Faculty of Philosophy, University of Belgrade. His main expertise is in Balkan Roman provincial archaeology, in particular funerary archaeology, social structure, ethnicity and identity studies. 66 b/w illustrations