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Welcome to www.combat-archaeology.org, the website for the Combat Archaeology Research Project (CARP). This project will explore interpersonal combat from prehistory to the late medieval period in Europe.
Warfare and violence have shaped the trajectory of human societies since the beginning of recorded history and earlier still, with men coming together in numbers unheard of in any other human endeavour. These large scale events were the product of bodies of individuals ranging from conscripts to generals, each of whom brought experiences to and from the field. Focussing on the individual combatant, our aim is to investigate the realm of combat from a practical perspective, with a primary focus on design, manufacture and modes of use of combat weaponry. We approach this from a broad range of techniques ranging from 'physical interpretation' using accurate replicas to micro-structural analysis of original weaponry.
The primary objectives of this project are to elucidate ancient and medieval martial arts (and their social functions), the technological evolution of weaponry, and the experience of the individual warrior or soldier from the perspective of the human body and mind in a combat environment.
Details of our work can be found on these pages and will take the form of seminars, conferences and publications.
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The Cutting Edge: Archaeological studies in combat and weaponry is the first book related to the work of the Combat Archaeology Research Project (CARP). The origins of this book were at the Theoretical Archaeology Group annual conference in the University of Lampeter in 2003, and it includes a further range of papers by leading specialists in the field. Further details of this book can be found HERE.
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Round
Table on Aegean Bronze Age Warfare
Angelos Papodopoulos and Kyriakos Grigoropoulos will be organising a round table discussion on Aegean Warfare to take place in The National and Kapodistrian University of Athens on the
12th and 13th of December 2009.
Further details can be found HERE
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Of central importance to our work is international collaboration and we openly welcome participation from interested parties in the development of research agendas. With archaeology as a core subject to this project, we will be building a multidisciplinary framework touching on all disciplines dealing with the role of combat and violence in human development and characterisation. Further details on participation in the project can be found HERE
Current participating scholars are based in:
University College Dublin
Liverpool University
The Foundation of the Hellenic World
The University of Vienna
The University of Frankfurt
The University of Amsterdam
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The Combat Archaeology Research Project
