The Bronze Age was the first epoch in which societies became irreversibly linked in their co-dependence on ores and metallurgical skills that were unevenly distributed in geographical space. Access to these critical resources was secured not only via long-distance physical trade routes, making use of landscape features such as river networks, as well as built roads, but also by creating immaterial social networks, consisting of interpersonal relations and diplomatic alliances, established and maintained through the exchange of extraordinary objects (gifts). In this article, we reason about Bronze Age communication networks and apply the results of use-wear analysis to create robust indicators of the rise and fall of political and commercial networks. In conclusion, we discuss some of the historical forces behind the phenomena and processes observable in the archaeological record of the Bronze Age in Europe and beyond.

The bronze cup found in Dohnsen (Lower Saxony, Northern Germany) in the 1950s is an enigmatic artefact that bears striking similarities with the metalwork of the Late Aegean Bronze Age. We provide an accurate review of the primary sources of information on the cup's find history and context, and present the results of previously unpublished chemical and Pb isotope analyses. The latter suggest that the vessel might have been produced from Central European ores, but it represents the metalworking skills of a travelling smith with knowledge of foreign shapes and styles.

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The study of warfare among ancient societies – its nature, scale and impacts – has become an increasingly fertile multidisciplinary field of research in archaeology and related disciplines. This is particularly true for the European Bronze Age, an epoch that has produced iconic arte- facts, architecture, images, and written sources that speak about war and warriorhood. Modern research has made it sufficiently clear that, far from being the singular acts of heroic individ - uals, ancient warfare was common, brutal, and well-organized. However, war, as an extreme form of social interaction, has also been a driver for technological and economic development. From Scandinavia to the Mediterranean, the archaeological record has preserved rich traces of the warrior elite that was instrumental in transforming Bronze Age societies. This body of evidence is being studied with increasingly diverse analytical tools, ranging from use-wear analysis of weapons to forensic analysis of human remains and GIS-based spatial analysis. The following is a summary of author’s research on the multiple aspects and archaeological sources that surround the topics of war and warriors in Bronze Age Europe.