Battle of the Tollense River
1249 BCE.
Shown on the map at 53.743°, 13.311°.
The battlefield of the Tollense valley (German pronunciation: [tʰɔˈlɛnzə]) is a Bronze Age archaeological site in the northern German state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern at the northern edge of the Mecklenburg Lake District. The site, discovered in 1996 and systematically excavated since 2007, extends along the valley of the small Tollense river, to the east of Weltzin village, on the municipal territories of Burow and Werder. As of late 2024, excavation was ongoing. Thousands of bone fragments belonging to many people have been discovered, along with further corroborative evidence of battle; current estimates indicate that perhaps 4,000 warriors from Central Europe fought in a battle on the site in the 13th century BC. As the population density was approximately 5 people per square kilometer (13 people per square mile), this would have been the most significant battle in Bronze Age Central Europe known so far, making the Tollense valley the largest excavated and archaeologically verifiable battle site of this age in the world.
Text from the Wikipedia article Tollense valley battlefield, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.