Mortal wounds : the human skeleton as evidence for conflict in the past / Martin Smith.

Includes bibliographical references (pages 269-285) and index.

1. 'I See Dead People': The Human Body as Archaeology -- 2. The Fragile Body: Recognizing Injuries to the Skeleton -- 3. The Earliest Times: Violence in the Deep Past -- 4. Rolling Back the Temporal Frontier: Modern Humans and the Origins of War? -- 5. Out from the Cold: Mesolithic Hostilities? -- 6. 'The Children of Cain': Conflict in the Neolithic -- 7. Cutting-Edge Technology: Violence in Bronze Age Europe -- 8. Out of the Shadows: The End of Prehistory -- 9. Imperial Anger: Violence under Roman Rule -- 10. 'The Judgement of God': Violence in Early Medieval England -- 11. 'The True Son of Gentle Blood': The High Middle Ages to the Renaissance -- 12. The Shock of the New: The Changing Face of Violence.

Martin J Smith argues that the study of human remains is the purest, most reliable and unbiased source of evidence for the reality of conflict in the past. He outlines its value to the new science of Battlefield Archaeology and the wider understanding of historical conflict. He outlines the processes used in examining osteological remains to unlock the clues about what the combatants endured. Drawing on case studies spanning the millennia, the author shows how skeletal remains can often tell us, in chilling detail, exactly what a warrior suffered in his final moments (though often the evidence of healed wounds from previous battles is just as striking). This enriches our understanding of the human experience of battle as well as providing scientific data on the effects of various weapons on the human body. This is a book written with scientific rigour by a leading archaeologist but it will appeal equally to students of archaeology and the military historian with an interest in the brutal face of battle. -- Source other than Library of Congress.