Headhunting, Migration, and Ancient DNA in Iron Age Europe: Interview with Professor Ian Armit
Tides of History
The Origins of Head Hunting
Head hunting shows up everywhere, everywhere. It's not a timeless thing, it's not one size fits all kind of interpretation. We have good evidence that head hunting is associated with communal festivities in the early part of the Iron Age. And then over a few hundred years, as that particular Iron Age society becomes much more hierarchical and builds into a much more developed polity, we start to see this iconography of individual warriors with severed heads. Instead of being a symbol of communal fertility, it starts to become mediated through these sort of heroic warrior figures who are clearly imposing themselves on that society. So we can trace changes as we go through the periods.
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