Déposer les armes : quelles modalités d’abandon pour les épées de l’âge du Bronze dans les sociétés atlantiques et nord-alpines ?

Swords are amongst the most significant objects of the Bronze Age. Beyond their defensive function, they have a developed symbolic dimension, which seems of great importance in Bronze Age society. Swords represent rightly or wrongly, the warrior figure. Swords change and develop during the Bronze Age, with a greater variability and an increasing frequency. In this paper, we aim to examine the discovery contexts of these objects and to observe the rhythm and the patterns of their occurrences in the land hoards, as wet finds and as funerary deposits. Through this very symbolic object, we want to question the visibility of the warrior, which varies greatly through time and space: sometimes omn…