Archaeologists in Italy have unearthed a Copper Age necropolis that contains nearly two dozen tombs and a collection of weapons.
The discovery was made in November at San Giorgio Bigarello, a municipality in northern Italy, during the construction of a community garden. However, researchers had no idea how extensive the 5,000-year-old burial site was until excavations earlier this year revealed 22 tombs containing human remains. Many of the burials included flint weapons, including daggers, “perfect arrowheads” and blades, according to a translated article in ArchaeoReporter, an archaeology-focused newspaper based in Italy.
People used to own very few items, and it was common for them to have multiple functions. Knives were both a weapon and a utensil all the way into the middle ages. Axes were used to fell trees, build items, and wage war. So yes, a lot of people carried weapons.
I think we would define them as “tools” then, and not weapons. Anything can be a weapon if you use it like one. Calling them “weapons” tells me that these are designed to be used as such.