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.

[2][3] In 1996, a volunteer conservationist reported finding a humerus bone at the Tollense riverside at low water with an embedded arrowhead made of flint.

[9] Greifswald's Department of Geography examined the geological make-up of the valley and determined the river's former course, and laser scanning was used to chart the terrain surface.

[4] Initially, alternative explanations were considered, in part because "[b]efore Tollense, direct evidence of large-scale violence in the Bronze Age was scanty, especially in this region".

[4] However, the location in a swamp and the lack of any ornaments or pottery made a cemetery unlikely, as local preference at the time was for dry ground burials.

These findings have led archaeologists to conclude that an officer class consisting of bronze-wielding mounted warriors presided over the regular soldiers with simpler weaponry.

Fighters of one of the groups were thought to have come from a distant region, as they had a diet including millet, which was allegedly not widely known in the North at that time, but this latter claim has been refuted.

Palaeogenetic and strontium analyses were used to shed further light on the combatants' geographical origin[22] but revealed no decisive evidence, according to State Archeologist Jantzen.

A cluster of 31 bronze artifacts was found on the river bed, with the items so close together that it was believed that they had once been in a box or bag which had since rotted away.

[23] It has been speculated that a better-armed group from the South or West wanted to cross the river on their way north- or eastwards on a strategic, long-established causeway.

The battle seems to coincide with a period of heightened militancy 3,250 years ago, as metal became increasingly scarce north of the Alps and populations seem to have moved.

[8] The overseeing State Archaeologist Detlef Jantzen [de] claims this to be the oldest archaeologically verifiable battlefield in Europe and one of the 50 most important find sites worldwide.

Helle Vandkilde, archeologist at Aarhus University commented "Most people thought ancient society was peaceful, and that Bronze Age males were concerned with trading and so on [...] Very few talked about warfare.

This would mean that socio-political development in Central Europe was more advanced and more bellicose than previously assumed,[8] roughly at a time when Egypt and the Hittites concluded their famous peace treaty.

"The well-preserved bones and artifacts add detail to this picture of Bronze Age sophistication, pointing to the existence of a trained warrior class and suggesting that people from across Europe joined the bloody fray."

Not long after the battle at Tollense valley, the individual scattered farmsteads of northern Europe were replaced by concentrated and heavily fortified settlements.