Short answer: No

Longer answer: Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

Answer consistent with the rules of this sub:

The oldest extant shield I am aware of is the Witham Shield. Currently residing at the British Museum. It dates to about the Iron age. 4th century BCE.

Prior to that, we have weapons left over from the stone age. Now, shields obviously go back, based on ancillary archaeological and historical evidence, for a LONG way, but humans have been using weapons for far longer, and have, as far as I know, always used a shield paired with a weapon.

There are some examples of early medieval work where shields DID have spikes put on them, but based on number of finds and ancillary artistic evidence it wasn't a common thing. Shields were mainly something people developed to fight one another, and we have had weapons and used them, for far longer.

In fact, the shield really only sees development once people develop the concept of organized group warfare. Which, in the timeline of developing a civilization, is pretty for in to it.

However, I will caveat this with the fact that most of my expertise lies in the area of European and western civilization and warfare.

There are people here who have more expertise in other areas of the world, and may want to chime in if there is a remote African or Asian group that I missed that in fact forgoes the use of weapons in favor of augmented shields.

However, based on my own knowledge and research I am confident in going back to my earlier answer of no, there has never been a civilization or organized group of warriors that used shields.

The closest that I think has EVER been to it is I think the 17th-18th century Scottish highlanders would charge with broadsword and targe, but along with the targe they held a dirk in the same hand.

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Hope this helps.

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