This increasing access to metal, and knowledge of how to transform it, ties together two ends of a spectrum of metalworking activity (i.e. obtaining ore and finished artefacts). However, the social context of who was working metals and where these activities occurred is almost completely missing. This social context needs to be considered with reference to what is currently understood about the social organisation of the Beaker period and Bronze Age in Britain. The archaeological record of the Beaker period and Early Bronze Age is dominated by large numbers of ceremonial monuments and round barrows, with settlements being a rarity or poorly preserved (Brück 2000). By contrast, the archaeological record of the Middle Bronze Age (c.1500–1000 cal BC) witnesses change, with roundhouse settlements often associated with land division in the form of ditched boundaries and stone walls (Brück 2000); Yates 2007) (Table 1).
| Needham Period | Dates cal BC | Description | Principal metalwork forms/settlement evidence |
|---|---|---|---|
| Period 1 | 2450-2200/2150 | Chalcolithic/Early Beaker period | Small copper knives, gold 'basket earrings'. First Beakers and Beaker graves. Lightly built structures few and far between. |
| Period 2 | 2200/2150–1950 | Beaker period | Copper alloy artefacts including Armorico British daggers. Beakers in use, and first round barrows. Lightly built structures few and far between. |
| Period 3 | 1950–1750/1700 | Early Bronze Age 'Wessex I' | Some early Camerton-Snowshill daggers, copper alloy pendants, pins, etc. Faience and amber beads in circulation. Food Vessels, Collared Urns and Trevisker pottery in use. Large barrows constructed, burial predominantly inhumation, but cremation found/preferred in some areas. Little evidence for domestic structures. |
| Period 4 | 1750/1700–1550/1500 | Early Bronze Age 'Wessex II' | Daggers and knife-daggers belong to this period. First copper alloy spearheads. Burials still found beneath barrows, usually cremations. Biconical, Collared Urns and Trevisker pottery found. Settlement structures rare. |
| Period 5 | 1500–1100 | Middle Bronze Age | Palstaves, rapiers, spears. Deverel-Rimbury pottery, Late Collared Urns and Trevisker pottery found. Decline in barrow building. Increase in deposition of metalwork hoards. Widespread evidence for roundhouse settlements and field systems. Some structural deposition of metal artefacts within roundhouses and enclosures. |
| Periods 6-7 | 1100–800 | Late Bronze Age | Swords, socketed axes, spears, shields. Plain ware pottery styles. Some human remains deposited into rivers, large-scale deposition of metalwork in hoards. Widespread evidence for roundhouse settlements, linear dykes, palisaded enclosures and ring-works. Some hillforts. |
It requires emphasising that these transitions are certainly skewed through bias of survival of different monument types, with the rate and timing of transition not as abrupt as sometimes supposed, and regional variations evident (Bradley 2007, 178–224). There may in fact be considerable continuity between the Early Bronze Age and Middle Bronze Age. Practices associated with the formal abandonment of Middle Bronze Age roundhouses, for example, can in some ways be considered to be a modified continuation of ritualised traditions associated with Early Bronze Age barrows (Jones 2015). It is possible that the selective deposition of artefacts into significant features associated with roundhouses and enclosures (Brück 1999) may represent a transition or realignment of belief systems from circular ceremonial monuments to circular domestic structures (Bradley 1998, 147–64; Jones 2008).
There is also a demonstrable increase in the number of metal objects from the Middle Bronze Age (Roberts 2008b, 50), as well as changes in the types of objects made. At the time of the introduction of metals (copper and gold) in the Beaker period, metal objects are generally small, and associated with societies which in central southern Britain used larger communal monuments. Although there is development of artefact types in this early Beaker period using copper, the advent of tinned bronze at c.2200 cal BC sees a greater diversification of styles, with an increase in personal ornaments such as pins, as well as daggers and axes (see Woodward and Hunter 2015). Many of these artefacts have been recovered from round barrows, which become the predominant monument form in the period between c.2250 to 1500 cal BC. In the Middle Bronze Age, the types and forms of metal objects produced continues to grow, with some objects becoming larger, e.g. daggers being replaced by rapiers, and new forms of personal adornment appearing, such as spiral finger-rings (Jones et al. 2015) and Sussex loops (Wilkin 2016).
This diversification of metal artefacts occurs at the same time that roundhouse settlements and field systems transformed the appearance of the landscape. In some regions, such as Wessex, changes also occurred in pottery styles, with clear differentiation between fine wares and coarse wares (Woodward 2008, 82), although in other areas, such as southwest England (e.g. Quinnell 2012), there is little change in the ceramic record. Finally, the Late Bronze Age is associated with the development of swords and a wider range of socketed tools. This occurs at the time when linear land divisions appear, ditched enclosures are being constructed and large metalwork hoards are being deposited more frequently, often in wet places (e.g. Bradley 1991; Bradley et al. 1994; Schulting and Bradley 2013; Brown and Medlycott 2013).
Debate has occurred as to whether social change was driven through the reorganisation of belief systems or through changes to land tenure from the Middle Bronze Age (Brück 2000). Either way, the transition from the societies of the Beaker period and Early Bronze Age into those of the Middle and subsequently Late Bronze Age saw a demonstrable reorganisation of the landscape, a change in use/abandonment of older monuments, the creation of new settlements, changing metalwork styles, and an increase in bronze artefacts in circulation from being a very rare resource in the Beaker period and Early Bronze Age.
Internet Archaeology is an open access journal based in the Department of Archaeology, University of York. Except where otherwise noted, content from this work may be used under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 (CC BY) Unported licence, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided that attribution to the author(s), the title of the work, the Internet Archaeology journal and the relevant URL/DOI are given.
Terms and Conditions | Legal Statements | Privacy Policy | Cookies Policy | Citing Internet Archaeology
Internet Archaeology content is preserved for the long term with the Archaeology Data Service. Help sustain and support open access publication by donating to our Open Access Archaeology Fund.