The social organisation of metalworking in southern England during the Beaker period and Bronze Age: absence of evidence or evidence of absence?

Andy Jones,Michael J Allen,Gill Juleff,Chris Carey

doi:10.11141/ia.52.4

Andy Jones, Michael J Allen + Show 2 more

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https://doi.org/10.11141/ia.52.4

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Abstract

This paper attempts to consider the social dimensions of metalworking during the Beaker period and Bronze Age in southern England. However, any attempt to discuss the social context of metalworking in these periods, i.e. who was working metals and where these activities occurred, is confronted with an extremely low evidence base of excavated archaeological sites where metalworking is known to have taken place. This lack of data and subsequent understanding of metalworking locations stands in stark contrast to the thousands of Beaker and Bronze Age metal artefacts housed in museum archives across Britain. These metal artefacts bear witness to the ability of people in Beaker and Bronze Age societies in Britain, and particularly southern England, to obtain, transform and use metals since the introduction of copper at c.2450 BC. Such metal artefacts have been subject to detailed analytical programmes, which have revealed information on the supply and recycling of metals. Likewise, there have also been significant advances in our understanding of the prehistoric mining of metals across the British Isles, with Beaker and Bronze Age mines identified in locations such as Ross Island (Ireland), the Great Orme (UK) and Alderley Edge (UK). Consequently, there is detailed archaeological knowledge about the two ends of the metalworking spectrum: the obtaining of the metal ores from the ground and the finished artefacts. However, the evidence for who was working metals and where is almost completely lacking. This paper discusses the archaeological evidence of the location of metalworking areas in these periods and dissects the reasons why so few have been found within archaeological excavation, with the evidence for early metallurgy likely to be slight and ambiguous, and possibly not identifiable as metalworking remains during excavation. Suggestions are made as to where such metalworking activities could have taken place in the Beaker period and Bronze Age, and what techniques can be applied to discover some of this evidence of metalworking activity, to allow access to the social dimensions of early metalworking and metalworkers.

Highlights

This contribution considers the lack of definition of the social context of metalworking during the earliest phases of metal use in southern England, in the Beaker period and the Bronze Age
Was bronze cast by itinerant smiths or by specialists tied to particular communities? This social context of metalworking during the Beaker period and Bronze Age is not a new question
As Knight (2014) discusses, does this indicate a movement from ‘metalworking masters of mystery’ in the Beaker period/Early Bronze Age, through to a more common craft activity undertaken on many settlement sites from the Middle Bronze Age onwards? Whilst it is tempting to view the limited evidence in this way, it must be remembered that there is a shift in the archaeological record between the funerary monuments of the Beaker period/Early Bronze Age to Middle and Late Bronze Age settlements

Summary

Introduction

This contribution considers the lack of definition of the social context of metalworking during the earliest phases of metal use in southern England, in the Beaker period and the Bronze Age. Such an interpretation relies on the idea that ‘objects and technologies embody certain social and symbolic practices and ideas in a specific cultural place’ (Roberts 2008a, 355) This is relevant for Beaker and Bronze Age metalworking: it is important to identify where such processes were occurring, and relate this to social differentiation and material perception within the communities of these time periods. This paper discusses the evidence for copper and bronze working during the Beaker period and Bronze Age, and reflects on the under representation of the physical evidence of metalworking in the archaeological record (in situ furnaces, metalworking hearths and metalworking areas), and the problems of identifying metalworking residues during excavation This discussion is focused upon post-mining metalworking processes, such as ore roasting, smelting, casting, recycling and smithing. This craftsmanship is demonstrable in metal goods, and in other materials, such as jet, amber and shale from the Early Bronze Age onwards (Roberts 2013, 536; Sheridan and Shortland 2004), with a rise in the number of bronze artefacts and the diversity of forms (Roberts 2013, 539–40)

Metals and monuments

Problems in identifying metalworking

The metalworking process and archaeological evidence

Direct in situ excavated evidence

Beaker period and Early Bronze Age

Middle Bronze Age – Late Bronze Age

Metalworking – the social dimension

Conclusion