Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-rcrh6 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-28T18:53:20.430Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Still water, hidden depths: the deposition of Bronze Age metalwork in the English Fenland

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2015

David Yates  and
Richard Bradley
David Yates
Affiliation:
*Department of Archaeology, School of Human and Environmental Sciences, University of Reading, Whiteknights, Reading RG6 6AB, UK
Richard Bradley
Affiliation:
*Department of Archaeology, School of Human and Environmental Sciences, University of Reading, Whiteknights, Reading RG6 6AB, UK
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Finds of metalwork always raise the question of why they were deposited: a smith's collection, a concealed hoard or a votive offering? Findspots in water suggest offerings, since they would be awkward to retrieve. But understanding the context of deposition means knowing the prehistoric environment. The Fenland area of England has many Bronze Age sites, and deposits of metalwork and a well-mapped ancient environment too. Putting all three together the authors begin to assemble a grammar of deposition: swords and rapiers in rivers, some mixed collections placed in still water and others on once-dry land with burnt mounds.

Keywords

FenlandBronze AgewaterscapesbogsriversmetalworkdepositionPortable Antiquities Scheme
Type
Research articles
Information
Antiquity , Volume 84 , Issue 324 , June 2010 , pp. 405 - 415
Copyright
Copyright © Antiquity Publications Ltd 2010

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Barfield, L. & Hodder, M.. 1987. Burnt mounds as saunas and the prehistory of bothing. Antiquity 61: 370–379.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Becker, K. 2008. Left but not lost - Bronze Age deposition. Archaeology Ireland 22(1): 12–15.Google Scholar
Bradley, R. 1998. The passage of arms. Second edition. Oxford: Oxbow.Google Scholar
Bradley, R. 2005. Ritual and domestic life in prehistoric Europe. Abingdon: Routledge.Google Scholar
Bradley, R. 2007. The prehistory of Britain and Ireland. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brück, J. 1999. Ritual and rationality: some problems of interpretation in European archaeology. European Journal of Archaeology 2: 313–344.Google Scholar
Buxton, R. 1994. Imaginary Greece. The contexts of mythology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Clark, J.D.G. & Godwin, H.. 1940. A Late Bronze Age find near Stuntney, Isle of Ely. Antiquaries Journal 50: 52–71.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Downes, J. 1992. The distribution and significance of Bronze Age metalwork in the North Level, in Pryor, F., & French, C., (ed.) The South-West dyke survey project 1982-86 (East Anglian Archaeology 59): 21–30. Peterborough: Fenland Archaeological Trust.Google Scholar
Dunkin, D. 2001. Metalwork, burnt mounds and settlement on the West Sussex coastal plain: a contextual study. Antiquity 75: 261–262.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Evans, C. 2002. Metalwork and ‘cold claylands’: pre-Iron Age occupation on the Isle of Ely, in Lane, T., & Coles, J., (ed.) Through wet and dry. Essays in honour of David Hall: 33–53. Sleaford: Heritage Trust of Lincolnshire.Google Scholar
Evans, C. 2003. Power and island communities: excavations at the Wardy Hill Ringwork, Coveney, Ely (East Anglian Archaeology 103). Cambridge: Cambridge Archaeological Unit.Google Scholar
Field, N. & Parker Pearson, M.. 2003. Fiskerton. An Iron Age timber causeway with Iron Age and Roman votive offerings. Oxford: Oxbow.Google Scholar
Fontijn, D. 2003. Sacrificial landscapes. Cultural biographies of persons, objects and natural places in the Bronze Age of the southern Netherlands c. 2300-600 BC. Analecta Praehistorica Leidensia 33/34: 1–392.Google Scholar
Fox, C. 1923. The archaeology of the Cambridge region. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Hall, D. 1996. The Fenland Project, 10: Cambridgeshire survey, Isle of Ely and Wisbech (East Anglian Archaeology 79). Cambridge: Cambridgeshire Archaeological Committee.Google Scholar
Hall, D. & Coles, J.. 1994. Fenland survey. An essay in landscape and persistence. London: English Heritage.Google Scholar
Healy, F. 1996. The Fenland Project, 11: the Wissey Embayment: evidence for pre-Iron Age occupation accumulated prior to the Fenland Project (East Anglian Archaeology 78). Dereham: Field Archaeology Division, Norfolk Museums Service in conjunction with the Scole Archaeological Committee.Google Scholar
Kaul, F. 1995. The Gundestrup Cauldron reconsidered. Acta Archaeologica 66: 1–38.Google Scholar
Lethbridge, T. 1935. Investigation of the ancient causeway in the fen between Fordey and Little Thetford, Cambridgeshire. Proceedings of the Cambridge Antiquarian Society 35: 86–89.Google Scholar
Lewis, H., Malim, T. & Roberts, J.. 2001. Fieldwork in Cambridgeshire, 2000. Proceedings of the Cambridge Antiquarian Society 90: 137–147.Google Scholar
Malim, T. 2000. Place and space in the Cambridgeshire Bronze Age, in Brüuck, J. (ed.) Bronze Age landscapes. Tradition and transformation: 9–22. Oxford: Oxbow.Google Scholar
Needham, S. 1989. Selective deposition in the British Early Bronze Age. World Archaeology 10: 229–248.Google Scholar
Pendleton, C. 1999. Bronze Age metalwork in northern East Anglia (British Archaeology Reports British Series 279). Oxford: Archaeopress.Google Scholar
Phillips, C.W. (ed.) 1970. The Fenland in Roman times. London: Royal Geographical Society.Google Scholar
Pryor, F. 1980. Will it all come out in the Wash?, in Barrett, J., & Bradley, R., (ed.) Settlement and society in the British Later Bronze Age (British Archaeological Reports British Series 83): 483–499. Oxford: British Archaeological Reports.Google Scholar
Pryor, F. 2001. The Flag Fen Basin. Archaeology and Environment of a Fenland landscape. Swindon: English Heritage.Google Scholar
Randsborg, K. 2002. Wetland hoards. Oxford Journal of Archaeology 21: 415–418.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Silvester, R. 1991. The Fenland Project, 4: the Wissey Embayment and the Fen Causeway, Norfolk (East Anglian Archaeology 52). Norfolk: Norfolk Archaeological Unit, Norfolk Museums Service.Google Scholar
Strang, V. 2005. Common senses. Water, sensory experience and the generation of meaning. Journal of Material Culture 10(1): 92–120.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Strang, V. 2008. The social construction of water, in David, B., & Thomas, J., (ed.) Handbook of landscape archaeology: 123–130. Walnut Creek (CA): Left Coast Press.Google Scholar
Thomas, R. 1999. Rise and fall: the deposition of Bronze Age metalwork in the Thames Valley and the Fenland, in Harding, A., (ed.) Experiment and design. Archaeological studies in honour of John Coles: 116–122. Oxford: Oxbow.Google Scholar
Trump, B. 1968. Fenland rapiers, in Coles, J., & Simpson, D., (ed.) Studies in ancient Europe: 213–225. Leicester: Leicester University Press.Google Scholar
Waller, M. 1994. The Fenland Project, 9: Flandrian environmental change in the Fenland (East Anglian Archaeology 70). Cambridge: Fenland Project Committee, Fenland Archaeological Trust.Google Scholar
Yates, D. 2007. Land, power and prestige. Bronze Age field systems in southern England. Oxford: Oxbow.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Yates, D. & Bradley, R.,. In press. The siting of metalwork hoards in the Bronze Age of south-east England. Antiquaries Journal.Google Scholar