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IX.—The Bronze Spear-head in Great Britain and Ireland

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 July 2011

E. Estyn Evans
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Extract

Any study of British spear-heads of the Bronze Age must be inspired by, and largely based on, the very valuable pioneer work of Greenwell and Brewis, whose handsomely illustrated paper on ‘The Origin, Evolution and Classification of the Bronze Spear-head in Great Britain and Ireland’ was published in Archaeologia for 1909. Indeed, their general analysis of the subject is so masterly and their conclusions so impressive that the paper has perhaps been allowed to pass too long unchallenged. Relatively little was known, a quarter of a century ago, of the continental material, and the close connexions between Britain and the mainland in late prehistoric times were almost unsuspected. Comparative studies have revealed the widespread interchange of various products and ideas in the European Bronze Age ; and no one would now go so far as to claim, with Greenwell and Brewis, that ‘there can be no doubt whatever that the spear-head in its origin, progress, and final consummation, was an indigenous product of these islands, and was manufactured within their limits apart from any controlling influence from outside’.

Type
Research Article
Information
Archaeologia , Volume 83 , 1933 , pp. 187 - 202
Copyright
Copyright © The Society of Antiquaries of London 1933

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References

page 187 note 1 Archaeologia, lxi, pp. 439–72.

page 187 note 2 Ibid., p. 442.

page 187 note 3 Coffey, George, ‘Notes on the classification of spear-heads of the Bronze Age found in Ireland’, Proc. Roy. Irish Academy, iii (1893–6), pp. 486–510Google Scholar.

page 188 note 1 Proc. Roy. Irish Academy, iii (1893–6), p. 487Google Scholar.

page 188 note 2 Evans, E. Estyn, ‘The late Bronze Age in Western Europe’, Man, 1931, 209.

page 188 note 3 Arch., lxi, p. 463.

page 188 note 4 Childe, V. Gordon, The Bronze Age, 1930, p. 92.

page 189 note 1 Clay, R. C. C, ‘A Late Bronze Age Urn-field at Pokesdown, Hants’, Antiq. Journ. vii (1927), pp. 465–84CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

page 189 note 2 Evans, Estyn, ‘The Sword-bearers’, Antiquity, iv (1930), pp. 157–72CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

page 189 note 3 I have for convenience kept the classification proposed by Greenwell and Brewis, though a new system is much to be desired.

page 189 note 4 It should be noted that binding must have been the traditional method of fixing the spear-head of flint (Arch., lxi, p. 469). The early rivets were copied from the dagger. Greenwell and Brewis observe that ‘even if the shaft were broken at the socket the thong would still prevent the metal head being lost’.

page 189 note 5 Arch., lxi, pi. lxxxi, fig. 81.

page 189 note 6 Déchelette (Manuel, II, i, p. 219) offers the following fanciful suggestion for the use of the loops: ‘On pouvait encore y attacher une corde ou une lanière, dont le combattant tenait une des extrémites. En cas de bris de la hampe pendant le combat, la pointe pouvait être ramenée’. With regard to the alleged difficulty of obtaining a secure binding from side loops, Mr. W. H. Evans has suggested to me that two opposed branches of the ashen shaft may have been left, cut short, at the mouth of the socket, to take the binding thongs.

page 190 note 1 Coffey, George, ‘Further notes on the development of the spear-head’. Journ. Roy. Soc. Ant-Ireland, xli (1911), pp. 20–4Google Scholar, fig. I.

page 190 note 2 Ibid., fig. 2.

page 191 note 1 Evans, John, Bronze Implements, p. 327.

page 191 note 2 Coffey, op. cit. (P.R.I.A.), p. 500.

page 192 note 1 Arch., lxi, p. 459; Evans, John, Bronze Implements, figs. 405, 406.

page 193 note 1 Evans, J., op. cit., fig. 411.

page 193 note 2 Ibid., fig. 409.

page 193 note 3 Ibid., fig. 410.

page 193 note 4 Arch., Ixi, p. 469.

page 193 note 5 Here, again, reason has proved a poor guide in seeking an explanation of the ‘protected loops’; and writers have found it easier to laugh at the theories of others than to offer solutions themselves. Thus Evans (p. 332), ‘An Irish friend has suggested that they were for the reception of poison, but after the blade had penetrated 17 in. into the human body such a use of poison would probably be superfluous’.

page 193 note 6 Wilde, Sir W., Catalogue of the Museum of the Royal Irish Academy, fig. 363.

page 194 note 1 Evans, J., op. cit., p. 328.

page 194 note 2 Not including Class IV, whose distribution I have not been able to study.

page 196 note 1 Arch., lxi, p. 462.

page 196 note 2 Hemp, W. J., Ant. Journ., v (1925), pp. 51–4CrossRefGoogle Scholar and cf. ibid., 409–14.

page 196 note 3 Callander, J. G., Proc. S.A. Scot. (1922–3), p. 137Google Scholar.

page 196 note 4 Brewis, W. P., Arch, lxxiii, p. 256Google Scholar. The exact type of this specimen is not clear from the illustration (fig. 12). Brewis refers to the loops as ‘at the base of the blade’, but Dr. Callander informs me that they are on the socket, detached from the blade.

page 196 note 5 Breuil, l'Abbé,‘L'Âge du bronze dans le bassin de Paris’, L'Anihropologie, xiv (1903) pp. 501–18Google Scholar.

page 197 note 1 Brewis, W. P., Arch., lxxiii, p. 256Google Scholar.

page 198 note 1 Coffey, George, The Bronze Age in Ireland, p. 36.

page 198 note 2 While forming a protective covering for the end of the shaft, they would also help the balance of the weapon ; and their appearance with the large spear-heads of the basal-looped type is therefore of interest. In an example found near Amiens the butt was filled with metal (? lead), presumably to give weight. Déchelette, op. cit., p. 222.

page 199 note 1 Déchelette, , Manuel: Appendices (1910), p. 40Google Scholar.

page 199 note 2 Ebert's Reallexikon, s. v. Huelva.

page 199 note 3 Ibid., s. v. Lanze. Also Schmidt, H., Das Vorgesch. Europas, p. 102. It is not clear from the descriptions, however, what form the perforations take. Spear-heads with round holes in the wings, usually near the base, are known from Switzerland, Sardinia, Italy, Cyprus and Rhodes. ‘Perforated’ spears are also cited from Hungary and Poland.

page 199 note 4 Tallgren, A. M., La Pontide préscythique, p. 195.

page 200 note 1 Smith, R. A., Proc. Soc. Ant, xxxi, p. 157.

page 200 note 2 Antiquity, i (1927), p. 363Google Scholar.

page 200 note 3 Arch., lxi, p. 454.

page 200 note 4 Examples from Broadward, Broadness, and Suffolk.

page 200 note 5 Arch., lxi, p. 471.

page 200 note 6 Coffey, P.R.I.A., 1910, pp. 96–106.

page 200 note 7 Brewis, Arch., lxxiii, p. 265.

page 201 note 1 Fox, Cyril, Arch. Camb., 1926, p. 28. See also The Personality of Britain, 1932. vol. lxxxiii.

page 202 note 1 E. T. Leeds, Arch., lxxx, pp. 1–36.

page 202 note 2 I wish to express my thanks to Mr. A. Deane, Curator of the Municipal Museum, Belfast, and to Dr. A. Mahr, Keeper of Irish Antiquities in the National Museum, Dublin, for their kindness in supplying me with photographs and drawings; to Mr. A. George and Mr. L. S. Gógan for much courteous help in my examination of the material in those museums; to Miss L. F. Chitty, Mr. W. J. Andrew, Mr. Louis Clarke, and Mr. S. Jones for information generously supplied. In preparing the maps I have made considerable use of the Catalogue of Bronze Age Implements, and I wish to acknowledge my general indebtedness to Mr. Harold Peake. I am also indebted to Dr. Ernst Sprockhoff for references to German specimens.