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The Early Bronze Age Flint Dagger in England and Wales

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 October 2013

W. F. Grimes
W. F. Grimes
Affiliation:
National Museum of Wales.
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Extract

The chronology of the flint dagger which is the subject of the present paper has been discussed by R. A. Smith, who established the date of the type in the first phase of the Bronze Age, the period to which it had already been assigned by Montelius. A summary ot the list made by Mr. Smith is given in Appendix II below (p. 354-5); the few examples recorded with datable associations since 1919 bring the total up to 26.

Sir John Evans's description, adopted by Mr. Smith, gives the length and breadth of the type as varying generally between 5 and 7 ins. and 1½ to 2½ ins. respectively, although both larger and smaller examples occur. The blades are thin in proportion to their length, and lanceolate in outline, although in this respect there is a certain amount of variation. Both faces are flaked, and the working is generally of a very high character. In some cases major excrescences have been reduced by grinding.

Some typological development may be observed in the forms, although this cannot be compared with the elaborate evolution of the well-known Scandinavian series (below, p. 350). The changes take place in the butt. The earliest form typoiogically speaking, would seem to be a simple leaf-shaped blade, the widest part of which is approximately at the middle. There is no distinction between blade and tang or handle, and the latter is generally rounded off. Such daggers as the Green Low, Alsop Moor (Appendix I, no. 27, and fig. 1), and Acklam Wold (126) examples represent this form. It is not always easy to decide, however, whether other blades approximating to this shape represent a so-called prototype, and care has also to be taken to differentiate surface-found laurel-leaf blades of Solutrean age, although these are more usually pointed at both ends.

Type
Research Article
Information
Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society of East Anglia , Volume 6 , Issue 4 , 1932 , pp. 340 - 355
Copyright
Copyright © The Prehistoric Society 1932

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References

page 340 note 1 ‘The Chronology of Flint Daggers,’ Proc. Soc. Antiq., xxxii., 6–22 Google Scholar.

page 340 note 2 ‘The Chronology of the British Bronze Age,’ Archæologia, lxi. (1908), 97 ff.Google Scholar

page 340 note 3 Stone Implements, 2nd edn., p. 348 Google ScholarPubMed.

page 340 note 4 Daggers found with datable associations are represented by outline drawings on a uniform scale in Fig. 1. They cover fairly well the main varieties of form met with. In addition to the dated examples Mr. Smith also figures by means of photographs the large collection of daggers in the British Museum in the paper already mentioned.

page 342 note 1 A good example of the second group is the well known dagger from the Thames at London figured by Evans (op. cit., fig. 265, and Appendix I below, No. 61). The blade here lias apparently been reduced by re-flaking, but the elongated handle with its tendency to thickening is analogous to one of the early stages in the development of the Scandinavian daggers. A few daggers showing the developed handle of later Danish daggers occur in Eastern England ( Fox, , Arch. Cambridge Region. 3–4 Google Scholar), but these are probably importations in the course of trade which do not belong to the series outlined above. One such, from Rushford, Norfolk, is figured in Proc. Prehist. Soc. E. Anglia, I Google Scholar, pl. CXXV.

page 342 note 2 For more detailed accounts, with illustrations of the associated objects, of most of the daggers there listed, see Mr. Smith's article already referred to.

page 342 note 3 Other points of interest arising from study of the associations are: (i) in the burials wherever the sex could be determined the individual was a man, showing that the daggers were warriors' weapons; (ii) the position of the blade in the burial rarely suggests use as a spearhead. In one case (126) the dagger was found in the hand; the position in others varied, and there is no record of any trace of a long shaft having been observed.

page 342 note 4 The Ystradfellte dagger (7) was found in a cairn with fragments of what may have been a food vessel, the burial apparently being by cremation. The exact value to be attached to this burial is uncertain, owing to the indeterminate character of the pottery fragments. For the supposed burning of the dagger and other flints see below, p. 354, footnote 5.

page 344 note 1 For help in various ways in the preparation of the lists I have to thank Captain J. Acland. Messrs. A. L. Armstrong, Reginald W. Brown, M. C. Burkitt, C. H. Cowley (Isle of Man), Miss L. F. Chitty, Mr. J. G. D. Clark, Mrs. M. E. Cunnington, Dr. Eliot Curwen, Messrs. H. Elgar, P. Elgee, H. St. George Gray, F. W. Marshall Greaves, T. G. Grimes. E. Howarth, R. F. Jessup, E. T. Leeds, F. Leney, G. Maynard, A. D. Passmore, W. Pollitt, T. Sheppard, R. A. Smith, Drs. R. E. M. Wheeler and T. W. Wnodhead. I have particularly to thank Miss Chitty and Mr. Clark for allowing me to make use of material collected by them, and Dr. Curwen for sending specimens in his collection for inspection. For help in other ways my thanks are also due to Mr. Harper Kelly, of Paris.

page 344 note 2 The scarcity of finds from many areas can be explained on the same lines. The best example is that of the Western Midlands along the Welsh border, a boulder-clay-covered region which in early times probably supported a heavy forest growth. See Fox, , Arch. Camb., 1925, 9–10 Google Scholar.

page 345 note 1 Fragments of a beaker, unpublished, of Type C (?) were found recently on Pant y Waun, above the Taff Valley, some 5 miles S.E. of the site of the finding of the dagger.

page 345 note 2 It is perhaps more than doubtful if the Amble blade (76) should be included in the class of weapon under, discussion. The form is a-typical, and the exact associations are not clear. I have been unable to obtain further information from the Honorary Curator of the Museum of Antiquities, Newcastle, where the dagger and pottery now are.

page 345 note 3 Fox, , Arch. Camb., 1925, [23 Google Scholar; Crawford, , Long Barrows of the Cotswolds, 9, ff.Google Scholar

page 347 note 1 Proc. Prehist. Soc. E. Anglia., vi. (1928–1929), 40 ff.Google Scholar

page 347 note 2 Danube in Prehistory, 200–1; also Bronze Age, 154, ff.

page 347 note 3 The maps are based on the list published by Dr.Fox, in Arch. Camb., 1925, 25–31 Google Scholar, with additional information supplied by Mr. J. G. D. Clark. The preliminary map of beaker-type distribution had already been prepared when I learned of the impending publication of Mr.Clark's, map in Antiquity, 1931 (Dec). 419 Google Scholar. I have to thank Mr. Clark for allowing me to make use of this new material, thus saving much unnecessary duplication. The conclusions reached above, however, are entirely my responsibility, and were set on paper before the publication of Mr. Clark's paper already referred to.

page 347 note 4 Thus in Wiltshire, out of 81 beakers listed by Mrs.Cunnington, (W.A.M., xliii. (1926), 267–84Google Scholar) for only 42 can the type be ascertained.

page 347 note 5 The C-beakers become increasingly common towards the North, and if they are regarded as debased A-beakers may indicate a later colonisation of the northern areas from settlements further south.

page 348 note 1 For example, in the Wick Barrow, Stogursey—Gray, H. St. George, Rept. on Wick Barrow, 20 Google Scholar; and Abercromby, , B.A.P., I Google Scholar, figs. 11, 12, and 20.

page 348 note 2 In the case of B-beakers in the Dorset-S. Hants, area, and perhaps elsewhere along the South coast, the possibility of colonisation from Brittany will deserve consideration.

page 348 note 3 The Dorchester Museum, for example, has no daggers. I have to thank Captain Acland for allowing me to examine a number of doubtful specimens at first hand.

page 349 note 1 Fox, and Grimes, , Arch. Camb., 1928, 137–74Google Scholar.

page 349 note 2 The subject has been dealt with by Crawford, O. G. S., whose distribution-map of flat celts is published in Geog. Journ., xl. (1912), 184, ff., and 304, ff.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

page 349 note 3 The governing factor once again is at least partly physiographical—the existence of a continuous belt of forest in Suffolk. North Essex, and North Hertfordshire which tends to cut off the eastern plain from the south. Fox, , Arch. Camb. Region, 315 Google Scholar. See further below.

page 349 note 4 loc. cit. 196.

page 350 note 1 The daggers corroborate evidence from other sources. Thus ‘food vessels’ of Abercromby's type I do not occur in their characteristic form in the southern area. The ‘food vessels’ were at least partly comtemporary with the beakers. The question of the relation between the two areas at this time is discussed by Fox, (Arch. Camb. Region, 38–9, and 315 ff.)Google Scholar. The same is true of the handled-beakers, which do not occur south of the Thames Valley except in a-typical forms. They are, however, present throughout the northern area, and Fox, (Arch. Camb., 1925, 20)Google Scholar regards the eastern plain as their centre of origin in Britain, and therefore as their centre of diffusion. This point also may be of importance for the question of the process by which the colonisation of the country was carried out.

page 350 note 2 It may also be noted that J. G. D. Clark (loc. cit. supra) regards the polished discordal knife as having been evolved in East Anglia and from there diffused to the remainder of the country.

page 351 note 1 The development is briefly outlined by R. A. Smith in the paper already referred to. For a summary of Scandinavian chronology see also Childe, , Danube in Prehistory, 112 ff.Google Scholar, and Smith, R. A. in Proc. Prehist. Soc. E. Anglia, III, (1919–1922), 14, ff.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

page 351 note 2 Childe, op. cit., 198; daggers from Belgium closely resembling British examples are figured by Hamal-Nandrin, and Servais, in L'Homme Préhistorique, 1928 Google Scholar, nos. 1-3, 1-10, and figs. 8-10.

page 351 note 3 Childe, op. cit., 191.

page 351 note 4 A number of Iberian examples are figured by Aoberg, La Civilisation Enéolithique dans la Péninsule Ibérique, For Italian daggers see Peet, T. E., Stone and Bronze Ages in Italy, 245, ff.Google Scholar The flint-work of the two areas shows relationships in other respects, e.g. in the arrowheads. For notched and other blades from France, S. see Matériaux pour l'Histoire de l'Homme, v. (1869)Google Scholar, Pls. xiv., xviii. (Lozère); ibid., xi. (1876), 84-92 (Aveyron); Congrès Internat. d' Anthropologie et d' Archéologie préhistorique, Comptes-rendus, 1869, 199–206 (Gard)Google Scholar; also G., and de Mortillet, A., Musée Préhistorique, 2nd Ed.Google Scholar, Pl. xlvi., 467 (Concoures, Aveyron).

page 352 note 1 One other example from Derbyshire, the exact provenance of which is unknown, is in Sheffield Museum.

page 353 note 1 A sixth example, also in Taunton Castle Museum, has no satisfactory provenance, but probably belongs to Somerset.

page 353 note 2 In the Layton Collection at Brentford Public Library are five other daggers without definite provenance, but probably from ‘within a few miles of Kew.’

page 354 note 1 Another (fragmentary) dagger from the South Downs above Lewes, Eastbourne or Brighton, is in the Jenner Collection of the Lewes Museum.

page 354 note 2 The localities are as follows:—Middle Laine (2); Dyke Laine (1); Dyke Road Laine (4). Dr. Eliot Curwen writes: ‘All those dagger fragments were found within a small area, Middle Laine and Dyke Road Laine lying next to one another. The word “Laine” is an old Sussex term for an area of land, and is still in use in some parts. They all come from the parish of Poynings. Part of the parish is on the Weald and part on the high chalk Down, and it was, of course, on the chalk that this little collection of fragments was found. I am wondering if the site is that of a dagger factory.’

page 354 note 3 For another possible specimen from Wiltshire, , see Wilts. Arch. Mag., xliv., 118 Google Scholar.

page 354 note 4 Another dagger from Yorkshire, without provenance, is in the Manchester Museum (Darbyshire Collection).

page 354 note 5 The flints all bear a porcellanous patina explained by the excavator, T. C. Cantrill, as due to calcination in the fire of the funeral pyre. Dr. F. J. North tells me, however, that the bleaching is more likely to be due to the action of humic acids derived from the peat with which the implement was associated. A similar superficial whitening is to be seen in the case of the limestones and sandstones where they are covered with peaty débris, or occur as pebbles in association with it.

page 355 note 1 Mr. Guy Maynard writes: ‘Found at Brantham Hall Farm, on the edge of the gravel terrace overlooking the Stour Estuary. Several beaker-burials were found in the course of the same excavations only a few yards away, but I was assured that no bones were found with the knife. Bones, etc., on the other burials of the site, however, were much decayed, and the dagger may well have accompanied a burial of which other traces had disappeared.’