Alternative approaches to elucidating the social organisation of metalworking in the British Chalcolithic-Bronze Age

Chalcolithic and Bronze Age metalwork is relatively ubiquitous across the British Isles, with thousands of artefacts housed in museum archives. These artefacts demonstrate a tradition of obtaining, transforming and using metals since the introduction of copper into Britain at c. 2500 BC, thought to correlate with the arrival of the Beaker package. This arrival coincides with a time of considerable social and ideological transition in the UK, ending the more insular Neolithic which is associated with the creation of large communal monuments, such as Stonehenge and Avebury.

In recent decades there have been significant advances in the 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). Likewise, detailed compositional analyses of artefacts have revealed evidence of use, transportation and recycling of metals during this period, with well-defined typological schemes for Chalcolithic/Bronze Age metal artefacts.

However, although the chronology for the adoption and use of metals is relatively well understood, defining the social context of metalworking has proven to be a more difficult problem to address. All too often metalworking is described as a technological process divorced from the conditions of its production. Our knowledge of both the landscape context and the social context of metalworking is still limited and old questions remain unanswered. Was bronze cast by itinerant smiths or by specialists tied to particular communities?

The reason for this disparity is the lack of archaeological evidence. The archaeological evidence from metallurgy during these early prehistoric periods are likely to be slight, and possibly not identifiable as metalworking remains during excavation. However, the application of scientific analyses have considerable potential to address these questions, through looking at samples from excavated sites of these periods on the microscopic geochemical level.

This project was launched to investigate this social dimension of metalworking, through utilising geochemical surveys on samples obtained from the excavations of Chalcolithic/Bronze Age sites across the UK.

A range of sites dating from enclosures or henges used in the Chalcolithic/Early Bronze Age, through to roundhouses associated with the Middle Bronze Age, are going to be investigated, through integrating detailed geochemical sampling and analyses within archaeological excavations.

Previous work demonstrated a robust ability for geochemical analysis to detect metalworking signatures from experimental copper alloy metalworking (Figure 1) and also in a Middle Bronze Age roundhouse at Tremough, Cornwall. These methods of analyses will used on a range of Chalcolithic and Bronze Age sites across the UK to create data on this elusive distribution and location of Chalcolithic/Bronze Age metalworking.