Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-cfpbc Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-24T12:57:49.868Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

‘WHERE WATER WELLS UP FROM THE EARTH’: EXCAVATIONS AT THE FINDSPOT OF THE LATE BRONZE AGE HOARD FROM BROADWARD, SHROPSHIRE

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 July 2015

Richard Bradley ,
Jodie Lewis ,
David Mullin  and
Nicholas Branch
Richard Bradley
Affiliation:
School of Archaeology, Geography and Environmental Science (SAGES), The University of Reading, Whiteknights, PO Box 227, Reading RG6 6AB, UK. Email: r.j.bradley@reading.ac.uk
Jodie Lewis
Affiliation:
The Institute of Science and the Environment, University of Worcester, Henwick Grove, Worcester WR2 6AJ, UK. Email: jodie.lewis@worc.ac.uk
David Mullin
Affiliation:
The Institute of Science and the Environment, University of Worcester, Henwick Grove, Worcester WR2 6AJ, UK. Email: d.mullin@worc.ac.uk
Nicholas Branch
Affiliation:
School of Archaeology, Geography and Environmental Science (SAGES), The University of Reading, Whiteknights, PO Box 227, Reading RG6 6AB, UK. Email: n.p.branch@reading.ac.uk
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The paper begins by considering the importance of springs as a focus for votive deposits in Bronze Age Britain. This is not a new idea, but nowhere has this association been examined through the excavation of one of these features. The point is illustrated by excavation at the findspot of a famous group of Late Bronze Age weapons, the Broadward hoard, discovered in 1867. Little was known about the site, where it was found or the character of the original deposit, but a study of contemporary accounts of the hoard, combined with geophysical and topographical surveys, led to small-scale excavation in 2010, which showed that the deposit had most probably been buried in a pit on the edge of a spring. Other finds associated with the spring included an Early Bronze Age macehead, a Roman pot and various Saxon and medieval animal bones. The latest deposit, with a post-medieval carbon date, included a wooden knife or dagger. An adjacent palaeochannel provided an important environmental sequence for this part of the English–Welsh borderland and suggests that the Late Bronze Age hoard had been deposited not far from a settlement. A nearby earthwork enclosure was associated with a clay weight, which may be of similar date. Despite the limited scale of the fieldwork, it illustrates the potential for treating springs associated with artefact finds on the same terms as other archaeological deposits.

Résumé

Cet article examine pour commencer l’importance des sources dans les dépôts votifs de l’âge du bronze, en Grande-Bretagne. Ce sujet n’est pas nouveau, mais cette association n’avait encore jamais été étudiée dans le cadre de la fouille d’un de ces lieux. Ce point est illustré par la fouille de l’endroit où fut découvert un groupe célèbre d’armes de la fin de l’âge du bronze, le trésor de Broadward, découvert en 1867. On disposait de peu d’informations sur le site où il fut trouvé, ou sur le caractère du dépôt d’origine, mais l’étude de comptes rendus de l’époque sur le trésor, associée à des études géophysiques et topographiques, a conduit en 2010 à l’exécution d’une fouille de faible envergure, laquelle a montré que le dépôt avait sans doute été enfoui dans une fosse, au voisinage d’une source. Parmi les autres objets associés à la source figuraient une tête de massue du début de l’âge du bronze, un récipient romain et divers os d’animaux datant de l’époque des Saxons et du Moyen Âge. Dans le dépôt le plus récent, qui remonte selon la datation par le carbone 14 à la période postmédiévale, se trouvait un couteau ou poignard en bois. Un paléochenal adjacent permet de déterminer une importante séquence environnementale concernant cette partie de la région frontière séparant l’Angleterre et le Pays de Galles et indique que le trésor de la fin de l’âge du bronze avait été déposé à proximité d’un établissement. Un enclos en terrassement voisin était associé à un poids en argile d’une date peut-être semblable. Malgré l’ampleur limitée des travaux de terrain, il illustre les possibilités qui s’offrent si l’on traite les sources associées à des objets de la même manière que les autres dépôts archéologiques.

Zusammenfassung

In der Abhandlung wird eingangs die Bedeutung erwogen, die Quellen als Schwerpunkt für Votivgaben in Britannien der Bronzezeit haben. Diese Überlegung ist nicht neu, aber bisher ist diese Beziehung noch nie durch die Ausgrabung einer dieser Besonderheiten geprüft worden. Verdeutlicht wird dieser Kontext durch die Ausgrabung am Fundort einer berühmten Waffengruppe aus der Spätbronzezeit, dem im Jahre 1867 entdeckten Broadward-Hortfund. Über den Ort des Fundes oder den Charakter des ursprünglichen Fundes war wenig bekannt, doch eine Studie zeitgenössischer Berichte über den Hortfund verbunden mit geophysikalischen und topografischen Gutachten führte dazu, dass 2010 eine Ausgrabung in kleinem Rahmen durchgeführt wurde, die zeigte, dass der Hort höchstwahrscheinlich in einer Grube am Rand einer Quelle vergraben worden war. Zu weiteren, mit dieser Quelle assoziierten Funden, zählten ein Keulenkopf aus der frühen Bronzezeit, ein römischer Topf und verschiedene sächsische und mittelalterliche Tiergebeine. Der zeitlich späteste Fund mit einer Kohlenstoffdatierung für die nachmittelalterliche Zeit enthielt ein hölzernes Messer bzw. einen Dolch. Ein nebenliegender Paläokanal lieferte eine wichtige Umweltsequenz für diesen Abschnitt des englisch-walisischen Grenzlandes, was darauf schließen lässt, dass der Hortfund aus der Spätbronzezeit unweit von einer Siedlung deponiert worden war. Ein nahegelegener Erdwall wird mit einem Tongewicht assoziiert, das scheinbar ähnlichen Datums ist. Trotz des beschränkten Umfangs der Feldarbeit zeigt es das Potenzial dafür auf, mit Artefaktfunden assoziierte Quellen auf dieselbe Weise wie andere archäologische Funde zu behandeln.

Type
Papers
Information
The Antiquaries Journal , Volume 95 , September 2015 , pp. 21 - 64
Copyright
© The Society of Antiquaries of London 2015 

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

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Allason-Jones, L and McKay, B 1985. Coventina’s Well: a shrine on Hadrian’s Wall, Chesters Museum, ChestersGoogle Scholar
Andrews, P, Biddulph, E and Hardy, A 2011. Settling the Ebbsfleet Valley. Vol. 1: The Sites, Oxford Archaeology and Wessex Archaeology, Oxford and SalisburyGoogle Scholar
Banks, R W 1873. ‘The Broadward find’, Archaeol Cambrensis, 4, 4th ser, 202–204Google Scholar
Barfield, L 1997. ‘Caught short in Shropshire’, Lithics, 17/18, 66–69Google Scholar
Barnwell, E L 1873. ‘The Broadward find – supplementary note’, Archaeol Cambrensis, 4, 4th ser, 80–83Google Scholar
Beales, P W 1980. ‘The Late Devensian and Flandrian vegetational history of Crose Mere, Shropshire’, New Phytologist, 85, 133–161CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bengtsson, L and Enell, M 1986. ‘Chemical analysis’, in B E Berglund (ed), Handbook of Holocene Palaeoecology and Palaeohydrology, 423–454, Wiley, SussexGoogle Scholar
Best, J and Woodward, A 2012. ‘Late Bronze Age pottery production: evidence from a 12th–11th century BC settlement at Tinney’s Lane, Sherborne, Dorset’, Proc Prehist Soc, 78, 207–257Google Scholar
Birks, H J B and Gordon, A D 1985. Numerical Methods in Quaternary Pollen Analysis, Academic Press, LondonGoogle Scholar
Blockley, S P, Blaauw, M, Bronk Ramsey, C and van der Plicht, J 2007. ‘Building and testing age models for radiocarbon dates in Lateglacial and Early Holocene sediments’, Quat Sci Rev, 26 (15–16), 1915–1926Google Scholar
Branch, N P, Canti, M, Clark, P and Turney, C 2005. Environmental Archaeology: theoretical and practical approaches, Arnold, LondonGoogle Scholar
Bronk Ramsey, C 1995. ‘Radiocarbon calibration and analysis of stratigraphy: the OxCal program’, Radiocarbon, 37 (2), 425–430Google Scholar
Bronk Ramsey, C 2001. ‘Development of the radiocarbon program OxCal’, Radiocarbon, 43 (2a), 355–363Google Scholar
Bronk Ramsey, C 2008. ‘Deposition models for chronological records’, Quat Sci Rev, 27 (1–2), 42–60Google Scholar
Bronk Ramsey, C 2009. ‘Bayesian analysis of radiocarbon dates’, Radiocarbon, 51 (1), 337–360Google Scholar
Brown, A G 1988. ‘The palaeoecology of Alnus (alder) and the postglacial history of floodplain vegetation: pollen percentage and influx data from the West Midlands, United Kingdom’, New Phytologist, 110, 425–436Google Scholar
Brück, J 1995. ‘A place for the dead: the role of human remains in Late Bronze Age Britain’, Proc Prehist Soc, 61, 245–277CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Burgess, C 1976. ‘Burials with metalwork of the later Bronze Age in Wales and beyond’, in G Boon and J Lewis (eds), Welsh Antiquity, 81–101, National Museum of Wales, CardiffGoogle Scholar
Burgess, C, Coombs, D and Davies, G 1972. ‘The Broadward Complex and barbed spearheads’, in F Lynch and C Burgess (eds), Early Man in Wales and the West, 211–283, Adams and Dart, BathGoogle Scholar
Clark, J S 1988. ‘Particle motion and the theory of charcoal analysis: source area, transport, deposition and sampling’, Quat Res, 30, 67–80CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Clark, R L 1982. ‘Point-count estimation of charcoal in pollen preparations and thin sections of sediments’, Pollen et Spores, 24, 523–535Google Scholar
Cunliffe, B 1988. The Temple of Sulis Minerva at Bath. Vol 2: The Finds from the Sacred Spring, Oxford University Committee for Archaeology, OxfordGoogle Scholar
Cunliffe, B and Davenport, P 1985. The Temple of Sulis Minerva at Bath. Vol 1: The Site, Oxford University Committee for Archaeology, OxfordGoogle Scholar
Cunliffe, B and Phillipson, D 1968. ‘Excavations at Eldon’s Seat, Encombe, Dorset’, Proc Prehist Soc, 34, 191–237Google Scholar
Darvill, T, Davies, R V, Morgan Evans, D, Ixer, R A and Wainwright, G 2007. ‘Strumble–Preseli ancient communities and environment study (SPACES): fifth report 2006’, Archaeol in Wales, 46, 100–107Google Scholar
Darvill, T, Morgan Evans, D and Wainwright, G 2004. ‘Strumble–Preseli ancient communities and environment study (SPACES): third report 2004’, Archaeol in Wales, 44, 104–109Google Scholar
Deyts, S 1994. Un peuple de pélerins: offrandes de pierre et de bronze des Sources de la Seine, Revue Archéologique de l’Est et du Centre-Est supplément 3, DijonGoogle Scholar
Ellis, P (ed) 1993. Beeston Castle, Cheshire, English Heritage, LondonGoogle Scholar
Finsinger, W and Tinner, W 2005. ‘Minimum count sums for charcoal-concentration estimates in pollen slides: accuracy and potential errors’, The Holocene, 15, 293–297Google Scholar
Fulford, M 2001. ‘Links with the past: pervasive “ritual” behaviour in Roman Britain’, Britannia, 32, 199–218Google Scholar
Gerloff, S 1975. The Early Bronze Age Daggers in Great Britain, Beck, MunichGoogle Scholar
Gilchrist, R 2012. Medieval Life: archaeology and the life course, The Boydell Press, WoodbridgeGoogle Scholar
Grant, M J, Waller, M P and Groves, J A 2011. ‘The Tilia decline: vegetation change in lowland Britain during the mid and late Holocene’, Quat Sci Rev, 30, 394–408Google Scholar
Grimm, E C 1991–2011. ‘Tilia v1.7.16’, Illinois State Museum, Springfield, IllGoogle Scholar
Groves, J A, Waller, M P, Grant, M J and Schofield, J E 2012. ‘Long-term development of a cultural landscape: the origins and dynamics of lowland heathland in southern England’, Veget Hist Archaeobot, 21, 453–470Google Scholar
Gwilt, A, Kucharski, K, Davis, M and Silvester, R 2005. ‘A Late Bronze Age hoard from Trevalyn Farm, Rossett, Wrexham’, Studia Celtica, 29, 27–61Google Scholar
Hardy, E M 1939. ‘Studies of the post-glacial history of British vegetation: V. The Shropshire and Flint Maelor mosses’, New Phytologist, 38, 364–396Google Scholar
Hutton, R 2013. Pagan Britain, Yale University Press, London and New HavenGoogle Scholar
Jackman, T 1868. ‘A “find” of bronze weapons’, J Brit Archaeol Ass, 24, 64Google Scholar
Jacques, D and Phillips, T 2014. ‘Mesolithic settlement near Stonehenge: excavations at Vespasian’s Camp, Amesbury’, Wiltshire Archaeol Natur Hist Mag, 107, 7–27Google Scholar
Jaques, D, Phillips, T and Lyons, T 2012. ‘Vespasian’s Camp’, Curr Archaeol, 271, 28–33Google Scholar
Leary, J and Field, D 2012. ‘Journeys and juxtapositions: Marden henge and the view from the Vale’, in A Gibson (ed), Enclosing the Neolithic: recent studies in Britain and Europe, 55–65, BAR Int Ser 2440, Archaeopress, OxfordGoogle Scholar
Levine, M 1982. ‘The use of crown height measurements sequences to age teeth’, in B Wilson, C Grigson and S Payne (eds), Ageing and Sexing Animal Bones from Archaeological Sites, 223–250, BAR Brit Ser 109, Archaeopress, OxfordGoogle Scholar
McKinley, J 2000. ‘The analysis of cremated bone’, in M Cox and S Mays (eds), Human Osteology in Archaeology and Forensic Science, 403–421, Cambridge University Press, CambridgeGoogle Scholar
Merrifield, R 1987. The Archaeology of Ritual and Magic, Batsford, LondonGoogle Scholar
Moore, P D, Webb, J A and Collinson, M E 1991. Pollen Analysis, Blackwell Science, OxfordGoogle Scholar
Mortimer, J R 1905. Forty Years’ Researches in British and Saxon Burial Mounds of East Yorkshire, A Brown & Sons, LondonGoogle Scholar
Mullin, D 2012. ‘The river has never divided us: Late Bronze Age metalwork deposits in western Britain’, Oxford J Archaeol, 31, 47–57Google Scholar
Needham, S, Bronk Ramsey, C, Coombs, D, Cartwright, C and Pettitt, P 1997. ‘An independent chronology for British Bronze Age metalwork: the results of the Oxford Radiocarbon Accelerator Programme’, Archaeol J, 154 (1), 55–107Google Scholar
Needham, S, Pearson, M P, Tyler, A, Richards, M and Jay, M 2010. ‘A first “Wessex 1” date from Wessex’, Antiquity, 84, 363–373Google Scholar
Needham, S and Woodward, A 2008. ‘The Clandon Barrow finery: a synopsis of success in an Early Bronze Age world’, Proc Prehist Soc, 74, 1–52Google Scholar
Parker, A G, Goudie, A S, Anderson, D E, Robinson, M A and Bonsall, C 2002. ‘A review of the mid-Holocene elm decline in the British Isles’, Prog Physical Geogr, 26, 1–45Google Scholar
Pluskowski, A G (ed) 2011. The Ritual Killing and Burial of Animals in the Past: European perspectives, Oxbow, OxfordGoogle Scholar
Reille, M 1992. Pollen et spores d’Europe et d’Afrique du Nord, Laboratoire de Botanique Historique et Palynologie, MarseillesGoogle Scholar
Reimer, P Jet al 2009. ‘IntCal09 and Marine09 radiocarbon age calibration curves, 0–50,000 years cal BP’, Radiocarbon, 51 (4), 1111–1150Google Scholar
Rocke, T O and Barnwell, E L 1872. ‘The Bronze Age relics of Broadward, Shropshire’, Archaeol Cambrensis, 4, 3rd ser, 338–355Google Scholar
Roe, F 1979. ‘Typology of stone implements with shaftholes’, in T H McK Clough and W A Cummins (eds), Stone Axe Studies: archaeological, petrological, ethnographic, 23–48, CBA Res Rep no. 23, LondonGoogle Scholar
Silver, I A 1969. ‘The ageing of domestic animals’, in D Brothwell and E Higgs (eds), Science in Archaeology: a survey of progress and research, 283–302, Praeger, New YorkGoogle Scholar
Stace, C 1997. New Flora of the British Isles, Cambridge University Press, CambridgeGoogle Scholar
Stanford, S C 1980. The Archaeology of the Welsh Marches, Collins, LondonGoogle Scholar
Stanford, S C 1982. ‘Bromfield, Shropshire: Neolithic, Beaker and Bronze Age sites, 1966–79’, Proc Prehist Soc, 48, 279–320Google Scholar
Sternqvist, B 1997. The Röekillorna Spring: spring-cults in Scandinavian prehistory, Almqvist and Wiksell, StockholmGoogle Scholar
Strang, V 2014. ‘Fluid consistencies: material relationships in human engagements with water’, Archaeol Dialogues, 21, 133–174Google Scholar
Stuiver, M and Reimer, P J 1986. ‘A computer program for radiocarbon age calculation’, Radiocarbon, 28 (2b), 1022–1030Google Scholar
Thomas, K 1971. Religion and the Decline of Magic, Weidenfeld & Nicholson, LondonGoogle Scholar
Toghill, P and Chell, K 1984. ‘Shropshire geology: stratigraphic and tectonic history’, Field Studies, 6, 59–101Google Scholar
Troels-Smith, J 1955. ‘Karakterisering af løse jordater (Characterisation of unconsolidated sediments)’, Danmarks Geologiske Undersøgelse, 4, 38–73Google Scholar
Turner, J 1962. ‘The Tilia decline: an anthropogenic interpretation’, New Phytologist, 61, 328–341Google Scholar
Turner, J 1964. ‘The anthropogenic factor in vegetational history, I: Tregaron and Whixall mosses’, New Phytologist, 63, 73–90Google Scholar
Twigger, S N and Haslam, C J 1991. ‘Environmental change in Shropshire during the last 13,000 years’, Field Studies, 7, 743–758Google Scholar
Vandkilde, H 2014. ‘Breakthrough of the Nordic Bronze Age: transcultural warriorhood and a Carpathian crossroad in the sixteenth century BC’, J European Archaeol, 17, 602–633Google Scholar
Walker, P, Miller, K and Richman, R 2008. ‘Time, temperature, and oxygen availability: an experimental study of the effects of environmental conditions on the color and organic content of cremated bone’, in C W Schmidt and S A Symes (eds), The Analysis of Burned Human Remains, 129–135, Academic Press, LondonGoogle Scholar
Waller, M P 1994. ‘Paludification and pollen representation: the influence of wetland size on Tilia representation in pollen diagrams’, The Holocene, 4, 430–434Google Scholar
Welfare, H and Swan, V 1995. Roman Camps in England, HMSO, LondonGoogle Scholar
Whimster, R 1989. The Emerging Past: air photography and the buried landscape, Royal Commission on the Historical Monuments of England (RCHME), LondonGoogle Scholar
Wilkinson, B 2010. The Broadward Hoard Project, March 2007–March 2010, Leintwardine History Society, LeintwardineGoogle Scholar
Wood, J 2011. ‘The lost witches of Saveock’, in D Gheorghiu (ed), Archaeology Experiences Spirituality?, 117–142, Cambridge Scholars Publishing, CambridgeGoogle Scholar
Yates, D and Bradley, R 2010a. The siting of metalwork hoards in the Bronze Age of south-east England’, Antiq J, 90, 41–72Google Scholar
Yates, D and Bradley, R 2010b. ‘Still water, hidden depths: the deposition of Bronze Age metalwork in the English Fenland’, Antiquity, 84, 405–415Google Scholar