Bronze Age metalwork hoards in the landscape of lowland Britain: a pilot study

直到最近在英国由开发商资助的田野调查的扩大，铜器时代活动的最清晰证据是金属制品的发现，而这种材料仍然是博物馆展品的主要内容。尤其是青铜器时代中晚期（公元前1500-800年）的文物，它们所处的时期，土丘和墓地的作用正在减弱。从19世纪后期开始，青铜和黄金的发现引起了人们的关注，但通常是从两个角度来研究的。他们最初被用来建立一个年表，因为似乎有可能在同一场合埋葬了不同的人工制品。通过比较这些贮藏物的内容，可以将青铜器时代细分为一系列阶段，甚至可以细分为一个更复杂的工业传统序列，其有效性已被放射性碳定年法证实（Needham et al. 1998）。这是一项重要的成就，但它也带来了一个问题，因为这些材料很少与其他类型的证据联系在一起，比如定居点、埋葬或土地划分。相反，金属制品的发现似乎是孤立发生的。有一段时间，人们对这些发现采取了一种实用的态度，认为它们是流动铁匠在贸易中的库存，这些铁匠积累了原材料，以便以后再循环利用，或者在新制造的产品分发给顾客之前储存起来。甚至有人认为，这些人在偏远地区工作，因为他们提供了充足的燃料供应。科学分析证实了许多（但不是全部）这些藏品与金属加工之间的联系，但这种方法很容易鼓励这样一种观点，即史前金属加工是按照现代西方方式组织起来的一个行业（Needham 2001; Barber 2003）。此外，也没有明确的解释为什么这么多的材料被沉积，但从未被发现。现在有可能采取另一种方法来解决这个问题。大量青铜器时代的定居点已经被发现，它们的分布范围也扩大了，这增加了金属制品储藏和单个发现可能与附近直到最近才被发现的定居点有关的可能性。与此同时，这些文物中的许多似乎不太可能已经丢失。也许这些储物柜里有一些特定的物品，可能是那些从事金属加工的人故意奉献给地面的，作为献祭。似乎特定种类的物品必须放置在特定的地方，武器通常放在水中，工具放在干燥的土地上。北欧和西欧的研究表明，可能还会发现更细微的差别（Harding 2000，第10章；Fontijn 2003）。另一个重新开始对藏品和单个发现进行调查的原因是，最近有新的发现通过向便携式文物计划报告的业余考古学家的发现以及开发商资助的实地调查的增长而曝光（Barber 2003）。现在研究青铜器和金器被放置在地下的方式要容易得多，因为这些藏品很少是偶然发现的，而更多是由考古学家调查的（文化媒体和体育部，2005年）。这使得研究这些发现的更广泛背景变得尤为重要。这些原材料的沉积和转化似乎可能受到社会习俗的影响，而考古学家并不总是意识到这一点。不仅有可能将金属制品沉积物置于古代定居模式的背景下，而且可以用更少的近代经验和更适合史前社会的术语来解释金属制品的生产。如果初步研究的结果令人满意，我将进一步申请拨款。

Until the recent expansion of developer-funded fieldwork in Britain, the clearest evidence of Bronze Age activity was provided by discoveries of metalwork, and it is this material which still dominates museum displays. That is particularly true of artefacts from the Middle and Late Bronze Ages (c.1500-800 BC) which date from a period in which burial mounds and cemeteries play a decreasing role. Finds of bronze and gold have attracted attention from the late 19thC, but generally are studied from two perspectives. They were initially employed to build a chronology because it seemed likely that collections of distinctive artefacts had been buried together on the same occasions. By comparing the contents of these hoards it was possible to subdivide the Bronze Age into a series of phases and even into a more complex sequence of industrial traditions whose validity has been confirmed by radiocarbon dating (Needham et al. 1998). This was an important achievement but it also created a problem, for little of this material was associated with other kinds of evidence, such as settlements burials or land divisions. Rather, finds of metalwork seemed to occur in isolation. For a while that was explained by adopting a functional approach to these finds which regarded them as the stock in trade of itinerant smiths, who had accumulated raw material for later recycling or who had stored newly made items before they were distributed to the customer. It was even argued that these people had worked in remote areas because they provided an abundant supply of fuel. Scientific analysis substantiated the connection between many, but not all, of these collections and the working of metal, but this approach all too easily encouraged the view that prehistoric metalworking was an industry that was organised on modern Western lines (Needham 2001; Barber 2003). Moreover there was no clear explanation of why so much material had been deposited but never recovered. Now it is possible to take another approach to the question. Larger numbers of Bronze Age settlements have been found and their distribution has widened, raising the possibility that metalwork hoards and single finds might have been attached to nearby settlements which had eluded discovery until recently. At the same time, it seems unlikely that many of these artefacts had been lost. Perhaps the hoards contained a specific selection of items that were intentionally committed to the ground as votive offerings, possibly by those engaged in working the metal. It seems likely that particular kinds of objects had to be deposited in particular kinds of places, weapons were normally committed to water and tools were placed in dry land. Work in Northern and Western Europe suggests that more subtle distinctions may also be discovered (Harding 2000, chapter 10; Fontijn 2003). Another reason for renewing the investigation of hoards and single finds is that new finds have recently come to light through discoveries by amateur archaeologists reported to the Portable Antiquities Scheme as well as the growth of developer-funded fieldwork (Barber 2003). It is now much easier to study the manner in which both bronze and gold artefacts had been placed in the ground because fewer of these collections are chance finds, and more have been investigated by archaeologists (Department of Culture Media and Sport 2005). This makes it especially important to study the wider contexts of these discoveries. It seems possible that the deposition and transformation of the raw material were attended by social conventions of which archaeologists had not always been aware. Not only is there the possibility of contextualising metalwork deposits within the ancient pattern of settlement, it may be feasible to interpret the production of metal artefacts in terms that owe less to recent experience and are more appropriate to prehistoric society. If the pilot study provides satisfactory results I envisage a further grant application.