Aerial photography

An aerial photograph of the Iron Age hill fort at Yarnbury, Wiltshire in England. The remains of an earlier structure show up inside the main ramparts.

The remains of human activity can sometimes be seen from the air, even when they are buried underground. In dry weather crops may grow poorly on thin soil lying over buried buildings and roads. Or crops may grow unusually well in the deep soil that is the result of long-forgotten pits and ditches being filled in over the years. Either of these effects can reveal signs of ancient settlements when they are photographed from the air.

Restoration?

Conservators don't usually restore objects unless it is essential. Some objects, however, do need to be repaired or restored, particularly if they are to go on display in a museum. Pots are sometimes rebuilt and holes in damaged cloth may be repaired. But any restoration should be visible - at least to the trained eye - and it should also be reversible. The importance of this became apparent with the remains of a helmet recovered from the excavation of an Anglo-Saxon burial mound at Sutton Hoo, England. The helmet was originally reconstructed a decade after its discovery in 1939. However, ideas about what the helmet originally looked like changed over the years, and in 1968 the helmet was taken apart and reconstructed again - but this time it looked quite different!

The earlier Bronze Age in Ireland II

Stone circle at Beaghmore.

Recent re-examination of the cemeteries indicates a predominance of male burials suggesting a stratified society in which not everyone was accorded the formal rite of cist or pit burial. The rich burial of a young teenage male at Tara, complete with a necklace of jet, amber, bronze, and faience and a bronze dagger and awl, demonstrates, for example, that for some aristocracy was a birthright. Further indication of the wealth to which people might aspire, and the international tenor of the trappings of status, is seen in the corpus of sheet goldwork which includes 85 crescentic gold collars or lunulae, 20 decorated sun-discs, and 2 basketshaped earrings: all types known from Britain and indeed further afield. No doubt bronze objects, such as axes, halberds, and, as we have seen, daggers, belonged to only the richest in society. All that glitters is not gold!

Funerals represented only one facet of ritual activity during the 2nd millennium bc. Communal ceremonial monuments were also created. Although many of these have associated burials, it seems that this was not their primary role, instead the burials may have connected, symbolically, the cycle of human life and death with the cosmological order. In addition to the large embanked enclosures, or henges, which continued to be used into the first few centuries of the second millennium bc, smaller henges and hengiform barrows now appeared throughout the country (indeed, as we shall see, in Ireland the tradition of defining sacred space with a hengiform enclosure continued in various guises into the 1st millennium ad). And, whereas previously henges might have been associated with timber circles and temples, during the 2nd millennium these circles were increasingly made from stone, a development exemplified in the case of Newgrange where the massive pit circle once attached figure-of-eight style to the site was replaced by a great stone circle encircling the mound itself. By their very nature, stone circles are difficult to date but appear to have been built throughout the 2nd millennium bc. Major concentrations occur in Ulster and Munster, with over 90 examples recorded in Cos. Cork and Kerry alone where the dominant type is the ‘recumbent’ circle. Such circles, consisting of five or more stones, are entered between two matching portal stones, the largest in the circle, on the opposing side of which lies the recumbent or axial stone. The axis between the portals and recumbent stone is consistently aligned south-west/north-east, i.e. on the rising and setting sun. Few circles have been excavated. At Drombeg, Co. Cork, five pits were uncovered in the central area. One contained the cremated remains of an adolescent and a sherd of coarse pottery which yielded a date of 1124–794 bc. Similar ‘token’ deposits of cremated human bone were uncovered at Bohonagh and Reanascreena, Co. Cork, and at Cashelkeelty, Co. Kerry. Some of these circles appear to be associated with stone alignments, that is rows of standing stones that can stretch for considerable distances across the countryside.

Analysis has demonstrated that many alignments ‘point’ towards important solar and lunar positions or to places where sun and geography combine to curious affect, as at Lough Inagh, Co. Galway, where the alignment points to a corrie that is illuminated by the last rays of the setting sun during the winter solstice. Alignments may also have defined territorial boundaries across large tracts of open countryside. As in Munster, the stone circles of Ulster are also associated with stone alignments, and this is nowhere better illustrated than at Beaghmore, Co. Tyrone, where seven circles and at least eight alignments comprise one of the most enigmatic archaeological landscapes in Ireland. Unlike the Munster circles, these northern specimens consist of vast quantities of small, portable stones arranged in concentric circles and radial lines. A spectacular group has recently been exposed in cut-away peat at Copney Hill, about 11 km from Beaghmore.

Pollen evidence tells us that these people lived in a still largely forested environment, practising agriculture in clearings on lighter, drier soils, although a general increase in ash from about 2300 bc suggests that forests were lighter than previously. Throughout the course of the 2nd millennium there was progressively more settlement on the uplands. It has been argued that in such a context agriculture was merely an adjunct to the exploitation of the greater ecosystem. So, while the underlying trend is of a steady increase in arable agriculture and increasing reliance on farm produce, the macrofossil evidence indicates that substantial quantities of wild foods continued to be collected. Movement was along trails and droveways and, over boggy ground, on wooden trackways such as those uncovered at Corlea and Annaghbeg, Co. Longford. There are very few settlement sites of the period. Most consist of habitation deposits uncovered during the excavation of multi-period sites with few or no surviving structural remains. A series of possible postholes at Monknewtown, Co. Meath, has been speculatively reconstructed as the outline of a conical, wigwam-type house. There is evidence, however, that the first fulachta fiadh date from around 2300 bc. These are cooking pits where meat was broiled in water-filled, sunken wooden troughs, brought to the boil by having hot stones dropped in. Over 2,000 are known throughout the country and they are an important indicator of the whereabouts of Bronze Age settlement. What are to all intents and purposes identical installations are described in documentary sources of the early medieval period, suggesting extraordinary longevity.

Until recent radiocarbon programmes began to push forward the dates of stone circles and alignments and pull back the dates of fulachta fiadh and widely spaced multivallate hillforts, the archaeology of Middle Bronze Age Ireland (c.1500–900 bc) was dominated by artefact studies. Substantive technological advancements, such as the development of sockets, were made during these centuries. A unique set of stone moulds from Killymaddy, Co. Antrim, bear the matrices of socket-looped spearheads and a dirk or rapier, the first of such weapons in the Irish arsenal, along with tanged knives and a sickle. The problems of mounting a flat axe were overcome by creating axes with side flanges and a stop-ridge which ultimately led to the development of the palstave, principally a woodworker’s tool, which was produced in huge numbers. Indeed, the whole bronze industry had moved onto an altogether more industrial plane, though unfortunately most of the vast quantity of Middle Bronze Age metalwork comprises stray finds. Significant percentages of these, however, come from wet contexts and this suggests that many were votive deposits, with an apparent preference for rivers over and above lakes and bogs. The tools of the bronzesmith’s trade are preserved in a slightly later hoard from Bishopsland, Co. Kildare, and these include among other things a double-sided saw, an anvil, a selection of chisels, bronze socketed hammers, and a vice. This hoard connects the Irish bronze industry with the so-called Taunton Phase of the British Bronze Age, dated to between 1350 and 1200 bc. In addition to the new tool and weapon types, new types of jewellery appeared also, including a variety of twisted gold torcs, or neckrings, and similarly made earrings. Most common, however, are penannular bronze bracelets.

The dearth in burials of this period is compensated for, in some measure, by numerous recent discoveries of settlement sites. At both Ballyveelish (c.1130–810 bc) and Chancellorsland, Co. Tipperary, the habitation area was located within a large oval enclosure (both around 40 m × 30 m) and this suggests that other enclosures of the same size and shape might also date from this period. Although no house structures survived in the excavated part of the Ballyveelish enclosure, a considerable amount of pottery and organic refuse was recovered from the surrounding ditch. Cattle accounted for 43 per cent of the livestock, pig nearly 36 per cent, and sheep/goat 17 per cent, the remainder comprising horse, dog, and red deer. Slaughter patterns suggest that the cattle were reared primarily for beef. Barley and wheat were also grown. The pottery consisted of plain coarse, flat-bottomed ware, probably used for cooking, a type that would dominate the domestic scene until at least the 4th century bc. At Chancellorsland a succession of small oval and sub-rectangular huts was uncovered. Again, there was excellent survival of organic material in the fosse. House plans were also uncovered at Curraghatoor, Co. Tipperary, Lough Gur, Co. Limerick, and Carrigillihy, Co. Cork, and these consist of relatively small circular or oval shaped dwellings around 5 m or 6 m in diameter with walls that are likely to have been of wicker, possibly covered in clay daub or animal skins. At Lough Gur pig dominated the faunal assemblage, with cattle coming in at around 38 per cent. Tillage was also important as attested at Belderg, Co. Mayo, where Caulfield uncovered ‘lazybeds’ in a field system associated with a small round house. With an economy so rooted in the land, O’Sullivan has suggested that wetlands sites, such as those uncovered at Cullyhanna Lough, Co. Armagh, and Lough Eskragh, Co. Tyrone, might only have been seasonally occupied, thus accounting for their comparatively small assemblages.

The earlier Bronze Age in Ireland I

Copper mine on Ross Island, Killarney

On Ross Island, Killarney, Co. Kerry, O’Brien has uncovered the oldest known copper mine in north-western Europe, dating from between 2400 and 2000 bc. Here, arsenical copper was mined from short shafts tunnelled more or less vertically from the surface. Inside these cramped tunnels fires were lit to fracture the parent rock which was then dislodged using stone mauls or hammer stones. It is very difficult to estimate how much ore was extracted from Ross Island, or indeed Mount Gabriel, Co. Cork, which was exploited between about 1700 and 1500 bc, but the work was clearly labour intensive and the resultant copper extremely valuable. Tin may have been mined across the country in Wicklow, or might have been imported from Cornwall in south-west Britain. Combined, these two metals produced bronze.

Associated with the copper mine on Ross Island was Beaker pottery, a fine, often highly decorated, flat-bottomed drinking vessel which is irregularly distributed throughout western Europe where it has a recurring association with the first use of metal. Consequently, the Ross Island assemblage is central to the question of how knowledge of metallurgy first arrived in Ireland. The traditional view connects the spread of the use of copper with ‘Beaker Folk’ whose migrations were revealed in the distribution of their distinctive material assemblage (which includes conical, V-perforated buttons, barbed and tanged arrowheads, and stone archers’ wristguards) and the appearance of copper metallurgy among the furthest outposts of north-western Europe. Many scholars today, however, question the plausibility of such folk movements. Emphasizing the regional diversities throughout north-west Europe in the Late Neolithic/Early Bronze Age, they suggest that rather than people, what spread was a new concept in social organization: the distinctive artefacts are simply internationally recognized symbols of social status. Accordingly, they would argue that the technical know-how required to mine and process copper, and later (c.2200 bc) bronze, could have been passed on by word of mouth along traditional Late Neolithic trade routes.

In Ireland Beaker pottery is often associated with Wedge tombs, built between about 2300 and 2000 bc. Along with embanked enclosures and stone and timber henges, they represent the earliest elements in the lexicon of ritual architecture in Bronze Age Ireland that, over the course of a thousand years, came to include Single Burials, cemetery mounds, standing stones, stone alignments and stone circles, boulder burials, and rock art. With the relative dearth of settlement sites these confusing and often enigmatic monuments have come to dominate our analyses and perception of this period. Though Wedge tombs, of which just over 500 examples are known, are the most numerous Irish megalithic tombs, their origins are shrouded in obscurity. While sharing certain characteristics with Neolithic tombs, their closest parallels are with the allées couvertes of north-western France, and so a connection with that area cannot be ruled out. Wedge tombs have a decidedly western distribution, with notable concentrations in south-western and northern Munster and again along a band curving from north Mayo and Sligo across south Tyrone and into east Donegal. This contrasts with the generally more eastern distribution of the Single Burial tradition of pit and cist burials and introduces the possibility of distinct socio-cultural provinces in early Bronze Age Ireland. Analysis of the mutually distinct Wedge tombs and Single Burials in Munster, for example, suggests to O’Brien that Wedge tomb builders controlled access to ores and distribution of metal, which their Single Burial neighbours in central and eastern Munster could only acquire through barter. Such monopolies led to the emergence of what are known as ‘Big Man’ elites, while down-the-line exchange gave rise to specialized middlemen who must have played a pivotal role in the acquisition of tin, which was not available in Munster.

From the outset (c.2350 bc) there was tremendous variability among the Single Burials which outlasted the use of Wedge tombs by some centuries. During this time the accompanying bowl- and vase-shaped funerary vessels developed from grave good to urn. As the name implies, Bowls are essentially round-bellied pots, highly decorated with impressed and incised ornament that owes much of its inspiration to the Beaker tradition. They are found mainly in the north and east of the country and so complement the distribution of Wedge tombs. The vast majority occur in small, stone-lined cists and more than half accompanied cremated burials. Occasionally, other artefacts such as plano-convex flint knives, leaf-shaped arrowheads, and polished stone artefacts have been found along with Bowls and at Corkey, Co. Antrim, and Carrickinab, Co. Down, riveted bronze daggers were also found. Miniature Bowls (sometimes called Pygmy Cups) are also known. The contemporary Vase Tradition is characterized by tapered bi- and tripartite pots, 11 to 16 cm tall. Handmade, they too are highly decorated and although they share the same northern and eastern distribution, there is a significant grouping in Galway and Mayo. Most Vases have been found with cremated burials and the range of associated grave goods compares to that accompanying Bowls. From around 1900 bc we see the emergence from the indigenous Vase Tradition of two types of large funerary pot (i.e. up to 40 cm tall), the Vase Urn and the Encrusted Urn, types which feature in the burial tradition for about two centuries. They share the stage with two British-inspired urn types, the impressive Cordoned and Collared Urns.

Cordoned Urns are found in simple pits, inverted over the cremated remains of the dead (usually one individual, sometimes more) which were presumably sealed in place with a cloth before the pot was turned upside down. They occur in the east of the country with a particular concentration in the north-east. Associated finds include exotica, such as small oval-shaped bronze knives or razors, which may be symbols of masculinity, and beads of faience, a blue vitreous paste, originating in the Near East. However, the most impressive artefacts to have been found with Cordoned Urns are the so-called battleaxes. Beautifully carved, waisted, and perforated, these stone axes were clearly for ceremonial use and, like the urns, originate in Scotland. Sixty or so burials with Collared Urns have been found in Ireland and these date from between 2000 and 1500 or 1400 bc. Concentrated in the north-east, they too are most frequently found in simple pits, associated grave goods being quite rare. There are noteworthy exceptions, however, as at the Mound of the Hostages, Tara, Co. Meath, where a battleaxe and a riveted bronze dagger were found with a Collared Urn and an inverted Vase.

The forty-plus burials in the Mound of the Hostages at Tara comprise a cemetery mound. As at Tara and Baunogenasraid, Co. Carlow, occasionally Neolithic tumuli were reused as cemetery mounds during the earlier Bronze Age but in other cases, such as at Knockast, Co. Westmeath, new mounds were built. Flat cemeteries are evidently far more difficult to recognize and are usually found by chance during ploughing. Consequently, there has been little concerted excavation of such sites. At Urbalreagh, Co. Antrim, three burials were demarcated by a small penannular ditch. A similar ring-ditch was excavated at Ballyveelish, Co. Tipperary, and was found to encircle a porched mortuary house in the centre of which was a polygonal cist containing the remains of two adults, a young teenager, and two children, as well as an Encrusted Urn and two Pygmy Cups. Many such ring-ditches date from the earlier Bronze Age, though as a type simple ring-ditches were built throughout prehistory. Burials such as those at Tara and the Bowl burial at Knockaulin represent one aspect of the continuing investment into complexes that would, in time, become the royal sites of later prehistoric and early historic Ireland.

BRETON MIGRATIONS

 

 

Early medieval Brittany: the Dark Age kingdoms. The approximate limit of Breton political power in the 6th century is shown as a dashed line; P = place-names in Plou attested before 1200; the white lines represent the Roman road network.

Despite their location on the European continent, the Breton language and associated culture owe their distinctive shape to origins on the Island of Britain, with especially close affinities to the pre-English groups of Cornwall (Kernow) and south-west Britain generally. For this reason, Breton is classed as an Insular Celtic language, despite its location. Settlers brought Brythonic speech and culture to Brittany (Breizh) in a series of migrations from the 3rd to 9th centuries ad, most heavily c. 450–c. 600, moving into an area of Gaul that had previously been known by the Gaulish name Armorica. The well-documented presence of a leader with the Brythonic name or title Rigotamus and known to the Gallo-Romans as ‘king of the Britons’ with 12,000 men on the river Loire (Liger) c. 470 represents an advanced stage in a process which had by then become well organized and included an important military component.

We do not have abundant evidence to show to what extent Gaulish was still a spoken language in Armorica when the Britons moved in. Clearly, there was some Latin spoken there, as throughout the Western Empire. However, to judge from extant Gallo-Roman remains, Armorica was not one of the most Romanized regions of Gaul. Repeatedly, for spans of several years at a time over the 4th and earlier 5th centuries, Armorica slipped out of imperial control and into the hands of armed peasant rebels, known as Bacaudae. The word itself is not Latin but Gaulish, and is probably related to the Breton and Welsh bagad ‘a band of men’. It seems inherently unlikely that the Bacaudae—from the most underprivileged and anti-Roman classes of the most remote region of Gaul—were all monoglot Latin speakers. We may note also a late Gaulish inscription from Plumergat, indicating that a learned Gaulish was still in use for prestigious occasions in the old territory of the Veneti c. ad 300 or possibly later. One may also point to a number of pre-Breton place-names which are clearly Gaulish, rather than Gallo-Roman, in character, for example, the name of the great megalithic site Carnac ‘Place of stone monuments’. It is likely, therefore, that Gaulish did survive, at least in some areas, to contribute names and words to the incoming Brythonic and possibly even influence its phonetics, morphology, and syntax. Some scholars, notably François Falc’hun, went as far as to argue that Gaulish was still a living language at the time of these migrations, and that Breton (particularly the Vannetais dialect in the old civitas of the Veneti, shows substantial influence from Gaulish, if it is not a direct descendant. However, any such argument flies in the face of the fact that the earliest Welsh, Cornish, and Breton are similar to the point of being often indistinguishable on linguistic grounds. It seems, therefore, that whatever Gaulish might have survived when the Britons arrived, it was the similar but distinct speech of the dominant incomers that was to become the standard variety of spoken Celtic in the peninsula.

Two 6th-century historians, the Byzantine Procopius and the Gallo-Roman Gregory of Tours, both demonstrate that Brythonic Brittany was an accomplished fact. The latter gives a detailed account of a peninsula ruled by chieftains with Brythonic names, whom the Merovingian Franks insisted on calling comites (counts), but who were effectively independent sovereigns. By the 570s Brythonic speakers were already dominant in an even further colony in north-west Spain called Britonia. However, we have only one near contemporary source that describes the migrations themselves, namely the De Excidio Britanniae of Gildas. Writing the better part of a century after the event, Gildas gives a luridly melodramatic account of an Anglo- Saxon ‘conquest’ from which the Britons had to flee, either to the west, i.e., Wales (Cymru) and Cornwall, or overseas to Brittany. Gildas, however, tells us that no British historical records had survived; he was therefore producing a stark and moralistic historical explanation of the distribution of Brythonic, Old English, and Gallo-Latin in his own day, and working from an admitted position of ignorance.

The spread of languages with the decline and collapse of the Western Empire—primarily the early Germanic languages such as Old English—has tended to be understood within the framework of Volkerwanderung (migration of peoples), i.e., a great post-Roman migration period. Applying this idea to Gildas’s testimony, the Breton migrations have been seen as a ‘knock-on’ or ‘billiard-ball’ effect, with Celtic migrants set in motion by an earlier Anglo-Saxon movement. However, a number of factors other than mass migration can influence the change from one language to another, including political or religious authority and social or economic pressure. The Armorican peninsula had close and bidirectional relations with Britain throughout prehistory and the ancient and medieval periods; therefore, the real processes behind cultural and linguistic Bretonization must have been a story of many complex increments. For example, is the Bacaudic prelude to the migrations to be viewed primarily as the story of a local power vacuum or an anti-Roman, philo-Celtic movement, or both?

Early Christian communities were clearly a factor in the Breton migrations. Le Duc has recently proposed that Romano-British Christians moved into Armorica as early as the 3rd century ad, when Christianity was still actively persecuted in Roman Britain (Celtic Connections 1.133–51). In a letter written between 509 and 521, the bishops of Tours, Angers, and Rennes (Roazhon) threatened to excommunicate, for their alien and unorthodox practices, two priests in Armorica with the Brythonic names Louocatus and Catihernus; thus we see the faltering grip of the Gallo-Roman hierarchy on a nascent Brittany with its own distinctive Christian practices. Traditional history has long held that the saints were leaders in the journey to Brittany. Breton Latin saints’ lives support this, both in their descriptions of actual migrations and in the connections between insular Britons and Bretons. Britonia in Spain probably had a similar origin. The study of Breton place-names suggests a detailed picture of settlement by British early Christians in the peninsula, especially the numerous archaic names (often still those of parishes and towns and villages of local importance) that comprise the element Plou- the name of an early Brythonic saint or an obscure element popularly understood as a saint’s name. In many instances, the same saints’ names are found in parish names in Wales and Cornwall.

From the standpoint of social history, the model of colonization—though without the word’s modern political overtones—is probably appropriate for the Breton migrations, in that the movements seem to have been largely voluntary, and conducted on the scale of family groups and small religious communities, rather than mass conquest by a hostile invading force. The prior inhabitants of Armorica—whose initial resistance to Rome had been fierce and whose position within later Gallo-Roman society had been increasingly marginal and precarious—were probably gradually incorporated into the new society rather than being driven out, destroyed, or having suffered some depopulating catastrophe, as previous theories have proposed. Whatever the circumstances of the original impulse to settle Brittany from Britain, it is certain that the connections between Brittany, Cornwall, and Wales were maintained for centuries, facilitated by a common language, trade networks and other economic factors, and the relative ease of travel by sea. Subsequent settlement from Brittany to Britain and vice versa occurred throughout the Middle Ages, both in the context of the Norman invasion of Britain and independently. The family of Geoffrey of Monmouth is believed to have been of Breton origin.

Further reading

Bowen, Britain and the Western Seaways; Bowen, Saints, Seaways and Settlements; Chadwick, Early Brittany; Falc’hun, Les origines de la langue bretonne; Fleuriot, Les origines de la Bretagne; Galliou & Jones, Bretons; Jackson, LHEB; Le Duc, Celtic Connections 1.133–51; Poisson & Le Mat, Histoire de Bretagne.

Hallstatt Elite Burials

 

The Hochdorf burial is one of the most important archaeological discoveries of the Century for Celtic studies. Like the Egyptian tombs, most Celtic tombs were pillaged by grave robbers and disturbed by careless amateur archeologists of the modern period. Although farmers had been tilling the ground for centuries, the tomb was only discovered in the 1970s. Archeologists have placed the large, mound burial to about 550 BCE which means it was untouched for 2,500 years. The first investigations of the mound took place in 1978-79 by Jörg Biel. The burial gives us an unprecedented insight into the burial practices of the elite in 6th-century.

The Hochdorf burial confirms and summarizes other, less complete burials. This rare archeological find also confirms the legends of the prosperous Celtic past. The large, isolated burial gives extraordinary information on tomb construction. The mound measures 60 meters across. The tomb proper was constructed of a masonry perimeter reinforced with timber. The entrance ramp is on the north face of the mound. The tomb proper (where the body was placed) measures 11 meters square, by 2 meters deep, and is constructed of two walls filled with rubble. The rubble between the two walls--designed to withstand robbers is a feature not found in other tumuli, perhaps indicating the importance of the tomb and its occupant.

Inside, the chamber was found lined with textiles that adorned the walls. Although bacteria-killing oxides from the metal artifacts preserved the fabric, the fabric disintegrated when it was exposed to air. The remains of the deceased indicated the occupant was a 45-year-old man who measured 6' in height. He was placed on cloths of wool and badger skin. Since there are no traces of human hair it is assumed that the body was preserved in a vat of salt. Salt mining, of course, was one of the major industries during the Hallstatt period. The flowers in the tomb were the local blooms of late summer and early autumn.

In addition to items of personal adornment, the tomb included objects for personal hygiene, a razor and nail scissors. The three fishhooks and a quiver with arrows, though no bow, probably indicate his elite status as hunter/warrior as opposed to a worker. A large drinking service comprised of nine drinking horns and a large cauldron decorated with bronze lions and a dinner set with accessories indicate the Celtic elite's enjoyment of hospitality. The cauldron held 104 gallons of liquid: probably mead, a honeyed wine drink of the elite class. The cauldron was a luxury import item, probably made in a Greek colony in the south of Italy.



LINK

LINK 

Bibliography:

• Biel, J., Der Keltenfurst von Hochdorf. Stuttgart: K. Theiss, 1985.
• Hochdorf. Stuttgart: K. Theiss, 1985.
• Der Keltenfurst von Hochdorf: Methoden und Ergebnisse der Landesarchaologie in Baden-Wurttemberg : Katalog zur Ausstellung in der Josef-Haubrich-Kunsthalle. Koln vom 31. Januar bis 31.Marz 1986. Stuttgart: K. Theiss, 1985.
• Moscati, S.,ed., The Celts Milano: Gruppo Editoriale Fabbri, Bompiani, 1991.

Hoard shines light on Dark Ages

By Dr Michael Lewis
Deputy head of Portable Antiquities Scheme, British Museum 

This treasure paints a new picture of our past and the Dark Ages.
What makes it outstanding is the sheer quantity - we're talking about 1,500 objects, almost entirely precious metal.
Normally you would expect a handful of objects each year of this quality for the period in question, which is the 7th Century.
A metal detectorist finding just one of these objects would consider it the find of their life. To find 1,500 is bizarre and it would blow the average person's mind.
Now, everybody wants to know who it belongs to and why it was put there. But those questions are tricky to answer.

From my 21st-century perspective, I find it bewildering that someone could shove so much metalwork into the ground Huge Anglo-Saxon gold hoard found In pictures: Anglo-Saxon treasures

For the Anglo-Saxon period, this is an awful lot of wealth for one person, or even one people, to have left in one place.
At the moment, we can say what it isn't, even if we can't say what it is. It's not associated with a burial, like Sutton Hoo was, for example.
Precious metal
After that, there are two main possibilities.
The first is that this treasure has been purposefully deposited, like an offering to a god.
But, from my 21st-Century perspective, I find it bewildering that someone could shove so much metalwork into the ground as an offering. That seems like overkill.
The other possibility is it's a treasure chest that got lost, or they couldn't come back for it.

A folded cross - precious metal seemed to mean more than items themselves

The material is predominantly associated with war - swords, sword fittings, bits of helmets and the like - but all the precious metalwork has been stripped.
That means they're not treasuring the objects as wholes, they're taking the precious metals off and keeping them.
Most things we find from the Anglo-Saxon period are what we call "chance finds", in other words the things people lost, or hoards purposefully deposited, or finds from burials.
But hoarding is more associated with the Viking period. Things like big coin hoards are more a 10th-Century sort of find. This is a strange phenomenon in this country for the 7th Century.
People will now be working to understand when the material was deposited, then we'll look at what we know of the history - which is not a lot - to tie it down.
The finds date from a wide period, which is unusual, so the first thing this may do is help us improve our dating of the Anglo-Saxon period.
Much of what we know about this period is based on archaeology, not written evidence, because that written evidence is so scant.

What would we make of modern society if we just looked at the material culture, with no context?

We've got the objects, but not the historical context.
That's a problem because we understand the world based on what's written down, but we're not that good at understanding people from their material culture.
What would we make of modern society if we just looked at the material culture? What would we try to understand from it with no historical context to put it in?
Rulers overlooked
Yet that's what we're trying to do here.
I don't think it's realistic to identify this with a particular individual. We'll probably never find the owners, although the best bet is a ruler from the kingdom of Mercia, where it was found.
In this period some Mercian rulers, like Penda and Offa, are quite well-known to us. Penda is a bit before this period, and Offa is right at the end, so it has to be someone in the middle.
But our historical sources are limited to people like the monk Bede, who wrote from a Christian perspective.
The Mercian rulers at the time are likely to have been pagan, but they could have been overlooked by Bede even though they might have been important, because he wasn't interested in them - for whatever reason.
So this will help us look back at those sources, and those historical figures, with more scrutiny than we did before.
The Dark Ages were called the Dark Ages because it was seen as a period where, after Roman civilisation, somehow we went backwards in time.
But this demonstrates there were still wonderful objects being produced, and produced in this country.
It will take years, or decades, to get answers, and we still won't get all of them.
We can't just ask questions about this hoard, either - we need to ask questions about how this hoard fits in with everything else we know.
Have we made assumptions elsewhere that aren't right?
Those are the things we'd like to know about. It's very, very early days.