Bronze Age Britain

Period of British history from c. 2500 until c. 800 BC

Bronze Age Britain

Geographical range| British Isles
Period| Bronze Age
Dates| c. 2200 — c. 800 BC
Preceded by| Bell Beaker culture, Neolithic British Isles
Followed by| Atlantic Bronze Age, Iron Age Britain

See also: Bronze Age Europe

Bronze Age Britain is an era of British history that spanned from c. 2500–2000 BC until c. 800 BC.[1] Lasting for approximately 1,700 years, it was preceded by the era of Neolithic Britain and was in turn followed by the period of Iron Age Britain. Being categorised as the Bronze Age, it was marked by the use of copper and then bronze by the prehistoric Britons, who used such metals to fashion tools. Great Britain in the Bronze Age also saw the widespread adoption of agriculture.

During the British Bronze Age, large megalithic monuments similar to those from the Late Neolithic continued to be constructed or modified, including such sites as Avebury, Stonehenge, Silbury Hill and Must Farm. That has been described as a time "when elaborate ceremonial practices emerged among some communities of subsistence agriculturalists of western Europe".[2]

## History

[edit]

### Early Bronze Age (EBA), c. 2500–1500 BC

[edit]

Extent of the Bell Beaker culture

There is no clear consensus on the date for the beginning of the Bronze Age in Great Britain and Ireland. Some sources give a date as late as 2000 BC,[3] and others set 2200 BC as the demarcation between the Neolithic and the Bronze Age.[4] The period from 2500 BC to 2000 BC has been called the "Late Neolithic/Early Bronze Age" in recognition of the difficulty of exactly defining the boundary.[5] Some archaeologists recognise a British Chalcolithic when copper was used between the 25th and the 22nd centuries BC, but others do not because production and use were on a small scale.[6][7]

* 2500–2000 BC: Mount Pleasant Phase, Early Bell Beaker culture: copper+tin.
* 2100–1900 BC: Late Beaker: knives, tanged spearheads (Bush Barrow; Wessex I; Overton Period).
* 1800–1600 BC: Fargo Phase (see correction at Bedd Branwen Period); burials.

### Middle Bronze Age (MBA), 1500–1000 BC

[edit]

* 1500–1300 BC: Acton Park Phase: palstaves, socketed spearheads; copper+tin, also lead.
* 1300–1200 BC: Knighton Heath Period; "rapiers."
* 1200–1000 BC: Early Urnfield; Wilburton-Wallington Phase.

### Late Bronze Age (LBA), 1000–700 BC

[edit]

* 1000–900 BC: Late Urnfield: socketed axes, palstaves (also lead).
* 800–700 BC: Ewart Park Phase, Llyn Fawr Phase: leaf-shaped swords.

In Ireland, the final Dowris phase of the Late Bronze Age appears to decline in about 600 BC, but iron metallurgy does not appear until about 550 BC.

## Development

[edit]

### The Bell Beaker culture

[edit]

Main article: Bell Beaker culture

Stonehenge ruins

Around 2500 BC, a new pottery style arrived in Great Britain: the Bell Beaker culture. Beaker pottery appears in the Mount Pleasant Phase (2700–2000 BC), along with flat axes and the burial practice of inhumation. People of this period were responsible for building Seahenge, along with the later phases of Stonehenge. Silbury Hill was also built in the early Beaker period.[8][9] Movement of continental Europeans brought new people to the islands from the continent.[10] Recent tooth enamel isotope research on bodies found in early Bronze Age graves around Stonehenge indicates that at least some of the new arrivals came from the area of modern Switzerland. The Beaker culture displayed different behaviours from the earlier Neolithic people and cultural change was significant, including the introduction of copper and gold metalworking after c. 2500 BC. Many of the early henge sites seem to have been adopted by the newcomers.

Silbury Hill, c. 2400 BC

Furthermore, a fundamentally different approach to burying the dead began. In contrast to the Neolithic practice of communal burials, the Bronze Age society undergoes an apparent shift towards focusing on to the individual, rather on the ancestors as a collective.[11] For example, in the Neolithic era, a large chambered cairn or long barrow was used to house the dead. The 'Early Bronze Age' saw people buried in individual barrows, also commonly known and marked on modern British Ordnance Survey maps as tumuli, or sometimes in cists covered with cairns. They were often buried with a beaker alongside the body. However, even though customs changed, barrows and burial mounds continued to be used during the Bronze Age, with smaller tombs often dug into the primary mounds.

There has been debate amongst archaeologists as to whether the "Beaker people" were a race of people that migrated to Britain en masse from the continent or whether a Beaker cultural "package" of goods and behaviour, which eventually spread across most of Western Europe, diffused to Britain's existing inhabitants through trade across tribal boundaries. However one recent study (2017) suggests a major genetic shift in late Neolithic/early Bronze Age Britain and up to 90% of Britain's Neolithic gene pool may have been replaced with the coming of a people genetically similar to the Beaker people of the Lower Rhine region (modern Netherlands/central-western Germany), which had a high proportion of steppe ancestry.[12] According to the evolutionary geneticist Ian Barnes, "Following the Beaker spread, there was a population in Britain that for the first time had ancestry and skin and eye pigmentation similar to Britons today".[13]

The most famous site in Britain from this period is Stonehenge, which had its Neolithic form elaborated extensively.[14] Many barrows surround it and an unusual number of 'rich' burials can be found nearby, such as the Amesbury Archer and the later Bush Barrow.

Close similarities have been noted between Stonehenge and the Pömmelte circular enclosure in central Germany, which was built by Bell Beaker people around 2300 BC.[15][16] Large timber circles in Britain such as Woodhenge, near to Stonehenge, are similarly dated to the early Beaker period or just before the Beaker period.[17][18] Some researchers have suggested that Woodhenge may have been a monumental roofed building, though it is usually thought to have been an open-air structure.[19][20] Beaker people also introduced mummification,[21][22] burial in log coffins[23][24] and cranial deformation to Britain.[25]

The archaeologist Timothy Darvill has argued that Stonehenge represented a solar calendar, reflecting the spread of solar cosmologies across Northern Europe in the third millennium BC.[26][27] Other researchers have emphasized the lunar aspects of Stonehenge, such as the apparent alignment of the Station Stone rectangle with the Major Lunar Standstill, which occurs every 18.6 years.[28] Various other astronomical interpretations have been proposed, such as the theory put forward by the astronomers Gerald Hawkins and Fred Hoyle that the ring of 56 Aubrey Holes could have been used to predict lunar eclipses.[29][30]

### Bronze

[edit]

Bush Barrow gold lozenge, c. 1900 BC.[31][32]

Several regions of origin have been postulated for the Beaker culture, notably the Iberian Peninsula, the Netherlands and Central Europe.[33] Part of the Beaker culture brought the skill of refining metal to Great Britain. At first, they made items from copper, but by around 2200 BC, smiths had discovered how to make bronze, which is much harder than copper, by mixing copper with a small amount of tin. With that discovery, the Bronze Age began in Great Britain.

Britain had large reserves of tin in what is now Cornwall and Devon in South West England (the largest in Europe and among the largest in the world), and thus tin mining began. South West England has the earliest evidence for tin ore exploitation in Europe.[34] Britain was also the first region in Europe to fully adopt tin-bronze technology and switch all metalwork from copper and arsenical bronze to full tin-bronze, in the period 2200-2100 BC. This full adoption subsequently occurred across Scandinavia and Central Europe by around 1800 BC and later in southern Iberia, the Aegean (Greece) and Egypt by around 1500/1300 BC.[35]

> "A remarkable change occurred in the period c. 2200–2100 BC when Britain was the first region in Europe to completely switch all metalwork from (arsenical) copper to full tin-bronze."[35]

Bronze spearhead, 1200–800 BC[36]

An analysis of Bronze Age–Early Iron Age tin ingots recovered from four Mediterranean shipwrecks off the coasts of Israel and southern France found that they originated from tin ores in south-west Britain.[37] According to Williams et al. (2025), "the ‘bronzization’ of the East Mediterranean, occurring 1500–1300 BC, was primarily driven by European tin sources, particularly from south-west Britain, rather than Central Asian sources." This situation is reflected in later writings by the Greek historian Herodotus (c. 450 BC), who referred to the Cassiterides or 'tin islands' in the distant northwest as the source for Mediterranean tin.[37] The importance of Britain as a source of tin is also reflected in evidence for connections between elites of the Wessex culture and elites in Mycenaean Greece, notably evidenced in the rich Bush Barrow burial next to Stonehenge.[38][39][40]

Copper was exported to the continent from sites such as the Great Orme mine in northern Wales,[41][42] as was gold from Cornwall (notably used to make the Nebra Sky Disc associated with the Únětice culture in central Europe).[43][44]

The Mold Cape, c. 1900–1600 BC, is unique among survivals[45]

Bronze axeheads, made by casting, were at first similar to their stone predecessors but then developed a socket for the wooden handle to fit into and a small loop or ring to make lashing the two together easier. Groups of unused axes are often found together, suggesting ritual deposits to some, but many archaeologists believe that elite groups collected bronze items and perhaps restricted their use among the wider population. Bronze swords of a graceful "leaf" shape, swelling gently from the handle before coming to a tip, have been found in considerable numbers, along with spear heads and arrow points.

Bronze Age Britons were also skilled at making jewellery from gold, as well as occasional objects like the Rillaton Cup and Mold Cape. Many examples have been found in graves of the wealthy Wessex culture of Southern Britain, but they are not as frequent as Irish finds. The earliest gold objects include gold lunulae, dating from c, 2400-2000 BC.[46]

The greatest quantities of bronze objects found in what is now England were discovered in East Cambridgeshire, where the most important finds were recovered in Isleham (more than 6500 pieces).[47]

The earliest known metalworking building was found at Sigwells, Somerset, England. Several casting mould fragments were fitted to a Wilburton type sword held in Somerset County Museum.[48] They were found in association with cereal grain that has been dated to the 12th century BC by carbon dating.

### Wessex culture

[edit]

Lockington gold armrings, c. 2100–1900 BC[49]

The rich Wessex culture developed in southern Great Britain during that time. The weather, previously warm and dry, became much wetter as the Bronze Age continued, which forced the population away from easily-defended sites in the hills and into the fertile valleys. Large livestock farms developed in the lowlands which appear to have contributed to economic growth and inspired increasing forest clearances.

### Deverel-Rimbury culture

[edit]

The Deverel-Rimbury culture began to emerge during the second half of the 'Middle Bronze Age' (c. 1400–1100 BC) to exploit the wetter conditions. Cornwall was a major source of tin for much of western Europe and copper was extracted from sites such as the Great Orme mine in Northern Wales. Social groups appear to have been tribal, but growing complexity and hierarchies became apparent.

### Disruption of cultural patterns

[edit]

See also: Atlantic Bronze Age

Cadbury Castle Late Bronze Age hillfort

There is evidence of a relatively large-scale disruption of cultural patterns (see Late Bronze Age collapse), which some scholars think may indicate an invasion (or at least a migration) into Southern Great Britain around the 12th century BC. The disruption was felt far beyond Britain, even beyond Europe, as most of the great Near Eastern empires collapsed (or experienced severe difficulties), and the Sea Peoples harried the entire Mediterranean basin around that time. Cremation was adopted as a burial practice, with cemeteries of urns containing cremated individuals appearing in the archaeological record. According to John T. Koch and others, the Celtic languages developed during the Late Bronze Age period in an intensely-trading-networked culture called the Atlantic Bronze Age, which included Britain, Ireland, France, Spain and Portugal,[50][51][52][53][54] but that stands in contrast to the more generally-accepted view that the Celtic languages developed earlier than that, with some cultural practices developing in the Hallstatt culture.

### Late Bronze Age migration

[edit]

In 2021, a major archaeogenetics study uncovered a migration into southern Britain during the 500-year period from 1300 to 800 BC.[55] The newcomers were genetically most similar to ancient individuals from Gaul and had higher levels of Early European Farmers ancestry.[55] From 1000 to 875 BC, their genetic marker swiftly spread through southern Britain,[56] which made up around half the ancestry of subsequent Iron Age people in that area, but not in northern Britain.[55] The "evidence suggests that, rather than a violent invasion or a single migratory event, the genetic structure of the population changed through sustained contacts between Britain and mainland Europe over several centuries, such as the movement of traders, intermarriage, and small scale movements of family groups".[56] The authors describe this as a "plausible vector for the spread of early Celtic languages into Britain".[55] There was much less migration into Britain during the Iron Age and so it is likely that Celtic had reached Britain before then.[55] The study also found that lactose tolerance rose swiftly in early Iron Age Britain, a thousand years before it became widespread in mainland Europe, which suggests that milk became a very important foodstuff in Britain at this time.[55]

## Gallery

[edit]

* Gold lunula, c. 2400–2000 BC[57]

* Bell Beaker artefacts

* Bush Barrow artefacts, c. 1900 BC

* Rillaton gold cup, c. 1700 BC

* Jet necklace, c. 2140-1900 BC[58]

* Hove amber cup, c. 1700 BC

* Caergwrle Bowl, c. 1300 BC[59][60]

* The Shropshire bulla, c. 1000 BC

* Bronze axes, England

* Bronze clothing pins

* Amber necklace, England

* Gold hoard, 1000 BC

* Bronze shield

* Early Bronze Age axe and dagger[61]

* The Oxborough Dirk, 1500–1300 BC[62]

* Bronze swords found in Scotland

* Tools and pottery

* Late Bronze Age cauldron[63][64]

* Late Bronze Age gold torque

* Dover Boat, c. 1500 BC

* Ferriby Boat model and replica tools, c. 2000 BC

* Bronze wheel parts[65][66]

* Horse bridles made from antler

* Burial mounds (barrows)

* Hypothetical roundhouse reconstruction

* Log coffin burial, reconstruction[67][68]

## See also

[edit]

* Prehistoric Britain
* Bronze Age Scotland
* Bronze Age Cornwall
* Bronze Age Wales
* Copper and Bronze Age Ireland
* Ferriby Boats
* Langdon Bay hoard
* List of Bronze Age hoards in Great Britain
* Bronze Age France
* Unetice culture
* Armorican Tumulus culture
* Hilversum culture
* Nordic Bronze Age
* Bronze Age Europe

## References

[edit]

1. ^ Adkins, Adkins and Leitch 2008. p. 64.
2. ^ Barrett 1994. p. 05.
3. ^ Bradley, Prehistory of Britain and Ireland, p. 183.
4. ^ Pollard, "Construction of Prehistoric Britain", in Pollard (ed.), Prehistoric Britain, p. 9.
5. ^ Francis Pryor, Britain BC, p. 226.
6. ^ Miles, The Tale of the Axe, pp. 363, 423, n. 15
7. ^ Allen, M.; et al. (2012). Is there a British chalcolithic? : people, place and polity in the later 3rd millennium. Oxbow Books.
8. ^ Armit, Ian; Reich, David (2021). "The return of the Beaker folk? Rethinking migration and population change in British prehistory". Antiquity. 95 (384): 1464–1477\. doi:10.15184/aqy.2021.129. S2CID 239626106.
9. ^ Bayliss, Alex; McAvoy, Fachtna; Whittle, Alisdair (2007). "The world recreated: redating Silbury Hill in its monumental landscape". Antiquity. 81 (311): 26–53\. doi:10.1017/S0003598X00094825. S2CID 161443252.
10. ^ Barras, Colin (27 March 2019). "Story of most murderous people of all time revealed in ancient DNA". New Scientist.
11. ^ McKinley, Jacqueline I. (1997). "Bronze Age 'Barrows' and Funerary Rites and Rituals of Cremation". Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society. 63: 129–145\. doi:10.1017/S0079497X00002401. ISSN 2050-2729. S2CID 194962030.
12. ^ Olalde, Iñigo; et al. (2017). "The Beaker Phenomenon And The Genomic Transformation Of Northwest Europe". bioRxiv 10.1101/135962.
13. ^ Köljing, Cecilia (21 February 2018). "Ancient DNA reveals impact of the "Beaker Phenomenon" on prehistoric Europeans". University of Gothenburg. Archived from the original on 23 May 2019.
14. ^ Bayliss, Alex; McAvoy, Fachtna; Whittle, Alisdair (2007). "The world recreated: Redating Silbury Hill in its monumental landscape". Antiquity. 81 (311): 26–53\. doi:10.1017/S0003598X00094825. S2CID 161443252 – via Academia.edu.
15. ^ Concepts of cosmos in the world of Stonehenge. British Museum. 2022.
16. ^ "Stonehenge's Continental Cousin". Archaeology. January 2021.
17. ^ Gibson, Alex (2020). "Beakers in Britain. The Beaker package reviewed". Préhistoires méditerranéennes (8). doi:10.4000/pm.2286.
18. ^ Gibson, Alex (1992). "The timber circle at Sarn-y-Bryn-Caled, Welshpool, Powys: Ritual and sacrifice in Bronze Age mid-Wales". Antiquity. 66 (250): 84–92\. doi:10.1017/S0003598X00081060.
19. ^ Wainwright, G. J.; Longworth, I. H. (1971). "Durrington Walls: Excavations 1966–1968". Reports of the Research Committee of the Society of Antiquaries of London, XXIX: 373. hdl:20.500.12657/27437. ISBN 978-0-85431-218-4.
20. ^ "History of Woodhenge". English Heritage.
21. ^ Booth, Thomas J. (2015). "Mummification in Bronze Age Britain". Antiquity. 89 (347): 1155–1173\. doi:10.15184/aqy.2015.111. S2CID 161304254.
22. ^ Smith, Allen (2016). "Holding on to the past: Southern British evidence for mummification and retention of the dead in the Chalcolithic and Bronze Age". Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports. 10: 744–756\. Bibcode:2016JArSR..10..744S. doi:10.1016/j.jasrep.2016.05.034.
23. ^ Melton, Nigel (2015). "Gristhorpe Man: An early Bronze Age log-coffin burial scientifically defined". Antiquity. 84 (325): 796–815\. doi:10.1017/S0003598X00100237. hdl:10036/4426. S2CID 53412188.
24. ^ Jones, A. (2023). "The Early Bronze Age Log Coffin Burials of Britain: The Origins and Development of a Burial Rite(s)". Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society. 89: 51–81\. doi:10.1017/ppr.2023.5.
25. ^ Mike Parker Pearson, 'The New Archaeology of Stonehenge' (2021).
26. ^ Darvill, Timothy (2022). "Keeping time at Stonehenge". Antiquity. 96 (386): 319–335\. doi:10.15184/aqy.2022.5. S2CID 247336130.
27. ^ Darvill, Timothy (2023). Keeping Time at Stonehenge: A Megalithic Calendar Revealed.
28. ^ "Major Lunar Standstill". English Heritage.
29. ^ Hawkins, Gerald (1965). Stonehenge Decoded. Barnes and Noble Books. p. 132\. ISBN 978-0-88029-147-7.
30. ^ Hoyle, Fred (1977). On Stonehenge. W.H. Freeman. p. 53.
31. ^ Stonehenge's Richest Man: The Bush Barrow Chieftain (British Museum 2022). "The point at the top and the bottom [of the Bush Barrow gold lozenge] has a very precise angle of 81 degrees. That's the same angle between where the sun rises at midwinter and midsummer solstices, so it has an astronomical importance. And the very finely detailed embossed decoration, particularly around the outer border, is laid out to a tolerance of less than half a millimetre. What that tells us is they understood astronomy, geometry and mathematics, 4,000 years ago."
32. ^ "Photo of the Bush Barrow Lozenge". Archived from the original on 7 May 2019.
33. ^ Lemercier, Olivier (21 May 2012). "Interpreting the Beaker phenomenon in Mediterranean France: an Iron Age analogy". Antiquity. 86 (331): 131–143\. doi:10.1017/S0003598X00062505. OCLC 789660090. S2CID 19294850 – via Open WorldCat.
34. ^ Williams, R. Alan; et al. (2025). "From Land's End to the Levant: did Britain's tin sources transform the Bronze Age in Europe and the Mediterranean?". Antiquity: 1–19\. doi:10.15184/aqy.2025.41.
35. ^ a b Williams, R. Alan; et al. (2025). "From Land's End to the Levant: did Britain's tin sources transform the Bronze Age in Europe and the Mediterranean?". Antiquity: 1–19\. doi:10.15184/aqy.2025.41.
36. ^ "Spearhead (Met Museum)". www.metmuseum.org.
37. ^ a b Williams, R. Alan; et al. (2025). "From Land's End to the Levant: did Britain's tin sources transform the Bronze Age in Europe and the Mediterranean?". Antiquity: 1–19\. doi:10.15184/aqy.2025.41.
38. ^ Maran, Joseph (January 2013). "Bright as the sun: The appropriation of amber objects in Mycenaean Greece". In Hahn, Hans Peter; Weiss, Hadas (eds.). Mobility, Meaning and the Transformations of Things. Oxbow Books. pp. 147–169\. ISBN 978-1-84217-525-5.
39. ^ Gerloff, Sabine (2010). "Von Troja an die Saale, von Wessex nach Mykene – Chronologie, Fernverbindungen und Zinnrouten der Frühbronzezeit Mittel- und Westeuropas". In Meller, Harald; Bertemes, Francois (eds.). Der Griff nach den Sternen. Internationales Symposium in Halle (Saale) 16.-21. Februar 2005. Landesamt für Denkmalpflege und Archäologie Sachsen-Anhalt – Landesmuseum für Vorgeschichte Halle (Saale). pp. 603–639\. ISBN 978-3-939414-28-5.
40. ^ Gerloff, Sabine (2007). "Reinecke's ABC and the Chronology of the British Bronze Age". In Burgess, Christopher; Topping, Peter; Lynch, Frances (eds.). Beyond Stonehenge: Essays on the Bronze Age in Honour of Colin Burgess. Oxbow Books. pp. 117–161\. ISBN 978-1-84217-215-5.
41. ^ Williams, R. Alan (2023). Boom and Bust in Bronze Age Britain: The Great Orme Copper Mine and European Trade. Archaeopress. ISBN 9781803273792.
42. ^ Timberlake, Simon (2017). "New ideas on the exploitation of copper, tin, gold, and lead ores in Bronze Age Britain: The mining, smelting, and movement of metal". Journal of Materials and Manufacturing Processes, Vol. 32, Issue 7-8. doi:10.1080/10426914.2016.1221113.
43. ^ "Cornwall was scene of prehistoric gold rush, says new research". Independent.co.uk. 2015.
44. ^ Ehser, Anja; Borg, Gregor; Pernicka, Ernst (2011). "Provenance of the gold of the Early Bronze Age Nebra Sky Disk, central Germany: geochemical characterization of natural gold from Cornwall". European Journal of Mineralogy. 23 (6): 895–910\. Bibcode:2011EJMin..23..895E. doi:10.1127/0935-1221/2011/0023-2140. Retrieved 12 November 2013.
45. ^ "Mold Gold Cape (British Museum)". www.britishmuseum.org.
46. ^ "Gold Lunula". British Museum.
47. ^ Hall and Coles, p. 81–88.
48. ^ Tabor, Richard (2008). Cadbury Castle: The hillfort and landscapes. Stroud: The History Press. pp. 61–69\. ISBN 978-0-7524-4715-5.
49. ^ "Lockrington Armlet (British Museum)". www.britishmuseum.org.
50. ^ "O'Donnell Lecture 2008 Appendix" (PDF).
51. ^ Koch, John (2009). "Tartessian: Celtic from the Southwest at the Dawn of History" (PDF). Acta Palaeohispanica X Palaeohispanica. 9: 339–351\. ISSN 1578-5386. Retrieved 17 May 2010.
52. ^ Koch, John. "New research suggests Welsh Celtic roots lie in Spain and Portugal". Retrieved 10 May 2010.
53. ^ Renfrew, Colin (2010). Cunliffe, Barry; Koch, John T. (eds.). Celtic from the West: Alternative Perspectives from Archaeology, Genetics, Language and Literature. Oxbow Books and Celtic Studies Publications. p. 384\. ISBN 978-1-84217-410-4. Archived from the original on 12 June 2010. Retrieved 26 May 2010.
54. ^ Rethinking the Bronze Age and the Arrival of Indo-European in Atlantic Europe. University of Wales Centre for Advanced Welsh and Celtic Studies and Institute of Archaeology, University of Oxford. 2017.
55. ^ a b c d e f Patterson, Nick; et al. (22 December 2021). "Large-scale migration into Britain during the Middle to Late Bronze Age" (PDF). Nature. 601 (7894): 588–594\. doi:10.1038/s41586-021-04287-4. PMC 8889665. PMID 34937049. S2CID 245509501.
56. ^ a b "Ancient DNA study reveals large scale migrations into Bronze Age Britain". University of York. 22 December 2021. Retrieved 21 January 2022.
57. ^ "Lunula". British Museum.
58. ^ "Spacer-Plate Necklace". Bute Museum.
59. ^ "Caergwrle Bowl". National Museum Wales.
60. ^ Meller, Harald (2022). The World of the Nebra Sky Disc: The Caergwrle Ship. Halle State Museum of Prehistory.
61. ^ "Dagger". British Museum.
62. ^ "Dirk (British Museum)". www.britishmuseum.org.
63. ^ Gerloff, Sabine (1986). "Bronze Age Class A Cauldrons: Typology, Origins and Chronology". The Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland. 116: 84–115\. JSTOR 25508908.
64. ^ Barrowclough, David (2014). Bronze Age Feasting Equipment: A contextual discussion of the Salle and East Anglian cauldrons and flesh-hooks. Red Dagger Press, Cambridge. pp. 1–17.
65. ^ "Bronze objects for Atlantic Elites in France (13th-8th century BC)". p. 26.
66. ^ "Earliest Complete Bronze Age Wheel in Britain Discovered". Historic England. 2016.
67. ^ "Gristhorpe Man log coffin". "The Gristhorpe log-coffin burial is one of 75 recorded in Britain that range in date from the twenty-third to seventeenth centuries BC. They are found throughout Britain from Scotland to the south coast and from East Anglia to Wales. … the coffin was roughly square cut at the foot end, but the base and lid had been rounded off at the head end. … In 1834 the excavators identified 'a rude figure of a human face' carved into the lid. This carving, now much degraded, is surrounded by a cut which flares, possibly to indicate shoulders. (Melton 2015)"
68. ^ Melton, Nigel (2015). "Gristhorpe Man: an Early Bronze Age log-coffin burial scientifically defined". Antiquity. 84 (325): 796–815\. doi:10.1017/S0003598X00100237. S2CID 53412188.

### Bibliography

[edit]

* Adkins, Roy; Adkins, Lesley; Leitch, Victoria (2008). The Handbook of British Archaeology (Second ed.). London: Constable.
* Barrett, John C. (1994). Fragments from Antiquity: An Archaeology of Social Life in Britain, 2900-1200 BC. Oxford and Cambridge, Massachusetts: Blackwell.
* Bradley, Richard (2007). The Prehistory of Britain and Ireland. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-61270-8.
* Miles, David (2016). The Tale of the Axe: How the Neolithic Revolution Transformed Britain. London, UK: Thames & Hudson. ISBN 978-0-500-05186-3.
* Pearson, Michael Parker (2005). Bronze Age Britain (Revised ed.). London: B.T. Batsford. ISBN 0-7134-8849-2.
* Pollard, Joshua (ed.) (2008). Prehistoric Britain. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing. ISBN 978-1-4051-2546-8.
* Pryor, Francis (2003). Britain BC. London: Harper. ISBN 978-0-00-712693-4.
* Tylecote, R. F. (1987). The early history of metallurgy in Europe.

## External links

[edit]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Bronze Age in the United Kingdom.

* From Rapier to Langsax: Sword Structure in the British Isles in the Bronze and Iron Ages by Niko Silvester (1995)
* Divers unearth Bronze Age hoard off the coast of Devon
* Moor Sands finds, including a remarkably well preserved and complete sword which has parallels with material from the Seine basin of northern France
* 3000-year-old shipwreck shows European trade was thriving in Bronze Age
* Scales, weights and weight-regulated artefacts in Middle and Late Bronze Age Britain (Lorenz Rahmstorf 2019)

* v
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Bronze Age

↑ Chalcolithic

Bronze Age|

* Abashevo culture
* Aegean civilization
* Andronovo culture
* Apennine culture
* Armorican Tumulus culture
* Atlantic Bronze Age
* BMAC
* Bronze Age Britain
* Bronze Age Europe
* Canegrate culture
* Catacomb culture
* Chinese Bronze Age
* Cycladic culture
* Deer stones culture
* Deverel–Rimbury culture
* Elp culture
* Ewart Park Phase
* Ezero culture
* Glazkov culture
* Argaric culture
* Hallstatt culture
* Helladic period
* Indus Valley Civilisation
* Late Jomon
* Karasuk culture
* Liaoning bronze dagger culture
* Lusatian culture
* Minoan civilization
* Mumun pottery period
* Mycenaean Greece
* Nordic Bronze Age
* Okunev culture
* Ordos culture
* Penard Period
* Samus culture
* South-Western Iberian Bronze
* Srubnaya culture
* Tagar culture
* Tarim Basin
* Terramare culture
* Trzciniec
* Tumulus culture
* Únětice culture
* Urnfield culture
* Wessex culture
* Wilburton-Wallington Phase

Bronze Age
(North Caucasus
and Transcaucasia)|

* Kurgan
* Koban
* Kura–Araxes
* Shulaveri-Shomu
* Colchian
* Trialeti
* Maykop culture
* Leyla-Tepe culture
* Jar-Burial
* Khojaly–Gadabay

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