Bronze Age

Question 1

Bronze Age Burials

Answer 1

Appearance of single burials c. 2500 BC
- ‘cult of the individual’
Accompanied by grave goods
- grave goods as symbols of power
- e.g. Amesbury archer – ‘king of Stonehenge’ – c. 2500 BC
e.g The Bush Barrow, Wiltshire - c. 1900 BC
-Under round barrows or cairns

Question 2

Change from communal burial (Neolithic) to single burial (Bronze Age)

Answer 2

• Shennan: mystification (hiding) of power relations 
  naturalisation of power relations
• Neolithic: status acquired through access to ancestors/
  esoteric ritual knowledge
• Bronze Age: status acquired through access to prestige
  goods

Question 3

But grave goods might be….

Answer 3

• gifts from the mourners
• objects used in the funerary rite
• decorative items to adorn the corpse
• the instrument of death itself

Question 4

Barrows and landscape

Answer 4

• prominent places, e.g. hilltops, ridges
• water, e.g. springs, rivers
• routeways

Question 5

Appearance of extensive field systems in the Middle Bronze Age in both upland and lowland Britain

Answer 5

Earlier vs Later Bronze Age landscapes

- Sacred vs. secular

Question 6

Middle Bronze Age

Answer 6

c. 1500-1100 BC

Question 7

Major residential structure

Answer 7

• finewares (consumption of food and drink)
• flint tools, hammerstones, whetstones (production and
  maintenance of tools)
• bronze and bone tools (craft production)
• loomweights and spindle whorls (spinning and weaving)
• high status artefacts (bronze, shales, carved chalk
  artefacts)

Question 8

Ancillary structures

Answer 8

• coarsewares, querns, flint scrapers, animal bones (food preparation)

Question 9

Rich artefact assemblages

Answer 9

• e.g. local and foreign metalwork
• amber, shale, glass, gold (Potterne, Wiltshire)
• antler cheek piece (Runnymede, Surrey)
• bone tools
• evidence for pottery and bronze production
• evidence of feasting, e.g. fragments of bronze cauldrons and front
  right forequarters of pig from Llanmaes, Glamorganshire

Question 10

Ringforts

Answer 10

• less than 160m diameter
• prominent positions overlooking river valleys
• often closely spaced
• few exotic goods
  Mucking North Ring,
  e.g. Essex

Question 11

Much wider variety of finds on LBA sites

Answer 11

• worked bone and shale
• much more metalwork
• evidence for flax and salt production
• more ‘exotic’ goods e.g. glass