While re-examining artifacts from a major 4,000-year-old Bronze Age burial site near Stonehenge in Britain, archaeologists uncovered a toolkit for working with gold objects and coatings that had not been previously identified.
The site, the Upton Lovell G2a ‘Wessex Culture’ burial site, was excavated more than 200 years ago and is critical to our understanding Early Bronze Age Britain.
What had not previously been discovered, however, was that some of the excavated devices showed traces of gold.
Two bodies were recovered from Upton Lovell G2a and it now appears that one of them was a goldsmith of some sort. This new approach to evaluating the content of the site offers deeper insights into life and work 4,000 years ago.
“This is a really exciting finding for our project,” says archaeologist Rachel Crellin from the University of Leicester in the UK.
“We know that at the recent World of Stonehenge exhibition at the British Museum, the public was stunned by the amazing 4,000-year-old goldwork on display.”
“What our work has revealed is the humble stone toolbox used to make gold objects thousands of years ago.”
It was a new attrition analysis (a close examination of edges and surfaces) that first revealed gold residues on some stone and copper alloy grave goods. It also showed that other tools were used for other purposes: not only for hammering, but also for smoothing.
Further studies with a scanning electron microscope and a Energy dispersive spectrometer — both designed to broadly confirm material types — confirmed that researchers were looking at gold from ancient times.
The team identified gold residues on five different artefacts and discovered an elemental signature in the gold consistent with Bronze Age goldwork found across Britain.
These tools were probably used to decorate objects made of materials such as jet, slate, amber, wood or copper with gold.
“The man buried at Upton Lovell, near Stonehenge, was a highly skilled craftsman specializing in the manufacture of gold objects.” says Lisa Brown, curator at the Wiltshire Museum, where the new finds are on display. Brown was not directly involved in the research.
“His ceremonial cloak, decorated with pierced animal bones, also suggests that he was a spiritual leader and one of the few early Bronze Age people who understood the magic of metalworking.”
(That researchers notice“That The primary burial is usually described as male, although no osteological evaluation has been published.”)
The team behind this new study calls for more detailed and nuanced categorization in archaeological digs like that at Upton Lovell G2a — an approach that could unveil many more mysteries.
It’s also important to look closely at the grave goods buried next to a person when trying to determine that person’s identity and role, the researchers say. This is particularly important when several people are buried in the same place, as is the case here.
Finally, these artifacts should be considered in relation to each other, the study authors conclude. Here’s how to set one up chaine operatoire – a “chain of operations” – has revealed something about the distant past that had previously been overlooked.
“Early Bronze Age gold-working tools are extremely rare, so the identification of a tool kit used to make composite gold objects is an extremely important discovery.” says archaeologist Chris Standish from the University of Southampton in the UK.
“The fact that it’s linked to Upton Lovell’s enigmatic G2a funeral makes it all the more intriguing.”
The research was published in antiquity.
