Daggers of the Early Iron Age in Britain

Abstract

The daggers of the Early Iron Age in Britain are remarkable technical achievements, among them some of the earliest iron implements to be made in Britain. They deserve detailed study particularly for the light they throw on the prehistory of its earliest phase, the Iron Age ‘A’. The earlier daggers may be classified quite straightforwardly according to their analogies among the continental daggers, six with the Hallstatt-D and eighteen with the La Tène I, thus giving a dating scheme, from the 6th century to the later 4th century B.C. All these come from southern England, and form a compact group mostly from the Thames in its reaches for about 8 miles west of London.