Two bronze age cargoes in British waters

Abstract

Since the mid-1960s, significant advances have been made in the techniques and organization of archaeological research in British waters. However, the sites discovered and explored during the first decade of such work have dated without exception to the centuries after 1500 AD. The results from investigations such as those on the Mary Rose of 1545 (Rule, 1978) or the wrecks of the Spanish Armada (Martin, 1975) have clearly demonstrated the potential of such sites to shed light on periods and topics for which documentary sources are also available; nevertheless, the full archaeological significance of this new area of research remained unrealized through being limited to the post-medieval period. The discovery and study of two underwater bronze age sites in the past few years have thus changed the whole complexion of British maritime archaeology. The purpose of this note is to provide a brief interim account of the sites involved, and indicate a few of their implications for Bronze Age studies.