Scottish Late Bronze Age Metalwork: Typology, Distribution and Chronology

Abstract

THIS paper is an attempt to bring the mass of material from late Bronze Age Scotland into some order, to divide it regionally and chronologically. It is based primarily on metal types, of bronze and gold, an emphasis necessitated by the scarcity of known settlements, pottery and cemeteries that can be dated to the earlier part of the first millennium B.C. 1 Aspects of the Late Bronze Age in Scotland have been studied on previous occasions, and these papers have served as a basis for the present work. The first attempt at a collection of material was made by Callander; he published lists of hoards in ig23 2 and also examined some of the outstanding associated finds in greater detail. This work was preceded by several nineteenth-century general surveys of the Late Bronze Age by Anderson 3 and Wilson. 4 But Childe was the first to discuss the Scottish Bronze Age in relation to continental cultures. His Prehistory of Scotland 5 traced the influences arriving from the Continent and from Ireland during the first millennium B.C., and later work attempted to interpret the developments of Bronze Age culture in terms of historical processes. 6 His detailed studies, however, were directed more to the unusual aspects of the Late Bronze Age, such as the settlement at Jarlshof, than to the commoner material. Childe was one of the supporters of Miss Benton's work in 1931 on the association of exotic bronzes with flat-rimmed pottery at Covesea, Morayshire 7 ; this material has for long been a subject of controversy. Work on local material from the Scottish Late Bronze Age was carried out by Henderson in igsS, 8 and more recent studies have been made by Proudfoot, 9 Stevenson 10 and Piggott. he present work begins with a summary of late Middle Bronze settlement, and traces the gradual arrival of Late Bronze types in the centuries from about goo B.C. These can be divided regionally and dated on the basis of continental imports and analogies. To anticipate the conclusions that emerge from the work, we distinguish five Late Bronze phases in the settlement of Scotland, all of which can be incor-