An Early Bronze Age Burial with a Golden Spiral Ring from Ammerbuch-Reusten, Southwestern Germany

Abstract

A women’s burial of the Early Bronze Age that was uncovered near Ammerbuch-Reusten, Tübingen district in autumn 2020 shows clear relations to burial rites of the Final Neolithic in central Europe. The only grave good was in the rear of the burial. A small spiral ring made of gold wire at the left side of the burial at hip level, which can be considered to be the earliest securely dated precious metal find in southwestern Germany. The find fits into a small series of early spiral rings made of gold wire, which are among the oldest precious metal finds in central Europe. Its composition with c. 20 % silver and less than 2 % copper as well as traces of platinum and tin indicates the use of a naturally occurring gold alloy, most likely from so-called alluvial deposits obtained by panning from rivers. The trace element pattern strongly suggests that this type of gold derives from Cornwall, specifically from River Carnon. The burial matches a group of other burials from the Bronze Age on the plateau and is apparently related to a hilltop settlement on the nearby Kirchberg of Reusten.

Beaker and Early Bronze Age Tin Exploitation in Cornwall: Cassiterite Processing Identified through Microwear and pXRF Analyses

“…Our results strongly suggest that Cornish tin sources were being processed from as early as c. 2300-2200 cal BC, and that ores from these sources were integrated into the circulation of metals, first across Britain and Ireland and subsequently in the wider Atlantic region and beyond (Berger et al, 2022). This ties in with the goldwork evidence, in terms of the Atlantic distribution of the broadly contemporary lunulae found in Ireland, Cornwall, and Brittany (Taylor, 1980;Needham, 2000), and with respect to geochemical analyses which have identified Cornish gold in other artefact types (Esher et al, 2011;Standish et al, 2015;Krause et al, 2021). We can therefore potentially see tin and gold from Cornwall, and copper from Ireland and Wales, as forming part of a wider Atlantic exchange network.…”