Pattern or Random? Contextualising Estonian Bronze Age Bronze Stray Finds on the Landscape

Abstract

KRISTIINA PAAVEL P a t t e r n o r R a n d o m ?C o n t e x t u a l i s i n g E s t o n i a n B r o n z e A g e B r o n z e S t r a y F i n d s o n t h e L a n d s c a p e I n t r o d u c t i o nThe majority of Estonian Bronze Age (1800-500 cal BC) large metal finds consist of approximately 45 objects, mainly axes and spearheads. Most of them, both Early and Late Bronze Age items, were found during construction, cultivation or metal detecting in non-settlement, non-burial contexts. In contrast, bronze finds from settlements are predominantly associated with on-site bronze casting (casting waste, scrap metal), and those from burial sites are of a personal nature (tweezers, razors, buttons, etc). Nearly all bronze finds from clear settlement and burial contexts date from the Late Bronze Age. A connection between stray bronze finds and settlement sites has been suggested on a few occasions, and some items have been associated with possible deposition in bodies of water. In cases of items found decades ago by laymen and in locations not surveyed by archaeologists, the possible archaeological context may have gone unrecognised. In recent years, the growing popularity of metal detectors has brought about a noticeable increase in new finds. Cooperation between detectorists and archaeologists has made it possible to check many find locations, and confirm the lack of an immediately recognisable archaeological context. How did these bronze items then enter the archaeological record? Why were they left on the landscape?Bronze Age metal finds outside settlement and burial contexts are known all over Europe. People have buried or left bronze in the landscape in multiple-object hoards, as well as individually, without reclaiming them. The tradition of depositing bronze objects in wetlands and bodies of water, as well as on dry land, has been identified almost everywhere in Europe, including Scandinavia and the southern Baltic region (e.g. Fontijn 2002;Bliujienė 2010;Yates, Bradley 2010a, 2010bSzabó 2011;Hansen 2013;Melheim, Horn 2014;Rundkvist 2015). The debate about the meaning of this phenomenon, with all its variations over large geographical and temporal distances, is still going on. Some of the currently most popular theories include sacrifice, mundane safe-keeping, conspicuous consumption and memory practice, with the problematic distinction between ritual and secular deposits still forming a large part of the discussion (Melheim 2015a, 85, and references cited therein).For Estonian material, the possibility of stray bronze finds being connected with deposition practices has until now not been systematically explored. Although the items have been studied from a typological perspective, almost no attention has been paid to the find locations, leaving most of the artefacts without a topographical context. This is partly due to the previously insufficient numbers of finds for these questions to even become relevant, and partly due to the lack of technical pos- PAT T E R N O R R A N D O M ? C O N T E X T U A L I S I N G E S...

THREE BRONZE AXES WITH WOODEN HAFT RE-MAINS FROM ESTONIA; pp. 3–19

“…Although it cannot be determined why the axes were left in these specific locations, they are similar to most sites in Estonia where bronze axes have been found, as these typically yield no other archaeological remains of the same time period. The majority of the finds have been recovered from existing or dried-up water bodies, wetlands or waterlogged soils, possibly indicating intentional depositing in wet locations (Paavel 2017a). The handle remains presented in this paper indicate that at least some of the axeheads were left behind either hafted, or with a broken-off haft bit remaining in the socket.…”