The Use and Significance of Early Bronze Age Stone Battle-axes and Axe-hammers from Northern Britain and the Isle of Man

Abstract

<jats:p>The perforated stone battle-axes and axe-hammers of Early Bronze Age Britain have been used either to interpret the status of individuals they were buried with or have been overlooked; this is especially the case with axe-hammers. Previous understandings have assumed battle-axes were purely ceremonial, while the rougher axe-hammers were neither functional nor prestigious, being too large and too crude to be prestige items. Studies of the 20th century were focused on creating a typology and understanding the manufacture and petrological sources of the stone, concluding that haphazard exploitation of stone was used to create a variety of different shapes of both implements. This paper revisits the question of how these artefacts were used. It presents the results of the first large-scale application of use-wear analysis to British Early Bronze Age battle-axes and axe-hammers, from northern Britain and the Isle of Man. Combining the results of the wear analysis with experimental archaeology and contextual analysis, it is argued that these objects were functional tools, some of which saw prolonged use that might have spanned multiple users. The evidence shows that the few implements found in burial contexts were both functional and symbolic; their inclusion in burial contexts drawing upon relational links which developed through the itineraries of these objects. It is also apparent that use and treatment were similar across all types of battle-axe and axe-hammer, with some regional variation in the deposition of axe-hammers in south-west Scotland. It is concluded that battle-axes and axe-hammers had varied and multiple roles and significances and that it is possible to discover what each artefact was used for by deploying a use-wear analysis methodology.</jats:p>

Materials in movement: gold and stone in process in the Upton Lovell G2a burial

“…Piggott (1962: 94) argued that the bone points and boars' tusks were part of a costume and that the burial dated to c. 1500 BC. Today, the burial is considered as part of Needham's Wessex 1 group (Needham et al 2010), and is now thought, based on the Stage III battle axes (Roe 1966;Roy 2020), the type 2a/b awl (Woodward & Hunter 2015: 466) and the bone points (Woodward & Hunter 2015: 467), to date to between 1850-1700 BC. Piggott (1962) compared the burial to European Mesolithic examples, where such costumed individuals are interpreted as shamans.…”

“…Today, the burial is considered as part of Needham's Wessex 1 group (Needham et al . 2010), and is now thought, based on the Stage III battle axes (Roe 1966; Roy 2020), the type 2a/b awl (Woodward & Hunter 2015: 466) and the bone points (Woodward & Hunter 2015: 467), to date to between 1850–1700 BC.…”

Making marks meaningful: new materialism and the microwear assemblage

“…One of these two battle axes, placed by the feet of the lower male inhumation, was broken into two pieces and forms the subject of this paper. 4 While the term 'battle axe' carries specific connotations suggesting a specialized use in combat, there is no substantive evidence to support such an interpretation (Roy 2020;Wentink 2020). The axe is dark greenish grey in colour and made from a medium-grained quartz dolerite (Group XVIII) (Evens et al 1962, 248;Evens, Smith, and Wallis 1972, 257;Roe 1966, 245) with a polished surface.…”

Thinking outside the cist: interpreting a unique artefact assemblage from an Early Bronze Age burial on the Isle of Man

“…Indeed, these regions have no history of dagger use from the Chalcolithic (c. 2500-2200 BC), and burials with Beaker pottery are also very rare. Axe-hammers are found frequently Thinking outside the cist: a unique artefact assemblage on the Isle of Man in early second-millennium BC Dumfries and Galloway and Lancashire (Roy 2019), but are less common in the areas where class 3 pommels have been found; these two object types may have had different resonances. Battle-axes are rarer than axe-hammers, but have been found in Dumfries and Galloway, including two buried with cremated remains and Collared Urns at the edge of Bargrennan chambered cairns (Cummings & Fowler 2007).…”