- Chapter Sixteen -
a Hallstatt iron sword in Britain and certainly an import (O'Connor 1980). The local
production of an iron socketed sickle is indicated by the fact that it is an exact replica
in iron of the contemporary bronze type. The find is completed by two large and
elaborate bronze cauldrons which exemplify the changes which were taking place in
bronzeworking during this period.
During the preceding, Ewart Park, phase of the Late Bronze Age in many areas
of Britain metal was abundant and basic tools and weapons such as socketed axes and
plain spearheads were mass-produced and of relatively poor quality. Specialized tools
and the more important and expensive weapons, such as swords, were better finished
but even the most elaborate of bronze products, the cauldrons, are rather crude in
detail and simple in construction. The bronzes of the Llyn Fawr are more carefully
made and even the most basic show a high standard of finish. At the same time the
prestige products show greatly increased inputs of time and skill. The body of a
Ewart Park-period cauldron is made from three sheets of bronze in two tiers with
plain rivets and one-piece cast handle fittings. The Llyn Fawr-period cauldron has as
many as five tiers of sheets with as many as 500 decorative rivets, with the handle
fittings incorporating as many as ten separate components, all carefully finished. The
vessels as they survive are generally in good order and not extensively patched and
repaired as were their predecessors. Clearly there has been a significant change in the
elite who could support this type of production, with display becoming as important
as function.
Other changes were occurring in the way bronze was perceived and used. A
considerable weight of metal was removed by the manufacture of non-utilitarian
forms, as in the many thousands of heavily leaded, non-functional Armorican
socketed axes occurring in hoards in north-west France. The British equivalent is the
production of thin-walled castings of socketed axes and other tools in high
tin-bronzes with up to 20 per cent tin, possibly associated with an increase in the
votive deposition of metal. At the same time the quantity of bronze in daily circula-
tion appears have declined quite rapidly during this period. It is tempting to relate
this to the increasing importance of iron but this is much too simplistic a conclusion
(Northover 1984). In fact, in the British Isles and in adjacent parts of Atlantic
Europe, the overall quantity of metal in use was rapidly approaching a minimum it
reached in the sixth century BC, contemporary with Hallstatt 0 in central Europe.
There is little more than a handful of iron objects, and gold has disappeared
altogether in most of the area. In other words the impact of iron was not instant and
dramatic and it occurred during a time in which the existing metal industry was being
greatly affected by other social and economic changes.
Nevertheless, it was during the seventh and sixth centuries BC that iron replaced
bronze in Britain as the metal of choice for most tools and weapons, and by the
beginning of the fifth century at the latest the change was complete. The uncertainty
over chronology comes from the lack of associated finds and the difficulty of
determining what tool types were in use in the sixth century Be. We should take brief
notice here of why iron and iron alloys such as steel came to achieve their dominant
position. The principal factor must be economic and geographical, that is the general
availability and accessibility of iron ores compared with those of copper and
tin. Where the making of copper alloys required the mixing of two separate metals