Secrets of Rosemarkie Bronze Age hoard revealed
The excavation and analysis of the Bronze Age hoard found in Rosemarkie, Scotland, has been completed and the first results published.The hoard came to light in May 2021 during an excavation at the site of new home construction. The excavation found evidence of a small Bronze Age settlement at Rosemarkie. The remains of seven roundhouses were discovered, built over a long stretch of more than six centuries in the 1st millennium B.C. The roundhouses were not all occupied at the same time, but rather built in succession. One of the roundhouses contained fragments of metalworking molds for the production of weapons (a swords, spearheads), tools (sickles) and jewelry (bracelets).Archaeologists hypothesize that the roundhouses may have been a sort of family compound in use over generations. Towards the end of the occupation period (ca. 9th c. B.C.), the hoard was buried. It was buried in a single event inside a shallow pit that was just big enough to fit the objects. The hoard was not lost or part of a larger deposition. The hole was dug specifically for these objects and then immediately filled. Its possible that it was intended to be temporary, a familys treasures carefully tied together, cushioned by plant material, then hidden close to home for safekeeping with the intent to retrieve it when a danger had passed, only that recovery never happened.When the top of the neatly-arranged stack of bronze objects emerged from the ground, it was clear that it was a significant archaeological find, not just because of the jewelry, but because of the visible surviving organic fibers. The entire hoard was removed in a soil block for excavation in laboratory conditions.The block was transferred to GUARD Archaeologys Finds Lab for micro-excavation under controlled conditions to ensure that the organic remains were preserved. The hoard was first X-rayed, revealing nine bronze artifacts: one complete penannular ringed ornament on top, a fragment of another penannular ringed ornament nested inside of it, six bracelets and a cup-ended bracelet at the base.The intact penannular ringed ornament, adorned with 37 rings, is the most complete and complicated example of its type yet found in Scotland. Its fragmentary counterpart had 13 surviving rings, and both ornaments were probably made by the same craftworker using the lost wax casting method. This was a very rare process only used in the creation of highly prized objects, and workshops to produce such pieces were few and far between in Bronze Age Scotland. The purpose of these ornaments is unclear as the complete one from Rosemarkie was too small to fit over an average human head, and it showed no signs of being distorted in order to be worn around the neck. X-ray imaging of the cup-ended ornament revealed that it was cast as an entire object with no visible seams or joins. There are several comparable finds known, mostly Irish and made of gold, but its closest parallel is a bronze version from the Poolewe Hoard in the West Highlands. The Rosemarkie example is much sturdier and thicker than any of these, however.The bracelets were also unusual as no two were alike perhaps they had been contributed by different individuals or households. Three of the six show signs of distortion, suggesting they had been repeatedly worn, and one stood out as the heaviest known penannular bar bracelet yet found in Scotland.The micro-excavation also uncovered plants used as packing material and fibrous organic cording tying some of the bracelets together. Other hoards have been found with objects positioned in such a way to suggest they had bound together, but this is the first example where the organic bindings survived in place, proving conclusively that they were tied together before burial.Bracken stems and fronds were used as packing when the artefacts were buried. Tree bast, the inner bark of a tree, was concentrated around the ornaments, following the curves of each. It also formed a large clump at the base of the pit, entangled with the lowest artefacts. Despite being buried for thousands of years, this mass was strong enough to hold the artefacts in place and would not release its quarry easily.But when they were eventually teased apart, this mass was revealed to be something very rare indeed: a simple overhand knot that had been tied around the cup-ended ornament when the tree bast was still in pristine condition, binding it to three of the bracelets. A sample taken from the bast provided a secure radiocarbon date for the burial of the Rosemarkie hoard: 894-794 BC, at the very end of the Bronze Age.Isotope and metallurgical analysis of the bronze in the objects found that the metals originated in Wales and England, matching the bronze the Carnoustie weapons hoard found 150 miles southeast of Rosemarkie. This indicates Bronze Age metalworkers in Scotland sources their raw materials from the same areas, likely via the same trade routes.The findings from the entire excavation of the site have been published in Archaeology Reports Online and can be read here (pdf). The chapter on the hoard begins on page 124.
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