BRONZE AGE METALWORK FROM THE RIVER TYNE
External Partner: English Heritage, Newcastle
The bronze age metalwork finds from the River Tyne are housed in various museum collections within the region, and the vast majority appear to date to the later Bronze Age. The aim of this project (an ideal dissertation in archaeology) would be to provide an illustrated corpus of finds, discussing them by period and typology.
The topic requires artefact analysis, and would give students experience of working in a museum based environment, as well as allowing them to become familiar with a particular range of artefact types, thus developing their observational and recoding skills. Discussion of the finds would also promote student engagement with current theoretical debates about the nature of metalwork depositional practice in the Bronze age and in particular the current ideas around the deposition of material in ‘watery places’ and the nature of metalwork ‘hoards’ and ‘hoarding’. A starting point for discussion would be the seminal typological work of Colin Burgess, and Richard Bradley’s discussion of the use, consumption and deposition of metalwork in the prehistoric period in his ‘Passage of Arms’.
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