Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Crellin, Rachel J.
• Tsoraki, Christina
• Standish, Christopher D.
• Pearce, Richard B.
• Barton, Huw
• Morriss, Sarah
• Harris, Oliver J.T.

Titel

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

Ist Teil von

• Antiquity, 2023-02, Vol.97 (391), p.86-103

Ort / Verlag

Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press

Erscheinungsjahr

2023

Quelle

Alma/SFX Local Collection

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• Excavated over two centuries ago, the Upton Lovell G2a ‘Wessex Culture’ burial has held a prominent place in research on Bronze Age Britain. In particular, was it the grave of a ‘shaman’ or a metalworker? We take a new approach to the grave goods, employing microwear analysis and scanning electron microscopy to map a history of interactions between people and materials, identifying evidence for the presence of Bronze Age gold on five artefacts, four for the first time. Advancing a new materialist approach, we identify a goldworking toolkit, linking gold, stone and copper objects within a chaîne opératoire, concluding that modern categorisations of these materials miss much of their complexity.