Introduction
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INTRODUCTION This study is an approach toward a history of the trade and industrial connections of the British Isles with Northern Europe during the Bronze Age. The work is divided into three parts. In Part I the types of tools, weapons and ornaments involved in exchanges between the British Isles and Northern Europe are discussed individually. In Part II a period-by-period trade history is attempted. Comparative chronology is discussed in Part III. The term 'Northern Europe' as here employed includes all the territory from the mouths of the Scheldte and the Rhine to the Vistula; and from the foot af the Central German highlands (baunded approximately by the 6oo-foot contour, which is shown on our distribution maps) to Denmark and South Sweden. The archaeo logi cal boundary of NorthernEu rope does not, of course, really include the 'Vestern and Southern provinces of the Netherlands (it would be interesting to lmow why the cultures of the North European plain so often fade out between the Hunze and the Ussel). Norway and Central and Northern Swedenwere included within the intended scope of this study, but search of the museums failed to reveal any evid ence af British Ol' Irish connections with those areas, until at the very end of the Bronze Age a few links appear with Central Sweden and Gotland. Our North European area has thus a certain geographical unity; it comprehends the low-lying lands facing the North and Baltic Seas, with belts of peat bog alternating with heaths and moraines. The entire area is completely barren of natura l metal resources, except on its southernfringe in Saxo-Thuringia. Only the fineflint from the chalk of Denmark and Scania and the amber washed up on the Baltic and North Sea shores con stituted mineral reSOlIrces of recognizable trade significance. East-west trade cuts across the main natural lines of transport in NorthernEurope. The principal rivers flow from south to north. Only the Lower Rhine and its tributaries, the Lawer Elbe, and the seas provide east-west water routes. The base of the J utland penin sula can be crossed with only short portages bet'vveen the heads of rivers; farther north, the Limfjord provides a way of avoiding the terrors of the Skagerrak. East west trade and migration routes certainly crossed North Germany, but it is well to remember how much easier it is to floatdown the Rhine, Ems, Weser, Elbe or Vistula than to strike out cross-country. No single definite date definesthe beginning of the Bronze Age throughout our 2 Introduetion entire area. The exact dates at which copper and, later, bronze technology were introduced to Saxo-Thuringia and to Ireland are still really unknown; our study begins some centuries before 1500 B.C. Certain regions and cultures remained firmlyNe olithic, Ol' knew metal goods only through importations of finished pro duets, for centuries after the most favoured areas had developed exporting metal industries. 'vVe diseuss 'Neolithie' trade in amber, flint, gold and copper produets, as ,vell as that of the Bronze Age proper. Our study ends at c. 700 B. C.; it covers more than a milleniUlTI of Northern Europe's earliest industrial histOl-y. The study is based in the firstinstance upon material examined in the museums (a list of those visited on the Continent is given), except for the territory east of the border of the Federal German Republie, which passport restrietions made it impossible to visit. In Britain, extensive use has been made of the British Associa tion Cat'd-Catalogue of Bronze Implements, formerly housed in the British Mu seum; but wherever possibie the original objeets have been examined. Inevitably, some types, periods and areas have been studied more intensively than others; depending partly on the existing state of research and publication, partIy on the volume and aecessibility of the material concerned. It is regretted that circum stances did not allow the study to be extended to include full examination of the Belgian and especially the Northwest French material, which must contain tht> keys to many of the problems discussed in the folIowing pages. Prehistorie relations between Scandinavia and Western Europe, including those of the Bronze Age, were first surveyed by Oscar Montelius (1891,1910), who ad vaneed many ideas sllbsequently developed by others. The Irish connections with Scandinavia long oeeupied the centre of the stage, Britain, the Netherlands and orth Germany remaining obscurely in the background except in connection with Beaker and Deverel invasions. Irish relations with the North were reviewed from time to time, as by Bremer (1927) and Mahr (1937) ; Heneken (1951) summarized Ireland's contacts with the orth with special reference to the problems of com parative chronology raised by pollen zonation and GTenzhorizont correlations (cf. Mitchell, 1944-5, 1951, 1956). Studies of individllal types of partieular importance for Ireland's relations with Northern Europe included those by Coffey (I909) and Hardy (1937) on lllnulae, O Riordain (1937) on halberds, Megaw and Hardy (1938) on decorated axes, J aeob-Friesen (193 1) 011 sun dises, Sprockhoff (1934a) an looped spearheads and (1930) on shields, and MacWhite (1944a) on Late Bronze Age amber and (1945) trumpets. In Britain, Stuart Piggott (1938) set forth the riehness of the Wessex Early Bronze Age amber trade, liste,d and mapped findsof Scandinavian flints in Britain, and ealled attention to the \iVessex connections with Saxo-Thuringia. De Navarro (1951) drew together the evidence for relations between the British Isles and Torthern Europe during the Early Bronze Age. Hawkes (1942) had meanwhile Introduetion 3 drawn attention to certain Northcrn influences in Britain in connection with 'The Deverel Urn and the Picardy Pin', and C. M.Piggott (1949) studied the North European connections of the Bladuock hoard and related finds. Cowen (1952) discussed British sword-exports to Northern Europe (simultaneously withdrawing some dubious Northern sword-exports to Britain from the record). Undoubtedly the greatest contribution, however, has been made by Ernst Sprock hoff, who in a series of monumental works has put the North German Bronze Age on the archaeological map. His three works on the North German Late Bronze Age hoards (1932a, 1937, 1956), his study of shields and other hammered bronze work (1930) and of swords (193 1, 1934b), and a floodof greater and lesser papers, provided the background for, among other things, his volume (1941) devoted to the relations between Niedersachsen and Western Europe. This transformed the entire problem, and made it possible to see for the first time the continuity of rnany Bronze Age phenomena across the entire North European plain. This study owes much to Sprockhoff's publications, and much of it is inevitably a commentary 011 his material and his vicws. One further work must be mentioned: the typescript dissertation on the Bronze Age of the Netherlands by P. Felix (1945), which, despite its dubious orientation and its many inadequacies, provided useful lists and illustrations to work with. How much we owe to the numerous works, published and unpublished, of V. G. Childe and C. F. C. Hawkes, will be obvious to all "vho have been concerned with the problems discussed in the following pages. This study was originally suggested by, and was carried out under the super vision of, the late Professor V. Gordon Childe. About two-thirds of the text was read by Professor Childe before his last departure from England and his subsequent tragic death. Responsibility for the opinions expressed, for mistakes, omissions and inadequacies, is of course the writer's own. The work was sublllitted to the University of London as my Ph. D. dissertation in 1958. Subsequently, my continued employment with the Biologisch-Archaeo logisch Instituut in Groningen, and with the Netherlands Organisation for the Advancement of Pure Research (Z. ·W.O.), has made possible a detailed study of the Bronze Age material in Dutch museums. This incidentally brought to light some addition al material relevant to the present study, which has accordingly been incorporated. Newly published material which became available in books or major archaeological journalsup to the end of 1961 has, as far dS possible, been integrated into the text. In the meantime, also, the article of M.A. Smith (1959) appeared. This confirmedin dependently, and indeed made official doctrine, the re-dating of the Taunton-Barton Bendish phase in Britain (Miss Smith's 'ornament horizon') which was one of the chronological conclusions of the present work. Further, the Hilversum Culture migration from southern England to the Netherlands at the 4 Introduetion end of the Early or the beginning of the Middle Bronze Age, originally identified by Glasbergen (1954), has been given greater precision, and is shown to have ori ginated from the Wessex area. by Dr. r. F. Smith (1961). Lastly, the major work by Junghans, Sangmeister and Schroder (1960), with its definitionof Aeneolithic and Early Bronze Age metal groups on the basis of spectro-analysis, has made its appearance. Although it appeared as yet premature, at the time these lines were written, to accept the distribution of metal of a particular JSS group as representing ip so facto a pattern of trade, we have taken the opportunity to include references to their metallurgical classification of objects which figure in the present study. Discussion of the possibie implications of the JSS study for the problem of trade between the British Isles and the Central German area, North Germany and Scan dinavia (the areas "" ith which the present study is concerned) had, however, to be reserved for another context (Butler and Van eler Waals, in Helinium 1964). References to a number of nev" and relevant works that came to our attention in the course of 1962-3 have been inserted where ever this could be done without necessitating major alterations.