Bronze Age metal hoards

A Late Bronze Age hoard from Karmin, Poland, contained 16 socketed axes, half of which were made of copper. The copper axes represent the same local type as the bronze objects and bear the same traces of manufacturing and use. The authors argue that the move to copper was a response to unexpected difficulties in the tin supply.

During excavations of site 7 in Ludwinowo, a hoard consisting of six bronze objects and a glass bead was found, intentionally deposited in an atypical, elongated pit (feature No. Z55). The assemblage can be counted among hoards of complete (not fragmented) items, composed solely of ornaments belonging to two or three categories (necklaces, small rings, perhaps earrings as well). The bronzes were made using two techniques: by forming from forged sheet metal (necklace No. 1) and by casting (other ornaments). The chronology of the ornaments, which belong to types quite widespread in the Polish Lowlands, decorated with groups of transverse lines (kerbgruppenverzierte Ringe), can be narrowed down to the Ha C2 and Ha D1 periods of the Early Iron Age. What makes the deposit from Ludwinowo of unique value is its discovery in the context of a fairly numerous series of ceramics from the same archaeological feature. The pottery corresponds to materials known from the Ha D period, although with references to both older and younger local and supra-local ceramic styles. Of particular importance are similarities to vessels typical of the so-called Lusatian-Pomeranian cultural transformation in Kuyavia and Greater Poland. Assuming these are not coincidental, the presence of well-dated metals in the same assemblage makes it a very early (Ha D1) indication of this cultural phenomenon.

The Celò hoard (half XII-beginning XI century BC), along with other contemporary bronzes from the Natisone Valleys, is meaningful to understand the role of this river route during the Late Bronze Age. In a century, the Natisone Valleys see the increasing importance of their mediating role, which is emphasized by the strategic position in the middle of the routes connecting the alpine and transalpine mining regions with the Padano-Veneto sites and the Danube- Balkan districts. Initially (BM-BR1), they were involved in widespread exchanges and represented one of the many trade routes of the period. In the following phase (BR2-BF1), they are in the process of becoming preferential interlocutors up to mediate systematic and exclusive relationships between these areas at the later stage (BF2). Due to their proximity both to the alpine mining sites and the Friulian plain, the Natisone Valleys represented important crossing points for metal supply. Most of the Celò bronzes belongs to alpine typologies and this may mean that these regions are preferred for relationships. This evidence would even be strengthened by the archaeometric analysis: the copper of some bronzes would have a south-alpine origin (Trentino Alto-Adige and Veneto), instead of that of others would have a transalpine origin (Austria and Switzerland), but, as regards the latter, there are still some doubts.