The rapier was particularly important, being the first example found in Lanarkshire, amongst a corpus of around 40 dirks and rapiers recorded throughout Scotland, of which only four represent the Group 1 type. Though no grave goods were found within the cists a small number of lithics were identified during the processing of the soil samples taken from them. The first incarnations of these weapons created by the smiths of the early Later Bronze Age of Britain and Ireland were fine weapons of war. Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society. Prior to excavation, the cairn had a maximum height of 0.5m and was only visible in close proximity. Both included quantities of wood charcoal, derived from alder, and with the level of charcoal much higher in (027) than in (033). Both cists also contained lithic material, possibly waste: this included chert and flint chunks, outnumbered by small chunks of quartz and quartz gravel. The cairn was located on the summit, lying just southwest of the highest point. General osteological methods employed are those outlined in Buikstra and Ubelaker (1994) and, specifically for juvenile remains, on Schaefer et al. As well as being worked by hammering, bronze was melted and cast into moulds – indeed all bronze objects start out as castings. Experimental studies examining the different fracture patterns produced by burning fleshed and dry bone, however, have produced conflicting results (Correia, 1997, 279). The most complete cremation was that of the secondary burial in Cist 1, the remains of which had probably been carefully collected after burning (see below). This increased near the tip to seven, though the details of the transition were concealed by corrosion products. This bevelling of the edge and slight central rib gave a slight impression of three ‘ribs’, and in the Class 3 rapier, these are exaggerated into a triple rib / arris. Reconstruction of a Bronze Age Rapier, dating to the middle Bronze Age (1700-1200BC), recovered during the excavation of a Burial Cairn at Cloburn Quarry, Swaites Hill, South Lanarkshire. Another example is provided by Olcote Cairn on Lewis, an 8m diameter kerbed cairn that contained within its fabric an earlier kerb, 6.5m in diameter (Curtis & Curtis 1995, Neighbour 1996). Of particular note is the recess in Zone 1 which lay close to where the Bronze Age rapier was found amongst re-deposited cairn material (009) (see Phases 4 & 5 below). A number of artefact types have been found in association with collared urns. Every sword is a unique piece. The other two cremations, the primary burial from the cist and that from context [017] fell far short of a full cremation. Too few sherds are present to reconstruct the profile of either vessel. The former is known to have occurred in the area (Ferguson 1794) when the digging out of large stones for building material was recorded from a large enclosure, most likely the Blackshouse Burn enclosure 900m to the south. The other miscellaneous contexts consisted of single bones or very small deposits, from which very little information could be extracted. When these were the weapon of choice of the warriors whose lives depended on them, they were only likely to face another weapon of similar strength on the field of battle. There are no dates for the Sketewan urns. Sherds <29>, <26.1>, <26.2>, <26.7> and <26.8> indicate the shape of the rim and collar. C O N T E N T S: KEY TOPICS. By continuing to browse the site you are agreeing to our use of cookies. The remains from the third cremation, Context [017], originated from an individual older than the other two and probably adult. Excavation instead showed that the lower cairn material and the cists and features beneath remained untouched. Mays proposed that fragmentation and distortion are most likely to be the result of rapid water loss during the cremation process (1998, 207). The third blade <67.9> recovered from the primary fill of Cist 2 was a chert plano-convex knife of flint with fine serrated edges, having lost its distal end, the dorsal surface fully retouched. With the introduction of copper, and eventually bronze, daggers could be made longer, and evolved into swords.The evolution of the dagger into the sword is thus gradual, and in 2004 the first "swords" have been claimed for the Early Bronze Age (c. 33rd to 31st centuries), based on finds at Arslantepe, weapo… The example at the bottom, a rapier or 'thrusting sword' (1884.119.315), is the older of the two, dating from the Middle Bronze Age (1400-1250 BC). This type of pattern is formed by impressing whipped cord, for example on the urn from West Ashy in Lincolnshire (Longworth 1984, Pl 14a, 226); and twisted cord, eg Llandian, Gwynedd (ibid Pl 18b, 327), Kirriemuir in Tayside (ibid Pl 51C, 313) and Kettle in Fife (ibid 313, Pl 90(e)); and by incision, for example on urns from Chorley, Lancs (ibid 217, Pl 82b), in this case enclosed between single linear incised lines with an incised lattice on the neck and a row of jabs on the shoulder; Tara, Co Meath (ibid Pl 93a, 2236), Inverkeithing, Fife (ibid, Pl 102a, 1823), and West Hampshire (ibid, Pl 107(b), 649). Stone is however very fragile, and therefore not practical to be used as swords. Thanks should be given to all the specialist contributors and particularly to the post excavation coordination carried out by Louise Turner. The 3,500-year-old … Forgotten your password? Findings from other cist burial sites in Scotland also show variation in their final contents: some contain no grave goods or cremated remains, while over half of those with cremated remains which were excavated in antiquity were backfilled with soil while others were only partially filled or not filled at all (Hunter 2000). The ensuing development of the full tang swords during this period of change began to displace the rapiers, as they could be made more robustly and thus deliver more powerful blows than the rapier. They were used alongside spears and javelins, pole-arms similar to medieval partisans, shields (and possibly armour) of leather and maybe wood, and possibly slings, bows and arrows or organic weapons such as war clubs or staff weapons. The colour of burnt remains can indicate the temperature achieved during burning. However, in contrast to this belief, the majority of the surviving pieces in regions that have been studied (Ireland and the River Thames) were clearly used in combat, and have the scars to prove it. The portion of [014] that survived in Zone 3 was formed by large stones with additional flat stones leaning against the outside face of the kerb. Post by Polhigey » Mon Aug 19, 2019 5:32 pm Best Bronze age tool to date, did find a part Rapier blade not too far away and a … They are most likely a natural phenomenon. The fabric is fine sandy clay with roughly 60% of angular rock fragments, some up to 13mm, which has fired hard and is grey with a brown exterior surface. This suggested pre-cairn anthropic activity such as clearance or agriculture in the immediate environs of the site, with any such activity potentially occurring closer to Zone 3. Ubelaker (1978, 35) suggests that curved lateral splintering and marked warping can be indicative of the body being burnt while still ‘fresh’, i.e., soon after death, and this was probably the case at Swaites Hill. found that the lightest colours occurred with temperatures of 645 to 940°C, while Mays’ experiments showed no change in colour over 645°C. The hoard was found in chalk rubble, probably during the excavation of building foundations. As any experienced re-enactor or martial artist would agree, when one becomes intimate with the mechanics of a bladed weapon, the manner in which it is used most effectively recommends itself. A rare find of a bronze age rapier sword blade, approximately 3,500 years old, was donated to Torquay Museum by two members of the Newton Abbot and District Metal Detecting Club. These designations are modern in origin, and while the longer examples are clearly rapiers, and shorter ones are clearly dirks (bearing in mind the inherent problems with these terms)– there are many which fall into an ambiguous length between the two calling into question the usefulness of the terminology at all. Thank you to Peterborough Museum for permission to photograph and use image of rapier. The original form of the butt and the configuration of the hilting mechanism could not be established from the small portion which survived. Two gaps were noted, the first at the baulk between Zones 3 and 4 and the second in Zone 1 near the baulk with Zone 2. The rapier sword was found locally near a site which had been inhabited for a period of at least 5,000 years, dating back from the Neolithic period to the present day. Sold. As well as recovering struck lithics, the two hand-excavated trenches suggested that the probable ring cairn was indeed very likely to be a prehistoric cairn. The species identified were alder (Alnus glutinosa L), birch (Betula sp), ash (Fraxinus sp) and oak (Quercus sp). An attempt to obtain a radiocarbon date from the small amount of cremated human bone recovered failed as insufficient carbon remained within the sampled bone. The identification of Vessel 1 as a collared urn places its date in the earlier part of the Bronze Age, from around 2000BC, when collared urns came into use as part of the move from inhumation to cremation. The primary burial in Cist 1 was incomplete, as was the third, disturbed cremation from the cairn. On excavation, however, they proved to be resting on top of, or within, topsoil (001), suggesting that they were more likely to have be displaced when the mound was slighted. A total of 19 fragments of charred hazelnut shell (0.4g) were recovered from context (021), which comprised the primary fill of Cist 2, and context (023), which comprised the cremation deposit in Cist 1. (According to one experiment conducted by Dr Alison Sheridan (2010), it could take as long as 24 hours before the remains are cool enough to handle.) When the stones forming outer kerb [012] were lifted, two different contexts were revealed. These included a Middle Bronze Age rapier used between 1300 and 1150 BC and one Carp's Tongue sword popular between 950 and 800 BC. While the contexts within which these were recovered are of note they were excluded from further analytical work after this characterisation. The edges are bevelled, and it seems most probable that they underwent cycles of cold-working and annealing to increase their hardness and durability. Stay signed in. Sherds from two Bronze Age urns – a collared urn and an urn of undetermined type – were recovered from the excavations at Swaites Hill. The Swaites Hill rapier adds a fifth example to the known corpus, forming an extension to the southwest concentration formed by the Dumfries and Galloway finds and a link with the two Perthshire finds to the north-east (see Turner, forthcoming, for a more detailed discussion of the Swaites Hill find in the wider context of rapier deposition). Reset your password. The extent of this spread of material is shown in Fig 2: its maximum depth was 500mm and it consisted of small to medium-sized, angular and sub-angular stones with infrequent large stones (500 by 500mm) present, all within a mid-grey-brown sandy-silt matrix. Their hard work and diligence on site was very much appreciated. The rapier is cast in bronze and measures 337mm in length, with a maximum blade width of 18mm. It contained a small quantity of cremated human bone within an orange-yellow silty sand matrix, along with the remains of a decorated Early Bronze Age Cordoned Urn (see Pottery). The latter is more typical of kerbed cairns. The excavation was carried out by Rathmell Archaeology in 2015. Respecting the integrity of the context and find numbers, each bone fragment was then examined and sorted according to anatomical area and the results recorded on an Excel spreadsheet. Scottish Archaeological Journal publishes work which furthers the study of the archaeology of Scotland and neighbouring regions from the earliest prehistory to the present. The exterior surface and the interior of the rim bevel are slipped and decorated. They rapidly cleaned and recorded the exposed timbers, removing some for examination and to provide samples fo… The sherds from vessel 1 were identified as from a collared urn, but it is not certain if that vessel was bipartite or tripartite. An amorphous core <03.2> exhibited multiple removals in an irregular pattern, though one simple platform had been formed while at another point bipolar working was noted. To join contact the Membership Secretary (Mrs Susan Hunter, 69 Craighill Drive, Glasgow, G76 7TD.). This site uses cookies. Prior to excavation, the cairn at Swaites Hill, Cloburn Quarry, South Lanarkshire appeared simple in character, comprising a massively robbed-out and disturbed ring-cairn. The Society provides research grants to members of the society. Within the area enclosed by the inner kerb [014], two cists [015] and [016] were revealed beneath the upper cairn material (011), south of the centre of the cairn in Zone 2. Of note was the infrequent but regular appearance of well-rounded (i.e. Three other finds by metal detectorists … The earliest of the rapiers had a complex cross-section consisting of ribs and grooves, with clear ancestry in the dagger series which had begun in the Early Bronze Age. Published in Scottish Archaeological Journal 42. Key: *=<10, **=10–29, ***=30–100, ****=>100, weight given in grams in brackets. and cremated human bone. It is credible that this was deliberately interred within this cist, although the knife would have been broken at that time. Both surfaces are sooted. Both forts may, however, have had earlier origins. In the case of the latter, interpreted as disturbed, it is possible that some of the original deposit has been lost. Light grey/beige or white colouring occurs with temperatures in excess of 645°C (Mays, 1998, 217). Around the cairn, and indeed in the general landscape, many large boulders were present. The term rapier appears both in English and German, near-simultaneously, in the mid-16th century, for a light, long, pointed two-edged sword. It is likely to belong to the Acton Park 2, Taunton (Cemmaes) or Pennard metalwork assemblage, corresponding to Needham’s (1997) Period 5, c. 1500-1150BC. They were recovered from (009), the redeposited cairn material. “A Bronze Age shield and rapier are very rare examples of the huge wealth our predecessors had – they are the modern-day equivalent of buying the world's most expensive sports car and watch. Forgotten your password? They could also have been used for the insertion of burials or ritual deposits. Preservation was good, making them suitable for radiocarbon dating. A further layer of cairn material (029) that exhibited marked differentiation from (011) and (018) was situated between the outer and inner kerbs, [012] and [014]. In terms of metalwork, knife daggers are the most common find (ibid, 175). Within Zone 4 a dark orange-brown clay-silt deposit, (033), was recorded under and between some of the stones. Their similarity with the grooved daggers of Gerloff's Armorico-British type (Gerloff 1975), combined with their largely complementary distribution, has led to the suggestion that these objects may be contemporary with some of the later dagger types and that the Group 1 rapiers may have their origins as early as 1600–1500 BC (Cowie 1995, 349). The compaction of the lower cairn fabrics, (029) and (018), is at odds with the loosely-compacted nature of the upper cairn material (011) which suggests they derive from different phases, with the location of disturbed cremation (017), which lay between lower cairn material (029) and upper cairn material (011) confirming that the lower cairn material located between the inner and outer kerbs was earlier. New here? Between 2013 and 2015, Rathmell Archaeology Ltd carried out archaeological works on behalf of Cloburn Quarry Company Ltd in advance of a quarry extension. This would explain why the cists were not located centrally within the overall cairn structure. Moulds of stone or clay would be encased in a thick layer of coarse clay to aid in heat retention so that the mould did not cool too quickly, as the thermal shock can cause internal flaws in the weapon, if not macro-damage in the form of fractures. Once the burning process is completed and the remains have cooled, they then have to be collected from the pyre site before deposition in the place of burial. The exterior of the collar is decorated with alternating bands of vertical and horizontal lines (<29>, <26.2> and <26.3>). The Statistical Accounts mention additional urns being uncovered under a cairn (Canmore ID 47644) a quarter of a mile away but give no explanation why that cairn was dug up. The fact that the two cists were not located centrally within the cairn may suggest that they were enclosed initially by a smaller oval-shaped kerb, measuring 7m by 6m, which was later expanded into the larger inner kerb [014]. Cist 2 [016] was situated 0.8m to the southeast of cist [015]. Whether this was originally only a token deposit, or that some of the original deposit was lost during the deposition of the secondary burial, is unclear. The Society also arranges day conferences and excursions and publishes a biannual Bulletin of current notes and news, which welcomes submissions and notices. The Journal is published with the financial support of the Dalrymple Fund. The Bronze Age rapier was recovered from a spread of redeposited cairn material (009). Scottish Archaeological Journal is abstracted and indexed in the following: Excavation of two burnt mounds and a wooden trough near Ryeriggs, Fochabers, MorayGary Savory Several of the cairns and funerary monuments have been excavated, including the so-called ‘Hero's Cairn’ (Canmore ID: 47644) (Christison 1890), and a possible flat cemetery on the summit of Cairngryffe Hill (Canmore ID: 47695) from which urns or similar vessels were recovered during drainage works (ibid.). As the upper cairn material (011) and re-deposited cairn material (009) were removed, a curving line of large stones [012] measuring up to 780mm by 520mm in extent was revealed. The edges could be used to lacerate flesh and muscle, potentially disabling limbs, but as the blades were relatively light, they would not make use of percussive force, and hence not jar the hilt too much when cutting. The profile of <29> shows that the rim has a deep interior bevel and that the exterior profile of the rim slopes out below the level of the bevel. Similar practices may have occurred at Broomlands, Kelso where two cist burials, with original inhumations of Early Bronze Age date (though separated by at least a century), had a Late Bronze Age inhumation subsequently inserted (McLaren & Wilson 2013–2014). The total weight of charcoal recovered was 26.6g. The rapier measured 337mm in length and 18mm in maximum width. We must not consider these early swords in comparison to later, more robust types. As excavation proceeded it was possible to identify two main elements, a central upper layer of disturbed cairn material (011) around which was a layer of re-deposited cairn material (009) (see Modern Disturbance). The orangey-brown matrix supporting the stone within the lower cairn fabric (018), was more reflective of subsoil (002). The excavation formed the culmination of a series of works which began with a Historic Environment Appraisal (Rees and Turner 2013), which identified three historic environment assets within the area of the quarry extension. The excavation at Testwood Lake of the oldest bridge in England presented archaeologists with an interesting challenge The timbers were found during the excavation of a temporary lagoon which would be flooded with water two weeks after they were found. Seen in the wider context of Great Britain and Ireland, the presence of a complete rapier in a funerary monument is not entirely unprecedented (see Turner – forthcoming). Rathmell Archaeology Ltd carried out the excavation of a disturbed kerbed cairn at Swaites Hill, Cloburn Quarry, South Lanarkshire. Sold. There are further archaeological sites in the vicinity; the majority are cairns but cairnfields and short cists have also been identified. When the floor was removed a second cremation was uncovered. The cremated bone gave a radiocarbon date of 3695 ± 30BP (cal BC 2147–2016 at 2 Sigma, SUERC- 71902 (GU43368)). It comprised a single intermittent course of large sub-angular and sub-rounded stones, each measuring up to 600mm by 350mm in extent, which together formed a multi-lobed shape 9–10m in plan. The identification of, and assessment of age from, the dental remains, is based on van Beek (1983). This extension of the cairn through the addition of an outer kerb can be observed in other Bronze Age cairns such as Cairnwell in Aberdeenshire where an outer kerb was constructed to incorporate an earlier stone circle into the monument (Rees 1997). The authors are particularly thankful to Thomas Rees and Louise Turner who gave much support and guidance during the writing and editing of this publication. More recent experiments by Walker et al. Instead it may merely reflect a late manifestation of a practice later supplanted by the deposition of fine weaponry in rivers and wet places. This type of complexity and phasing with regards to earlier activities was also seen in the nearby, now-quarried Cairngryffe Hill ring-cairn, where internal rings of stone kerbs or postholes demarcated different areas beneath the cairn material (Lelong & Pollard 1998a). Code: AA268. Colours of burnt bone can range from shades of red, brown, black, blue, grey, beige, or white. It is a loan from Middle French espee rapiere, first recorded in 1474. The base (025) was a compact mid grey-brown silty sand with frequent sub-angular and sub-rounded stone inclusions, most likely the remains of degraded stone or stones. It is uncertain where these swords fit into this panoply, or how they were viewed by warriors of the time. Now all we can say is that the rapier was associated in some way with the burial mound, and placed here deliberately, perhaps in an act of commemoration or veneration. Charcoal was present in all 19 samples, though very fragmentary in eight, with material suitable for species identification only present in 11 (Table 2). Terminology broadly follows the conventions of Wickham-Jones (1990) and Inizan et al. Its displacement sadly removed any chance we may have had at establishing its chronological and spatial relationship with cairn and burials; it may, for example, have accompanied a cist or burial incorporated into the upper cairn material and subsequently destroyed. The bones from Swaites Hill had probably therefore been cremated at temperatures of at least 645°C, and possibly higher. This would suggest that there was no fixed point or stage for the final use of a cist and that knowledge of their. The fourth phase of the cairn's construction involved the deposition of the upper and lower cairn material ((011), (018) and (029)) over the area encompassed by the outer kerb, though it is assumed that the outer face of the outer kerb would have remained visible before the cairn material later slumped. The remains were subsequently weighed using scales accurate to 0.1 gram. Fragments of an Early Bronze Age urn (see pottery) were also recovered from the re-deposited cairn material and these, too, may originally have derived from a now-destroyed burial within the cairn. Below the collar the exterior surface is decorated with approximately vertical lines which sometimes intersect. All the material suggests a Bronze Age date which ties in with the radiocarbon dates recovered from the cists’ fills. The underlying geology consists of till from the Devensian epoch over Swanshaw Sandstone Formation from the Devonian and Silurian periods. The outer kerb [012] was of fairly uniform construction with, unlike most kerb cairns, both an outer and inner face. These are described below. More problematic to explain is that of the primary burial in Cist 1. The site of Cairngryffe Hill Fort (4), which was excavated in 1939 prior to being quarried away, is also close by. It consisted of sub-angular and sub-rounded stones in a mid-grey-orange slightly clay sand matrix, had a maximum thickness of 0.2m and was distinguished by its firmer compaction compared with (011). The Chester Hill fort is comparable to the now-lost Cairngryffe Hill, with its main phase of construction and use occurring in the pre-Roman Iron Age. The classification of plano-convex knives in Scotland suggests two main forms: one where one or two edges are retouched while the balance of the blank remains unaltered, and the second where the whole dorsal surface is worked (slug knives). This may indicate that the kerbs and associated cairn fabric provided a visible – and potentially also a physical - demarcation between the funerary and ritual activity taking place at the centre of the cairn and the world beyond. These culminated in the full area excavation of Swaites Hill cairn (Canmore ID: 47645), Cloburn Quarry, South Lanarkshire. Lasting for approximately 1,700 years, it was preceded by the era of Neolithic Britain and was in turn followed by the period of Iron Age Britain.Being categorised as the Bronze Age, it was marked by the use of copper and then bronze by the prehistoric Britons, who used such metals to fashion tools. They were not intended to cleave limb from body, or cause gross injury through force alone - they were weapons of more finesse. Form of the cairn was located on the sex of any of the activity... Can indicate the temperature, the Journal is published with the radiocarbon dates recovered a! 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