The excavation and evaluation of the Bronze Age hoard found in Rosemarkie, Scotland, has been accomplished and the first results published.
The hoard got here to gentle in Might 2021 throughout an excavation on the website of latest dwelling building. The excavation discovered proof of a small Bronze Age settlement at Rosemarkie. The stays of seven roundhouses had been found, constructed over a protracted stretch of greater than six centuries within the 1st millennium B.C. The roundhouses weren’t all occupied on the similar time, however relatively in-built succession. One of many roundhouses contained fragments of metalworking molds for the manufacturing of weapons (a swords, spearheads), instruments (sickles) and jewellery (bracelets).
Archaeologists hypothesize that the roundhouses could have been a kind of household compound in use over generations. In direction of the tip of the occupation interval (ca. ninth c. B.C.), the hoard was buried. It was buried in a single occasion inside a shallow pit that was simply sufficiently big to suit the objects. The hoard was not misplaced or half of a bigger deposition. The opening was dug particularly for these objects after which instantly crammed. It’s attainable that it was meant to be non permanent, a household’s treasures rigorously tied collectively, cushioned by plant materials, then hidden near dwelling for safekeeping with the intent to retrieve it when a hazard had handed, solely that restoration by no means occurred.
When the highest of the neatly-arranged stack of bronze objects emerged from the bottom, it was clear that it was a major archaeological discover, not simply due to the jewellery, however due to the seen surviving natural fibers. Your complete hoard was eliminated in a soil block for excavation in laboratory circumstances.
The block was transferred to GUARD Archaeology’s Finds Lab for micro-excavation underneath managed circumstances to make sure that the natural stays had been preserved. The hoard was first X-rayed, revealing 9 bronze artifacts: one full penannular ringed decoration on high, a fraction of one other penannular ringed decoration nested inside it, six bracelets and a cup-ended bracelet on the base.
The intact penannular ringed decoration, adorned with 37 rings, is probably the most full and sophisticated instance of its kind but present in Scotland. Its fragmentary counterpart had 13 surviving rings, and each ornaments had been in all probability made by the identical craftworker utilizing the misplaced wax casting methodology. This was a really uncommon course of solely used within the creation of extremely prized objects, and workshops to supply such items had been few and much between in Bronze Age Scotland. The aim of those ornaments is unclear as the entire one from Rosemarkie was too small to suit over a mean human head, and it confirmed no indicators of being distorted with a view to be worn across the neck.
X-ray imaging of the cup-ended decoration revealed that it was forged as a complete object with no seen seams or joins. There are a number of comparable finds recognized, largely Irish and made from gold, however its closest parallel is a bronze model from the Poolewe Hoard within the West Highlands. The Rosemarkie instance is way sturdier and thicker than any of those, nevertheless.
The bracelets had been additionally uncommon as no two had been alike – maybe that they had been contributed by totally different people or households. Three of the six present indicators of distortion, suggesting that they had been repeatedly worn, and one stood out because the heaviest recognized penannular bar bracelet but present in Scotland.
The micro-excavation additionally uncovered crops used as packing materials and fibrous natural cording tying a number of the bracelets collectively. Different hoards have been discovered with objects positioned in such a strategy to recommend that they had certain collectively, however that is the primary instance the place the natural bindings survived in place, proving conclusively that they had been tied collectively earlier than burial.
Bracken stems and fronds had been used as packing when the artefacts had been buried. Tree bast, the interior bark of a tree, was concentrated across the ornaments, following the curves of every. It additionally shaped a big clump on the base of the pit, entangled with the bottom artefacts. Regardless of being buried for 1000’s of years, this mass was sturdy sufficient to carry the artefacts in place and wouldn’t launch its quarry simply.
However once they had been finally teased aside, this mass was revealed to be one thing very uncommon certainly: a easy overhand knot that had been tied across the cup-ended decoration when the tree bast was nonetheless in pristine situation, binding it to a few of the bracelets. A pattern taken from the bast supplied a safe radiocarbon date for the burial of the Rosemarkie hoard: 894-794 BC, on the very finish of the Bronze Age.
Isotope and metallurgical evaluation of the bronze within the objects discovered that the metals originated in Wales and England, matching the bronze the Carnoustie weapons hoard discovered 150 miles southeast of Rosemarkie. This means Bronze Age metalworkers in Scotland sources their uncooked supplies from the identical areas, probably through the identical commerce routes.
The findings from your entire excavation of the positioning have been printed in Archaeology Stories On-line and can be read here (pdf). The chapter on the hoard begins on web page 124.
