Abstract
The British Isles possess a number of gold occurrences and a rich variety of gold ornaments of Bronze Age date reaching back to the earliest use of metal. However the history of gold working in the Bronze Age is curiously episodic and contradictory: for example periods when gold is at its scarcest show increased production and technical innovation in bronze metallurgy. This paper will take the Principality of Wales and its border regions as an example that illustrates this history particularly well. Gold metalwork and metallurgy exhibit three distinct stages nearly corresponding to the local Early, Middle and Late Bronze Ages. In each of these successive periods the gold objects exhibit distinct technologies, origins and functions, and these are explored in turn. The possibilities of an interest in ascribing an intrinsic value to the gold in terms of a weight standard and bullion value as opposed to its extrinsic properties of malleability, nobility and colour are considered. Metallurgical discussion is based on a re-evaluation of the data of Hartmann (1970, 1982).
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Northover, J.P. (1995). Bronze Age Gold in Britain. In: Morteani, G., Northover, J.P. (eds) Prehistoric Gold in Europe. NATO ASI Series, vol 280. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-015-1292-3_33
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-015-1292-3_33
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