A Bronze Age Factory? — The Firm Evidence

With Winter comes the chance to put the flood of detecting finds made through late summer and autumn into order and evaluate their meaning. The finds from the Bronze Age 'factory' site (read here) were certainly the remains of something meaningful, but without excavation to evaluate their underlying context I thought nothing could be ventured other than they were the evidence of some kind of settlement. Which clearly they were.

About that time in the mid-2000's, aerial mapping had become available on the Internet. It wasn't easy to navigate on a dial-up modem and reloading frames to move just a few hundred of yards would take ages. Nevertheless, it was fascinating stuff and promised to unlock plenty of secrets if only the pictures were of fields in perfect condition to reveal them. Unfortunately, the majority were far from ideal.

Undaunted, I scanned across my entire operating area of three parishes and downloaded every frame to make a composite map from. I did discover things I didn't know about before, but to be frank, it was as confusing as it was enlightening with all kinds of features 'made' into what they were not, and details that later proved to be direct evidence of things, completely missed or ignored.

I no longer have those original images (luckily I've rediscovered them on the Internet since!) but remember clearly the sequence of events concerning the Bronze Age site. Firstly, there was an aerial shot of the field in crop taken in 2004. This was the same year I discovered the site but the shot was of a field of ripening wheat taken in late-summer, not when ploughed and harrowed in autumn when it might have revealed more than it did. There was hardly anything to see but a slight mark where there's a shallow depression in the field that I already knew about.

The next year I came across a second provider of these fascinating images (pictures taken in 1999) and went back to work. I became completely bound up with what they revealed about one of my pet Roman sites and concentrated on them for weeks making line maps from the startling features revealed, however, I finally got around to the Bronze Age site...

The shots had been taken of the field in stubble and there was a sketchy feature visible of dark marks around the area of the depression that I thought very interesting. It seemed to be an enclosure of some kind, but as I had already discovered, you must exercise caution when making interpretations of these kinds of crop marks because they rarely turn out to be anything remarkable...

Nevertheless, because all the finds had come from directly to the West of the marks (left in the picture) I took them seriously enough, and when I finally got back on site, gave the area inside the marks all my attention and resisted the urge to venture to the area of the Bronze Age finds thinking there was plenty of time for that later

I found nothing there of Bronze Age date but did make a few Roman period finds of a Colchester brooch, a small bronze mount, and two coins, one of which was a third century issue in very poor condition and the other a far more interesting 1st Century bronze issue of probably Vespasian, with a legionary eagle on the reverse.

Copper As with legionary eagle reverse

These Roman finds were nothing that couldn't be found in a day anywhere else in the locality in fact such a number of finds would seem a poor haul in places. I thought it odd, though, that this field had never given up a single Roman find before — also that a Flavian copper dating to the 1st century was the earliest Roman coin I'd ever found in the local area.

Unfortunately, by the time I returned the field had been quickly turned around and was drilled, so I'd missed my opportunity to extend my knowledge of the field's Bronze Age past for another year. Tragically, unforeseen domestic circumstances that winter forced a relocation the Midlands where I was then too far distant from Essex for any chance of a return, so it was also my last.

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Fast forward to the present day and my rekindled interest in detecting. It's 2012, and 7 years since my last visit to the field, but I'm 100 miles away in Coventry, not Essex. That doesn't stop the determined though! Nowadays we have excellent high-speed access to the Internet and aerial maps are not only available and free, but so easy to scan that whole districts can be browsed in minutes. I went back to work on the Bronze Age site...

The field ploughed and rolled - the red stars represent the scatter of Bronze Age pottery

The first pictures were disappointing. The field was rolled and besides a large dark mark that would have been inside the 'enclosure' and I thought was probably nothing more interesting than loamy soil caused by wet conditions at some point in history, the only other features visible were light areas of soil that could have been where the plough had bitten deeply and thrown up subsoil, but, such marks were rare in the surrounding fields, when found were almost always single instances, and when compared to other aerial pictures and old maps usually proved to be features such as ponds (the large mark in the next field actually was) or other small scale excavations...

Therefore, I thought they might actually be a dense collection of pits...

I took a closer look and saw a faint dark line around the large dark mark that looked like half of a square enclosure. Oddly, this 'square' seemed larger than the original sub-circular enclosure I'd hoped to see, but of which there was no visible trace.

The individual findspots of the scattered fragments of pottery that I'd noted in the field in a log, were plotted on to the aerial shot in hope of them revealing something. They failed to. I couldn't see anything I didn't already know of and had no way of going back on site to examine those light soil marks to see what they were all about or to see if that fine dark mark in the shape of a square was real or just an illusion.

It seemed that I'd hit a brick wall, however I'm determined once I get started and went back online to see if there were any other maps out there that could help me out. I soon discovered an alternative aerial map provider, and what I discovered there was simply astonishing...

Here's a sequence of pictures of the site with the new information overlaid and made visible by degree ~

I was dumbstruck when I first discovered these new pictures because they proved that the marks that I once thought might be an enclosure really were after all. They also revealed much greater detail than any previous picture had so it's possible to see that there's probably a second smaller enclosure inside. The best thing is though, they've proven beyond reasonable doubt that those pottery and metal finds really are not the traces of a long-vanished 'itinerant' bronze-smith's encampment, but really do belong to something important, substantial and long-lasting in the Bronze Age landscape of Essex.


All finds and site Epping Forest District, Essex.

A Bronze Age Factory? — The Soft Evidence

Back in 2004 I discovered the very first piece of evidence pointing to what I hoped would turn out be a Bronze Age habitation site. I was extremely lucky to stumble across such a scrap in the first place, working as I was in total ignorance of anything to suggest it might be there. There were no records of Bronze Age activity anywhere nearby except for a single instance of a hoard of axes found four miles away and up till that point I'd never found so much of a fragment of a recognisable bronze item to suggest there ever had been.

Flint tempered pottery of the mid-late Bronze Age

The find was a single piece of pottery. Such sherds look like the chunks of dried mud mixed with trodden-in grit that fall from the tread of your wellies. Even in the hand and recognised for what they really are, they still appear to be made of the same soil that you've been searching, therefore they're almost impossible to spot against it. However, spot it I did, but only because I had prior knowledge of what it looked like.

In 1990, and just a few months after starting detecting, I'd discovered a small hoard of two socketed axes and along with them were found two body sherds of locally made flint-tempered pottery. So, I understood full well what small pieces of broken common or garden bronze age pottery vessels looked like, and was therefore able to 'see' them at very short range, but quite how I managed to see that first piece when I was not looking for it, I have no idea.

I was searching a very quiet field at my rapid 'prospecting rate' and looking for scatters of Roman finds related to a nearby Roman site, but instead came across a small body sherd identical to my 'hoard sherds,' and certainly of Bronze Age origins. I stopped in my tracks and considered what I'd discovered. 14 years of detecting experience had taught me that such finds are never alone, and why would they be? People are not in the habit of carrying bits of broken pottery around with them. Where's there's one there's often two, and where there's two, there's usually many. A few more pieces of this pottery in the bag and I'd identified a site proper...

So, I commenced a painstaking search of the immediate area and eventually found another piece of the same stuff. The detector was in play throughout, but it failed to find anything that could be said to be contemporary with the pottery. Hours later, I was exhausted by the exercise but had found a further sherd some distance from the first two. I realised then just how very sparse prehistoric sites really are!

Fragment of a pure copper 'bun' ingot.  Raw materials

 Daunted by the incredibly thin pickings, but spurred on by the knowledge that I might have discovered something important, I commenced session two. This time I was determined to find metalwork amongst the pottery even if were only a tiny scrap of a thing — so long as it was certainly 'period' then I'd be happy.

Prepared for a long hard day, I set off to walk up and down the guide lines made by the rotovator for just as long as it would take, but I found no metal I could say was Bronze Age all day long.

A third session was made the very next day. I had begun to think I was wasting my time and that metal find I needed so badly probably wouldn't come, was prepared to give the job till lunchtime and then reassess my position, but it turned up on just the second pass! It was a piece of copper 'bun ingot' and proof positive that metalwork contemporary with the pottery was there after all. Such an innocuous piece of metal surely never made a detectorist so happy — you'd have thought I'd found a gold noble! I was beside myself with excitement and punching the air, not because it was valuable or even especially rare, but because it was so hard-earned and was absolutely crucial to the future of the site.

The day after I worked very hard indeed and was on site for the best part of eight hours, but in all that time I'd found a only a few extra pieces of pottery and a handful of possible flints. The evidence was extremely thin and well spread but I felt it was worthwhile continuing and I'm ever glad I did, because in the last hour I finally turned up an exciting metal item — the tip of a bronze spearhead.

At last, a weapon!

The tip of a Bronze Age spearhead — scrap bound for the furnace

Neolithic- Early Bronze Age knife fragment

Further investigations included a hunt for flints. I found just one identifiable tool — a broken knife blade — but quite a bit of worked flint, and taken altogether with the pottery and metal finds, the assemblage so far collected was fast becoming enough to establish the site as something very unusual and interesting.

Over successive trips, and a total of 60 hours of very hard and demanding work, I turned up a few more bits and pieces of unidentifiable bronze, a cast bronze pin head, a complete but very small bun ingot, and a fragment of the mouth of a socketed axe which compared exactly with those complete ones in my collection — South-eastern types, and common to Essex. By the time the crop was sown, I'd amassed a persuasive collection of finds that together were more than enough to make anyone interested in the Bronze Age, sit up and take notice.

The mouth fragment of a late Bronze Age socketed axehead compared that of a complete example

Rarely are finds of metalwork made within scatters of Bronze Age pottery and worked flint. Usually a field walker would discover a scatter of pottery and worked flint without metalwork, or a detectorist might discover a hoard of metalwork or metalworking evidence but without associated flints or pottery. Archeologists have always remarked upon this phenomena when excavating Bronze Age sites where metalwork finds are meagre to non-existent. However, I'd discovered not only pieces of metalworking scrap and bronze ingot, but worked flint, flint tools and pottery sherds too, all spread together over a localised area of a single field.

The sum total of 60 hours hard work — just a few handfuls of finds

I thought the effort had more than paid off, because scanty though the evidence was, it seemed to be pointing toward long-term occupation with metalworking industry 'on site' and away from the long-held academic notion of itinerant smiths wandering the country, setting up temporary camps near to occupations sites, where they'd chop down trees, make fires, and cast tools and weapons to sell to the residents.

In short, I'd begun to think I'd proof of the first known Bronze Age factory, which may seem an extraordinary claim to make for such a meagre collection of finds but in the field, and without pause for thought, such ideas are bound to create themselves. It's human nature to speculate, after all.

When the field was drilled and out of bounds, I went off and searched for 'easier' prospects elsewhere on the farm. A new Bronze Age site was established beyond doubt but I intended to return the following year just to consolidate things. However, despite my pet theories, a month later I'd already begun to kerb my enthusiasm for them because what the site could be or what it could mean were things I'd decided were impossible to ascertain for sure without some kind of 'extra' evidence. But I'd no clear idea what that might be or how I could go about finding it.

There was a whole year to mull it over and make my plans, though, before making the attempt...


Tomorrow, the story continues when I make an astonishing discovery from an elevated perch...