Reflections on Past, Present and Future

Ah, so Neil Oliver finally did the late Late Bronze Age....

And I've finally parted company with his interpretations...

In last night's episode of The History of Celtic Britain, there was much talk of The Bronze Crisis.  To those who weren't watching Neil Oliver last night, the Bronze Crisis manifests itself in the form of massive hoards of bronze objects dumped in the ground and never recovered.  And I just don't get it.

Some background information for the uninitiated.  Various phases of the Bronze Age are divided according to the metalwork types occurring.  The final phase of the Bronze Age is called the Llyn Fawr phase, and last night, we were introduced to two hoards from this period.  The first was the classic 'type' hoard - the Llyn Fawr hoard - which was put forward as a 'ritual' hoard - it has swords, axes, tools and a whacking great cauldron.  The second was a recent find, the name of which escapes me, which featured a whole load of axeheads which had been dumped straight from the moulds into the ground, without even being prepared for use.

The traditional view is that these hoards are a manifestation of economic crisis.  Bronze founders - in a desperate attempt to maintain the value of their commodity in the face of competition from the great competitor, iron - bury vast quantities in order to maintain the scarcity level.  Hence the hoards.  They are a symptom of an industry in a state of collapse.

Over the last few decades, this view was losing ground.  How could bronze be functioning as a commodity in a small-scale traditonal society (think Papua New Guinea, NW America)?  Add to that the problems with the evidence.  Usually when something loses value, it trickles downwards through all tiers of society and the whole world is awash with it.  This does not happen in the British Late Bronze Age.  And the huge hoards are pretty much concentrated in southern England.  In the north and west, business goes on very much as usual.  The Llyn Fawr hoard demonstrates this perfectly: a 'ritual' hoard, containing scarce, special objects, buried at a time when just a few hundred miles away, the bronze 'market' is allegedly in freefall.

Last night, the Bronze Crisis reared its ugly head once more.  It has been reworked and reshaped for a new generation.  But I'm given the distinct impression that it has changed profoundly through the years.  The hoards are no longer ascribed to the actions of metalworkers desperate to preserve their livelihoods:  they now seem to be ascribed to the actions of a social and political elite who have a vested interest in maintaining the status quo.  But the principle remains the same: it's economic, industrial.

And I'm as unconvinced by it now as I was twenty years ago.  It certainly sounds like there was a crisis in the tail end of the Bronze Age, but I'd interpret it as a religious crisis rather than an economic one.  Perhaps the old ways of propitiating the gods/ancestors just weren't working, and perhaps that resulted in a cycle of inflation which manifested itself as ever-bigger and more-hastily accumulated hoards.  Then the whole thing cracked and the offerings changed to the fruits of the agricultural cycle.

Ah well.  Fifteen years ago, when I was a younger firebrand, I'd have signed up for the next conference and presented my doubts to a wider audience in the form of a paper.  But middle aged apathy has struck.  I am content with my munitions factory, and, well...  Does it really matter what anyone thinks, anyway?  Though I must confess: I'm darned glad I got my thesis published before now!!!

Sorry about the ruminations about something which probably means nothing.  I don't even have any pretty pictures which can help make this post more palatable.  Some day I''ll get started on the tortous subject of Bronze Age metalwork, and then you'll probably run away screaming with despair pretty quick!!