(2008) indicated that at less than 200°C: there was a gradual darkening in colour, at 300°C there was a shift to black, above 300°C colour changed from black to tan to grey, with the lightest colour occurring between 800°C to 1000°C. In addition to documenting new discoveries, the journal promotes scholarly discussion and debate by encouraging the submission of papers of synthesis and analysis. Reset your password. RAPIER (Bronze Age - 2350 BC to 701 BC) SICKLE (Bronze Age - 2350 BC to 701 BC) Protected Status - none Sources and further reading---Article in Serial: Fox, C. 1939. Another cairn recently explored to the west of Swaites Hill at Cloburn Quarry (Canmore ID: 47715) revealed jet beads and a stone axehead, in addition to lithics and Neolithic and Bronze Age pottery (Lelong and Pollard 1998a). For the thrust, they could certainly deliver a lethal wound. This site uses cookies. Bronze Age; Daggers, knives, rapiers and swords; Similar Records. The Group 1 dirks and rapiers are a variable group in terms of dimension and form. Of the remaining 36 lithics, two raw material types were present: flint (7 lithics, 20% – grey to translucent brown in colour) and chert (29 lithics, 80% – light to dark grey in colour, some pieces exhibiting banding or mottling). The Journal is published with the financial support of the Dalrymple Fund. The kerb stood one course high and comprised an inner and an outer row of stones: the outer row formed an external wall face, but the placing of the inner row was less formal and no distinct internal wall face was evident. Book reviews, a distinctive feature of the journal since its establishment (as the Glasgow Archaeological Journal) in 1969, provide a critical perspective on Scottish archaeology and a well-established forum for scholarly debate. A date for this development sometime in the later 17th early 16th century BC appears most likely, but there is no clear dividing line between daggers, dirks and rapiers. 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. Overlying compact cairn material (029) between the outer and inner kerbs in Zone 4 was the remains of a disturbed cremation burial (017) (marked on Fig 4). The fabric is fine clay with roughly 60% of well crushed angular fragments which has fired hard and is red with a grey core (Fig 8). Selected on quality and durability. The results are given in Table 3 and have been calibrated to calendar dates. The latter is more typical of kerbed cairns. Reset your password. 19 bulk samples were submitted for processing from the excavation undertaken at Swaites Hill. Of note was the recovery of a Middle Bronze Age copper alloy rapier (see The Rapier) from within Zone 1 (Fig 7). The date recovered from this soil horizon gave a terminus post quem for the cairn with a date range from the early 23rd to the early 22nd century BC. The species identified were alder (Alnus glutinosa L), birch (Betula sp), ash (Fraxinus sp) and oak (Quercus sp). Fig 7 Rapier of Burgess and Gerloff's Group 1 Type. Charcoal was present in all 19 samples, though very fragmentary in eight, with material suitable for species identification only present in 11 (Table 2). Some, however, did not follow this pattern. A deposit, Context [021], of small eroded fragments, retrieved from the fill of Cist 2, were clearly human although of uncertain age, and may be the remnants of a pre-existing cremation deposit. The exterior surface is smoothed. The underside of the bottom edge of the collar is defined by a row of stab decoration. As the remains had some adhering soil, the bones from all contexts were washed in clean tap water, and brushed where necessary, according to recommended guidelines for the treatment of cremated remains (McKinley and Roberts, 1993; Brickley and McKinley, 2004). Published in Scottish Archaeological Journal 42. The lower cairn material was located in patches, mainly within the area encompassed by the inner kerb; it may represent an interface between the main, upper, cairn material and underlying natural subsoil (026). The 3,500-year-old … All of the remains were similar in appearance: colour was a uniform beige and there was no evidence of variations in colour. 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. Very occasional flecks of alder charcoal (Alnus glutinosa L.) were present, from which a radiocarbon date of 3753 ± 29BP (cal BC 2232–2120 at 2 Sigma, SUERC-71906 (GU 43373)) was obtained. A date for this development sometime in the later 17th early 16th century BC appears most likely, but there is no clear dividing line between daggers, dirks and rapiers. Two hand-excavated trenches were also placed within a probable ring-cairn (Canmore ID: 47645). The remains from the third cremation, Context [017], originated from an individual older than the other two and probably adult. Register for a new account. The underlying geology consists of till from the Devensian epoch over Swanshaw Sandstone Formation from the Devonian and Silurian periods. 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. Infrequent inclusions of hazelnut shell were found within this lower cairn material. This would suggest that all of the funerary activity located beneath the upper cairn material took place over one to two centuries. The edges are bevelled, and it seems most probable that they underwent cycles of cold-working and annealing to increase their hardness and durability. Both cists also contained lithic material, possibly waste: this included chert and flint chunks, outnumbered by small chunks of quartz and quartz gravel. While the dislocation of this object from its original burial environment in unfortunate, the recovery of Bronze Age rapiers during controlled archaeological excavation remains an extremely rare occurrence. The multi-lobed shape of the inner kerb suggests the southern part may once have formed a smaller oval-shaped ring, measuring between 6m and 7m in diameter, with two cists located centrally within. 7). This proud possession has its ancestry millenia before recorded history in these islands, many centuries before the legendary Achilles and Hector are said to have fought before the walls of Troy. Between 2013 and 2015, Rathmell Archaeology Ltd carried out archaeological works on behalf of Cloburn Quarry Company Ltd in advance of a quarry extension. At least five possible phases for the construction and usage of the Swaites Hill cairn can be extrapolated from both its stratigraphy and overall morphology. The authors’ thanks also go to the members of the site excavation team: Claire Williamson, Diane Gorman, Joss Durnan, Pauric Logue, Alex Wood and Andrew Kouzoukis. It is possible that some of the large boulders located close to the cairn were once placed in the recesses in the outer kerb, though this arrangement is unlikely to have formed a stone circle as at Cairnwell. It measured 19m long and 3.5m wide and was up to 0.26m in depth. Hungary. There are further archaeological sites in the vicinity; the majority are cairns but cairnfields and short cists have also been identified. Excavations at Blackshouse Burn in the 1980s found a worn and abraded sherd of Beaker pottery (dated to 2600–1800 BC), thought to have been incorporated amongst midden material (Lelong & Pollard 1998b). "The history of the sword is the history of mankind", a bold statement by Richard Burton in the late nineteenth century, yet one that holds a ring of truth to it. Re-deposited cairn material (009) partially overlay or abutted the edge of upper cairn material (011) and then spread out in all directions, extending 1–3m to the north, west and south and 3–7m to the east and southeast. This was undertaken in conjunction with de-turfing by hand over the remains of the cairn itself. 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. The journal includes a range of papers reporting on fieldwork, discussion of museum collections and consideration of the social and intellectual context of Scottish archaeology. It’s like that the earliest moulds for making flat axes were made from stone, although the use of a hollow in the ground cannot be ruled out. The Glasgow Archaeological Society was founded in 1856 to promote the study of archaeology with a special emphasis on western Scotland. The evaluation confirmed the suspected clearance cairns to be exactly that; their age could not, however, be ascertained. 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. Areas of irregularity in structure and composition were noted within the outer kerb: these mostly represent later disturbance or subsidence but two of these areas, in Zones 1 and 3, may represent recesses which could have accommodated larger stones of similar dimensions to the boulders located close to the cairn. 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. The deposit was irregular in plan, measuring up to 0.85m in length by 0.65m in width and up to 250mm in depth. 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