Description

Summary: 1 narrow bronze dagger (corroded) with 3 rivet holes (2 rivets left), 3 grooves either side of a thicker rounded central ridge, found in a wooden case with a primary adult male inhumation on elm plank in the bell barrow Amesbury G15, excavated by William Cunnington.

Research results

A Bronze Age copper alloy dagger excavated from Bell Barrow Amesbury G15, near Stonehenge, by William Cunnington. Described by Colt Hoare as "the most beautiful barrow in the plains of Stonehenge", the barrow was found to be built upon a primary male inhumation who had been buried with a pair of daggers, antlers and a crushed drinking cup. The remains of petrified wood were found extending to the top of the barrow, suggesting that three long stakes had been placed around the inhumation.

This object was examined as part of the research published in Ritual in Early Bronze Age Grave Goods; a six-year research project carried out by Professor John Hunter and Dr Anne Woodward and funded by the Leverhulme Trust. Aided by a large number of other specialists the pair undertood an exhuastive study examining over 1000 objects held in 13 museums across the country in order to provide an extensive overview of burial practices in the period and identify regional practices.

Wilkin (2011) discusses this grave group alongside a number of other Late Neolithic and Early Bronze Age graves in Wiltshire, Dorset, and Oxfordshire, in order to explore the significance of the inclusion of animal remains in graves of this period for human-animal relationships. They suggest that whilst these are not frequent inclusions, only appearing in 15% of graves, they are disproportionately non-meat bearing elements such as skulls, horns, and antlers and may have had symbolic connotations. He suggests that animal remains linked practical and cosmological concerns; for example: the quality of a year’s antler harvest may have impacted communities’ ability to construct a monument, tying social identities to natural cycles. The inclusion of domestic cattle and wild deer in the same graves may have had significance in terms of how the dichotomy of hunting and farming was viewed by contemporary communities, whilst the animal remains themselves may have referenced the inherent characteristic of the animals themselves and assisted in the evocation of spirits or powers, or have had symbolic potential.