Chalcolithic and Bronze Age Archaeology c.2500-800 BC
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Glasgow Museums has a large collection of Chalcolithic and Bronze Age artefacts and related material which broadly dates from around 2,500 - 800 BC. The Chalcolithic (‘Copper Age’) saw further immigration of people from Continental Europe. Popularly known today as the ‘Beaker People’, they brought the knowledge of smelting and working copper to make items such as axeheads, halberds, and knives. They also introduced Beaker pottery, barbed-and-tanged arrowheads, archer’s wrist-guards, and inhumation burial in stone-built cists. Gold working was also practised in the Chalcolithic and Bronze Age periods, with people making and using items such as neck collars (lunulae), penannular rings, and torcs. The further innovation of bronze smelting and working began around 2,200 BC, with items such as axeheads and spearheads being made. New types of burial cairn, such as kerb cairns, were built, and Neolithic chambered cairns were often re-used for burial. Burials were in the form of inhumations or cremations, often placed in stone-built cists, but they could also be buried in pits, existing cairns or shell middens, or in wooden coffins. Burials were usually accompanied by objects which reflected the persona of the deceased and their standing in society. Stone and timber circles were also constructed, and Neolithic monuments of this type were sometimes developed into burial sites in the Bronze Age. New types of pottery, beads, bangles, and buttons made from jet or similar-looking stone, beads made from faience and amber, bone and antler toggles and pins, and new types of objects, such as battle-axes and axe-hammers, were all used in the Early Bronze Age. Rock art continued to be carved on burial monuments and on rock outcrops and boulders in the wider landscape into the Early Bronze Age. Some Neolithic rock art was incorporated into Early Bronze Age cist burials. Worked stone tools, such as scrapers and knives, continued to be used, as did quern stones, and coarse stone tools such as hammerstones and grinders. Lastly, hoards were deposited throughout the Bronze Age. Glasgow Museums holds confirmed Chalcolithic and Bronze Age material from twenty-five of Scotland’s thirty-two Council areas, as well as from Northern Ireland, Ireland, England, Denmark, and Switzerland. The material is from burial sites, stone-working sites, settlements, burnt mounds, hoards, and ritual sites. There are also many chance finds in the collection dating to this period. Artefacts include spacer-plate necklaces, bronze spearheads, pottery vessels, and flint knives. Further material includes human remains, animal remains, charcoal fragments, carbonised cereal grains, and hazelnut shells. Of particular note is material from scheduled monuments, the assemblages from Nelson Street in Largs, Greenoakhill, and Ferniegair, and the hoards from Gavel Moss, Peelhill, Middleton Farm, and Whitefarland. In addition, there is material from UNESCO World Heritage Sites, such as ‘The Heart of Neolithic Orkney’, and ‘Stonehenge, Avebury, and Associated Sites’. The Chalcolithic and Bronze Age material in Glasgow Museums’ collections has been acquired from the 1870s onwards. We are still actively adding to this collection group. It should be noted that only sites which contain solely Chalcolithic and Bronze Age and related material, or Chalcolithic and Bronze Age chance finds, are couched under the ‘Chalcolithic and Bronze Age Archaeology’ heading on the Collections Navigator website. To view Site records with further Chalcolithic and Bronze Age archaeological material, please look under the ‘Multi-Period Archaeology’ heading or carry out a general search using the terms ‘Chalcolithic’ and/or ‘Bronze Age’.
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