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Alignments: Revising the Atlantic Late

Bronze Age Sequence
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Colin Burgess
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Colin Burgess Email:
Published online: 20 Dec 2014.
To cite this article: Colin Burgess (2012) Alignments: Revising the Atlantic Late Bronze Age
Sequence, Archaeological Journal, 169:1, 127-158, DOI: 10.1080/00665983.2012.11020913
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04 Burgess:Layout 1 03/07/2013 08:50 Page 127
Alignments: Revising the Atlantic

Late Bronze Age Sequence
colin burgess
In Memoriam: Jacques Briard, David Coombs, Ian Shepherd
As in earlier periods, events in the south-east can be paralleled in north-western France, where
Downloaded by [186.213.51.207] at 12:24 18 August 2015
the Wilburton Complex has its counterpart in Briards St-Brieuc-des-Iffs group . . . One differ-
ence should be noted, and that is the continuing presence in the French hoards of the
U-shouldered swords . . . In England the V-shouldered [Wilburton] weapons are entirely
dominant in the Wilburton hoards. (Burgess 1968a, 9, 13)
British Wilburton swords and French Atlantic leaf-shaped swords belong to the same tradition
. . . However, the two groups are not identical. (OConnor 1980, 146)
[U-butt swords] are not present in Wilburton hoards in Britain, although their French counter-
parts frequently occur in Saint-Brieuc-des-Iffs hoards . . . (Colquhoun and Burgess 1988, 35)
SUMMARY
Re-examination of St-Brieuc and Wilburton metalworking shows they cannot align, and this
requires a general reordering of the Atlantic Late Bronze Age sequence. They have many differ-
ences, principally sword types. St-Brieuc always has U-butt Kergurou (Limehouse in Britain)
swords, whereas Wilburton always has Wilburton swords. Wilburton must follow St-Brieuc, so
a new Limehouse stage is inserted between Penard and Wilburton, to align with St-Brieuc. The
combination of U-butt sword and straight-mouthed chape of St-Brieuc and Limehouse is con-
sistent throughout Atlantic Europe. So too are the characteristics of Wilburton metalworking
which followed, and its Brcy equivalent in France. In Britain the contemporaneity of Walling-
ton and Wilburton is reaffirmed. Both played a part in the emergence of Ewart Park 1 metal-
working, with South Yorkshire/Lincolnshire a vital contact zone. The Atlantic Late Bronze
Age unravelled after Wilburton. Iberia effectively dropped out after Huelva, diverted by
Phoenician influences. Links between Britain and Atlantic France declined, and their sword and
axe preferences diverged. The various weapon complexes of Ewart Park 1 in Britain have no
equivalents in France. Ordering and sub-dividing this final phase of the LBA has always been
imponderable but has been helped by the identification of St-Philbert (Huelva) swords, which
show what are Ewart Park 1 hoards in Britain and contemporary Longueville hoards in France.
They also make clear that the Carps tongue complex must be relegated to the last part of the
Late Bronze Age.
Archaeol. J., 169 (2012), 127158

128 re vis ing t he atl ant i c l a t e b r o n z e a g e s e q u e n c e
PREAMBLE
Atlantic Europe in this Bronze Age context consists of the Atlantic littoral of western
Europe, beginning in the north with Britain, Ireland and northern France (from
Picardy southwards), takes in Normandy, Brittany and the Paris Basin, western
France, and then Portugal and Spain. Its influence did not extend normally east of
Paris or north of the Belgian border, areas which looked more to central Europe, and
in the case of the Low Countries, often to northern Europe. The Balearic Isles, distant
in the western Mediterranean, not surprisingly fell outside the Atlantic orbit, though
more distant but more accessible Sardinia was heavily influenced by the Atlantic Late
Bronze Age. The concept of an Atlantic Bronze Age is a venerable one, but before
the Late Bronze Age it proves to be based on little evidence. Normally the various
regions of Atlantic Europe had very different cultures, though some were connected
at times over shorter distances, for example on both sides of the English Channel, and
the lands north and south of the Pyrenees. Recently it has become increasingly clear
that the only sense in which there was an Atlantic Bronze Age encompassing the
whole of this Atlantic seaboard was in the Late Bronze Age, c. 13th10th centuries bc,
when metalworking in the whole of this Atlantic region from Thames to Tagus was
united in products and technology. It is the changing stages of bronze-working
development which provide the basis of the relative chronology of this Atlantic Late
Bronze Age. The mechanisms underlying these long distance connections have been
little explored; how and why were similar types of spearheads and swords in use in
Cambridge and Cordoba? What is easier to see is the fact that they seem to change
the length of Atlantic Europe at about the same time.
Following a surge in regional studies in the late 1950s and 60s, a paper in Archaeo-
logical Journal 125 (Burgess 1968a) codified this sequence as it concerned Britain and
north-west France, aligning metalworking stages on both sides of the Channel in the
Late Bronze Age. This pan-Channel Late Bronze Age sequence has endured ever
since, though it showed cracks even at the very beginning. At its heart were align-
ments across the Channel of metalworking at the very beginning of the Late Bronze
Age, the Rosnon stage in north-western France, especially in Brittany, and the
Penard stage in Britain; followed by the Wilburton stage in Britain, aligned with the
Saint-Brieuc-des-Iffs stage in France. This was on the basis of certain novel and
distinctive products such as tongue-shaped scabbard chapes and cylindrical spear-shaft
ferrules. In subsequent years this largely Anglo-French sequence was seen to extend
the length of Atlantic Europe, taking in Atlantic France and Iberia, and eventually in
2008 this Atlantic Late Bronze Age was identified as the only way in which an Atlantic
Bronze Age existed (Burgess and OConnor, 2008). But even within Atlantic Europe
there were regions which were never part of this Atlantic phenomenon. In Britain,
for example, northern England, Scotland, and Ireland had very different metalworking
traditions from lowland England, and in the Late Bronze Age had their own
Wallington tradition as an alternative to Wilburton metalworking. Wilburton and its
Atlantic equivalents mark the apogee of the Atlantic Late Bronze Age. Wallington as
well as Wilburton innovations played an important role in the final stage of Late
Bronze Age metalworking which followed, but links even between Britain and France
r e vis ing t he atl ant ic l a t e b r o n z e a g e s e q u e n c e 129
weakened and changed, while Iberia went its own way, forsaking Atlantic connec-
tions as Phoenician penetration grew stronger.
INTRODUCTION
It is a truth universally acknowledged that received wisdom is one of the hardest
mindsets to shift, and few aspects of the Atlantic Late Bronze Age are more firmly set
in stone than the notion that Wilburton equals Saint-Brieuc-des-Iffs. As I have more
blame than most for establishing this link more than forty years ago (Burgess 1968a),
and until very recently was still hard at work trying to explain away its obvious
inconsistencies (e.g. Burgess and OConnor 2008, 37), it was a great shock to discover
even more recently that in fact the two share little that is identical, present many
differences, and for this reason cannot align in terms of chronology or direct influence
upon each other. A primary aim of this paper is therefore to realign these two
traditions and determine what impact this has on the rest of the Atlantic Late Bronze
Age sequence. Clearly there will be impacts on what went before as well as after. A
second aim, more particularly concerned with Britain, is to re-examine the Walling-
ton tradition as a northern and western contemporary of Wilburton, and then to
scrutinize the end of Wilburton and Wallington to determine how they influenced
the last stage of the Late Bronze Age which followed. Was there a dramatic break
marked by an industrial revolution, as suggested in Burgess 1968a? This requires at
least minimal consideration to be given to this ensuing phase, termed Ewart Park 1 in
England, and to the contemporary period in France, Milcents (2012) LBa3 or
Longueville Horizon. This has long been the most intractable period of the Late
Bronze Age sequence on both sides of the Channel, due to a lack of associated finds,
but new evidence and a reassessment of the old shows much more of a continuum
with what had gone before (pace Burgess, 1968a, 17).
BACKGROUND
It was during the early sixties that the close parallelism between the Bronze Age
metalworking traditions of Britain and north-west France first became clear. The
component parts of Bronze Age, especially Late Bronze Age, metalworking in Britain
and Ireland had been given shape in the fifties and early sixties during an unprec-
edented burst of research and publication (e.g. Cowen 1951; Hawkes and Smith 1957;
Savory 1958; Smith 1959; Hawkes 1960; Britton 1960; Coles 195960; Butler 1963;
Eogan 1964). Across the Channel a similar sorting out had been taking place, espe-
cially through the work of P.-R. Giot and his team at Rennes, with Jacques Briards
contribution, proving revolutionary. Up to this period, there had been little direct
contact between researchers on the two sides of the Channel, and British students
tended to be told by their teachers that pursuing their researches in France (terra
incognita) would be a waste of time, and would receive little help from the French.
Knowledge of the Bronze Age metalwork of France came from Dchelette (1910) and
even older publications. Imagine the sensation created by Jacques Briards lecture on
the Breton material to the Prehistoric Society in London in the early sixties, soon
table 1 *As in Burgess 1968. **2012 based mainly on Needham et al. 1997, but see also
Burgess, 2004, 358. ***Needham (1997) distinguishes between a Wilburton phase, 11401020,
and a separate Blackmoor phase, 1020920, a distinction which this writer does not follow (e.g.
in Burgess and OConnor, 2004, 193). Hence the combined Wilburton/Blackmoor date of
1140/1100950/920 presented here. In this paper, a new Limehouse stage is inserted between
Penard and Wilburton, and a reduced Wilburton tradition is limited to c. 1050950/920 bc.
Burgess, 1968* 2012**

LBA 1, Penard/Rosnon (formerly MBA3) 1150900 1300/12751140/1100
LBA2, Wilburton/St.-Brieuc-des-Iffs 900750 1140/1100950/920***
LBA 3, Ewart Park/Carps Tongue 750650 950/920800
LBA 4, Llynfawr/Premier Fer 650550 800?700
followed by his monumental work of 1965. There, laid out for British students, was
a succession of material which seemed to replicate so much of that in Britain, espe-
cially Saint-Brieuc-des-Iffs, with its chapes and ferrules so like those of Wilburton. I
went to see the artefacts for myself in 1964, undertaking an extensive tour of French
museums between the Loire and Picardy, beginning in Brittany, where the hospitality
of Messrs Giot and Briard knew no bounds in introducing me to their region. The
similarities between the French and English material and ordering became even more
apparent. By the end of the decade a scheme for the Late Bronze Age sequence in
Britain and north-west France had been worked out (Burgess 1968a) which effectively
has lasted ever since.
It is the absolute chronology of this scheme which has changed considerably (e.g.
Burgess, 1979; Gomez, 1991; Needham et al. 1997), though the total length of the
Late Bronze Age has remained roughly the same at about 600 years (Table 1).
Through the 1970s and 1980s it became increasingly clear that this cross-Channel
Late Bronze Age scheme could be extended to south-west France and Iberia (e.g.
Coffyn 1985; Almagro Gorbea 1986; Ruiz-Glvez 1987), so that gradually the
venerable notion of an Atlantic Late Bronze Age was at last given substance (Burgess
1991; Burgess and OConnor 2008). This correlation will be amplified below. Gen-
erally British and French writers have remained in accord over this scheme, but it has
often seemed that Iberian colleagues have been dancing to different chronologies,
relative and absolute. In particular, the way in which Iberian researchers have treated
their sword types in relation to the scheme has sometimes seemed out of step with
international opinion. This is important because sword sequences have always been at
the heart of the Atlantic Late Bronze Age scheme.
Immediately after this study was finished, in April 2012, and was sent to the editor
of the Archaeological Journal, there was published in France a work by Pierre-Yves Milcent
(2012) on the Late Bronze Age and Early Iron Age in Atlantic France (and Britain)
which covers much of the ground in the present essay but not the St-Brieuc/
Wilburton dislocation. This is the most important and comprehensive study of the
Late Bronze Age in Atlantic France since Briard 1965, and the editor of Archaeological
Journal very generously allowed me time to take back my manuscript and incorporate
Milcents views. Since Milcent was not aware of my realignment of St-Brieuc and
Wilburton, this has proved a most enlightening exercise.
ROSNON, PENARD AND THE BACKGROUND TO THE

PROBLEM OF ST-BRIEUC-DES-IFFS AND WILBURTON
In general, what was written in 1968 about Rosnon metalworking in France and the
closely connected Penard stage across the Channel, still stands today. With their strong
alignment with the material and chronology of Early Urnfield Central Europe, it
could hardly be otherwise. It is now clear that these influences extended the length of
Atlantic Europe, seen in finds in south-west France (Coffyn 1985) and in Spain (e.g.
the hoard from Grann, Rioja; Alonso Fernandes et al. 2009). So this primary stage
of the Atlantic Late Bronze Age presents no urgent case for chronological revision
apart from tweaking made possible by abundant new finds. It is what came next that
requires urgent and fundamental attention. There have been cracks in this part of the
sequence since the beginning, so its durability has been remarkable. At the heart of
the problem is the correlation between Wilburton metalworking in England and
St-Brieuc-des-Iffs in France, both clearly post-Rosnon/Penard and with many
similar products, and thus presumably aligning. But this was an equation which pre-
sented anomalies from the outset, as the quotations at the head of this paper make
clear. The most worrying area of difficulty was the contrast between the U-butt
swords of the St-Brieuc hoards and the Wilburton swords characteristic of the
Wilburton hoards. Over the years this author has tried to explain away this discrep-
ancy in terms never entirely satisfactory (e.g. Burgess 2004). Other clear differences
included the apparent absence in St-Brieuc hoards of the fancy spearheads of
Wilburton hoards; and also the rarity in Wilburton contexts of all the socketed and
tanged tools of the St-Brieuc hoards.
In the end, the penny suddenly dropped for this writer in 20078, in the course of
re-examining the whole Atlantic sword sequence for two parallel papers. The first was
on the Atlantic Late Bronze Age (Burgess and OConnor 2008), the second more
specifically a survey of carps tongue swords (Brandherm and Burgess 2008). Looking
afresh at problems I had not considered for decades it soon became clear there were
major problems not just with the swords, but with the Atlantic Late Bronze Age
sequence in general. A niggling worry for some time had been just how many sword
types supposedly had to be fitted into Penard II metalworking. While the correlation
Penard = Rosnon broadly still held, Penard II was completely overloaded with
sword types (see Colquhoun and Burgess 1988 for types. Milcent 2012, pls. 8, 16 has
more accessible illustrations and typologies, though the dates there are not always
acceptable to the present writer):
Hemigkofen and Erbenheim Early Urnfield swords (Cowen 1951)
Locally-produced examples of the above
Unstandardised locally-produced swords based on Hemigkofen and Erbenheim
weapons (Colquhoun and Burgess 1988, pl. 14)
The first standardised Atlantic swords, based on the above: Clewer (in England;
Colquhoun and Burgess, 1988); Bellevue in France; Colquhoun and Burgess 1988,
32); Vila Maior swords in Spain (Brandherm 2007)
Hilt-tang swords with leaf-shaped blades, especially Ballintober and Chelsea
weapons
Group IV rapiers, including the Cutts type (Burgess and Gerloff 1981) with leaf-
shaped blade
Limehouse U-butt swords, and their Mugdrum and Taplow variants, with their
long elegant blades clearly owing much to Erbenheim weapons
Mortlake V-butt swords and their Teddington variants, with wide, heavy clumsy
blades, presumably inspired by Hemigkofen weapons
Hemigkofen swords pre-date the Erbenheim type in Early Urnfield Europe, in Ha
A1, so some may belong to Penard I, along with most of the Rosnon weapons and
the metal-hilted swords of Appleby type (Needham 1982). However, the Erbenheim
swords are wholly Ha A2 in central Europe, so may all be placed in Penard II. The
Clewer-Bellevue swords have remarkable uniformity in England and France, but the
Spanish Vila Maior swords show more local influence (Brandherm 2007), amongst
other things displaying a local predilection for hilt slots. The recently published
Gran (Rioja) hoard, which includes an Erbenheim sword (Alonso and Jimnez
2009) shows how early in the sequence Iberian swords began to take on a distinctive
local character. That Group IV rapiers were used in Britain at this time is indicated by
their presence in several Penard hoards (Burgess and Gerloff 1981, pls 12833), and
there is also direct evidence for their use in Rosnon France, from their presence in
hoards such as Rosnon itself (Briard 1958; Nallier and Le Goffic 2008), and in the
hoards from St-Just-en-Chause, Oise (Blanchet and Mohen 1977), Chaillou, Orne
(Milcent 2012, pl. 31) and Toul-an-Nouch, Finistre (Briard et al. 1980). They are
also present in contemporary hoards in Iberia, notably Isla de Cheta (Brandherm 2007,
26, lam. 54A).
There is not a problem so far in accommodating these weapon types in Penard
II/Rosnon II because this was a period of much experimentation, and the numbers
of most of the types, apart from the various forms of rapiers, were quite small. How-
ever, Limehouse and Mortlake swords and their variants, and their Continental
equivalents, present an entirely different problem. These were standardised types
produced in considerable numbers. They have obvious typological affinities with
Hemigkofen and Erbenheim swords, such as ridge-sectioned leaf blades, poorly-
defined ricassi with slight or non-existent notches, and high flanges; but they have also
moved on in design terms, in their more widely-splayed butts, frequent hilt slots, and
shorter ricassi restricted to the top of the blade below the shoulders. All these features
anticipate the Wilburton swords of a later age, but they have to be pre-Wilburton,
because they are not present in Wilburton hoards. In 1968 this meant the only place
for them was late in Penard, a conclusion apparently justified by their unleaded and
low-lead composition (Colquhoun and Burgess 1988, 3338). Unfortunately there is
not a single association of Limehouse, Taplow, Mortlake or any of their variants, in
Britain or Ireland, but this has never been considered a problem because none of the
flanged hilt, leaf-shaped swords in the list above have been found in hoards either. But
the problem with what can be termed the Limehouse group is their sheer numbers.
There are more than fifty of them, almost half as many as there are Wilburton swords,
and how can so many be squeezed into the last part of Penard along with all those
other edge-weapons?
SOLVING THE ST-BRIEUC AND

WILBURTON DISCREPANCIES
The answer was glaringly obvious, and lay in the Continental evidence all the time.
While Limehouse, Taplow and the like have never been found in hoards in Britain
and Ireland, in France their equivalents occur regularly in hoards: in the St-Brieuc
group, in related hoards further north in Picardy, and in hoards of the St-Denis-de-
Pile group in south-west France. In France there are still no simple identifying names
for the different sword types, and what must be done first is to address this problem.
French scholars have persisted with cumbersome terms such as pes lame
pistilliforme Atlantique for decades, terms which could describe all manner of swords,
so it might be helpful to name at least the widespread French equivalents of
Limehouse swords. Those in the St-Brieuc hoard itself are too fragmentary to make
good type finds, so let us call them for convenience Kergurou swords after the
examples in the important Breton hoard of the St-Brieuc group (Briard 1961, 3440).
I shall continue to use this term despite the fact that Milcent (2012, 102) has now
complicated the whole situation by preferring to use the British label Limehouse for
these similar French swords. Furthermore Kergurou itself is complicated by Milcent
preferring to call the eponymous find Rdn, utilising another element in the hoards
place name. But since Briard (1961, 3139) in his original publication of the hoard
calls it Kergurou, I shall stick to that for the sword and the hoard. Milcents
treatment of all this material in what he terms Bfa 2 is confusing, because he has a
St-Brieuc stage (tape) termed Bfa 2, and a Rdn (ie Kergurou) horizon termed
Bfa 2a. He clearly has a problem balancing all this material with the traditional
equation St-Brieuc=Wilburton, with the result that there are some strange ascriptions.
For example the classic Wilburton hoard from Nettleham is subsumed in Bfa 2 ancien
with Kergurou, and Wallington is even earlier. I shall consider these problems in
greater detail below.
The presence of U-butt swords in St-Brieuc hoards has always been evident, but
since St-Brieuc for forty years has been aligned with Wilburton, and Wilburton
swords always occur in Wilburton contexts, and Limehouse swords never, this fact has
always been glossed over. Kergurou swords in St-Brieuc contexts have always been
dismissed as archaic survivals from Rosnon, this despite the fact that they never occur
in Rosnon hoards. But the great shock for this writer came in attempting to discover
just how many Wilburton swords there were in St-Brieuc hoards. Since it had long
been known that there are Wilburton swords in Brittany, I had always assumed that
some occurred in St-Brieuc contexts, so it was astonishing to find that they are never
found in StBrieuc hoards! My assumption of many decades had been completely in
error, and it had lured me into the glaringly obvious explanation that had been missed
all this time: St-Brieuc could not align with Wilburton. Pursuing these discoveries
further soon revealed that throughout Atlantic France, from Picardy to the Gironde,
the swords present in hoards equivalent to St-Brieuc are always Kergurou swords and
related forms, never Wilburton swords.
The further I investigated St-Brieuc and Wilburton hoards the more it became
clear that there were differences even in their supposed similarities. The tongue chapes
which had helped tie St-Brieuc and Wilburton in the first place in fact are not
identical. As already noted, the chapes of the St-Brieuc hoards always have straight
mouths, whereas the chapes of Wilburton always have curved mouths. Even while
writing these words another difference between St-Brieuc and Wilburton chapes
emerged: the straight-mouthed chapes always have simple edges, but Wilburton
chapes tend to have raised or ribbed edges. The next extraordinary discovery was that
U-butt swords, Kergurou and their equivalents, are paired with straight-mouthed
chapes throughout Atlantic Europe, from Northern France to Spain (Illus. 1). On the
other hand, Wilburton swords always occur with curved-mouth chapes (Illus. 3).
There are yet more differences which apply the length of Atlantic France, and have
echoes even in Iberia. Firstly the axe forms are very different. Here it is useful to know
something of palstave typology, and the difference between the palstaves confusingly
termed Late by Smith (1959, 17677, with fig. 7), with protruding out-turned stop; to
be distinguished from her palstaves termed equally misleadingly Transitional palstaves
with gentler stop line. Such a pity that one of the most insightful recognitions in the
British Bronze Age should be so unhelpfully labelled, so to help the reader I have used
a capital letter in both cases to denote the specific type, as opposed to unspecific use
of the words. The Transitional type is the earlier, in southern Britain appearing in late
phases of the Middle Bronze Age, and subsequently being entirely characteristic of the
Penard stage. Palstaves equivalent to the Transitional form in France similarly appear
first towards the end of the Middle Bronze Age, and are then characteristic of the
Rosnon stage. On both sides of the Channel Late palstaves only appeared in subse-
quent phases of the Late Bronze Age, and in Britain are associated especially with
Wilburton metalworking. The regular occurrence of Late palstaves in Wallington
hoards, and what this means for Wilburton-Wallington chronology will be discussed
in more detail below. St-Brieuc still has palstaves equivalent to the British Transitional
in terms of stop development, but the overhanging stop characteristic of Late palstaves
(Smith 1959, 17677, fig. 7) had already appeared occasionally in Rosnon metal-
working, so St-Brieuc also has some palstaves equivalent to the British Late type. On
the other hand Wilburton only has Late palstaves. Wilburton also has socketed axes
which St-Brieuc seldom if ever does, but very few winged axes, whereas these were
a staple of St-Brieuc metalworking.
illus. 1 (opposite) St-Brieuc-des-Iffs and its equivalents throughout Atlantic Europe (the
chapes associated with U-butt swords are always straight-mouthed): 1 Caix hoard, Somme;
2 Kergurou, Rdn, hoard, Finistre; 3 Saint-Denis-de-Pile hoard, Gironde;
4 Alhama de Aragn, Zaragoza; 5 Clos de la Blanche Pierre hoard, Jersey, Channel Islands.
(1 after Blanchet 1984; 2 after Briard 1961; 3 after Coffyn 1966; 4 after Coffyn 1985; 5 after
Coombs 1988) Not to scale

FINDING A BRITISH EQUIVALENT FOR ST-BRIEUC

But what aligns with St-Brieuc in Britain if it is not Wilburton? With more than fifty
Limehouse, Taplow and Mortlake swords and their variants to accommodate some-
where between Penard and Wilburton, the answer must be that there is a complete
stage missing in the British sequence, contemporary with St-Brieuc. The fact that
Limehouse, Taplow and Mortlake swords are completely without associations in
Britain makes clear how an entire stage could become lost. We are dealing with a
bronze-working tradition which is, alas, practically hoard-free. Those who know well
(Colquhoun and Burgess 1988), might point to the Taplow sword and straight-
mouthed chape from the River Clyde at Bowling, Dunbartons. (Illus. 2.3) as exactly
what is required (ibid., no. 115, 36), but though this find is usually displayed and
illustrated with the sword slotted into the chape, the two were not in fact found thus,
and appear not even to have been found together (ibid., 36, pl. 19 no. 115). British
patriots might point, alternatively, to the hoard from Clos de la Blanche Pierre, Jersey
(Finlaison 1981; Coombs 1981; 1988), which has Limehouse and Taplow swords and
straight-mouthed chapes, and cannot therefore belong to Wilburton as has tradi-
tionally been conceived. But this close to Normandy, this hoard is better assigned to
the St-Brieuc tradition than to its new British equivalent. There are other finds which
could give this new stage a name, such as the mould fragments from Dainton, Devon
(Needham 1980), but unfortunately these offer no specifics. In other words, the types
represented could be Limehouse or Wilburton. The only certain association of a
straight-mouthed chape in Britain, from Mickleham, Surrey (Williams 2008), is with
two Late palstaves (Illus. 2, 1315), and thus of little use for this purpose. With no
associations to provide a name, we are therefore forced, temporarily at least, to term
this new stage between Penard and Wilburton, Limehouse, after its most distinctive
sword type.
Suggesting what else might have made up the Limehouse tradition (Illus. 2) should
be easy with the help of St-Brieuc hoards, and especially that from Clos de la Blanche
Pierre. These suggest that the swords, Limehouse, Taplow, Mortlake and their
variants (Colquhoun and Burgess 1988, pls 1624) and straight-mouthed chapes were
complemented by an array of spearheads, not only simple peg-hole, leaf-shaped
spearheads but also the first fancy types to judge from the lunate-opening spearhead
in the Clos de la Blanche Pierre hoard. This may well have been an import into the
illus. 2 (opposite) Main products of a hypothetical Limehouse tradition: 1 Limehouse

sword, Thames at Wandsworth; 2 and 3 Taplow swords from, 2, Taplow, Bucks. and,
3, River Clyde at Bowling exhibited with a straight-mouthed chape slotted on to blade, but
the two, though found at the same place, were not found together; 4 Mortlake sword,
Thames at Brentford; 5 Teddington sword, Thames at London; 612 spearheads, ferrule,
looped button or disc and Transitional equivalent palstaves, from the Clos de la Blanche Pierre
hoard, Jersey; 1315 Late palstaves and straight-mouthed chape from the Norbury Park hoard,
Mickleham, Surrey; 16 straight-mouthed chape, River Thames. (15 after Colquhoun and
Burgess 1988; 612 after Coombs 1988; 1315 after Williams et al. 2008; 16 after Needham et al.
1997) Not to scale

St-Brieuc world from England. For spear-shafts there were ferrules, some tubular, but
some trunconic, like those in the Caix hoard, Picardy, harking back to the pointed
ferrules of Penard. The main axe type of Limehouse was probably still the Transitional
palstave at first, carried over from Penard metalworking, since the equivalent French
version is the most common palstave type of the St-Brieuc hoards, including Clos de
la Blanche Pierre. But the French evidence also suggests the presence of some late
palstaves, and this is supported for Limehouse by the only certain association of a
straight-mouthed chape in Britain, from Mickleham, Surrey, which is with two Late
palstaves. Socketed axes were probably unimportant to judge from their rarity in
St-Brieuc hoards. Winged axes are also present in the Breton contexts, but in far fewer
numbers than palstaves, so are unlikely to have figured in Limehouse production, par-
ticularly as they remained rare even later, in Wilburton metalworking, and continued
so until Carps tongue imports made them more familiar towards the end of the Late
Bronze Age. Socketed gouges and tanged chisels were a novelty common in St-Brieuc
hoards all over north-west France, but perhaps not in Limehouse metalworking, since
these, like winged axes, remained rare in Britain even in Wilburton production,
becoming staples only later, in the Ewart Park phase. Also, frequently present in the
French hoards are looped, slightly convex discs and buttons, but these, too, are rare
in Wilburton hoards, so may not have been a major component of Limehouse metal-
working.
CONNECTIONS WITH CENTRAL

EUROPEAN CHRONOLOGY
To pursue further the repertoire of a hypothetical metalworking tradition seems
fruitless in the light of the present evidence. Before moving on, there is an important
chronological point which must be addressed. Limehouse metalworking is conceived
as falling between Penard II and Wilburton, and aligned with St-Brieuc. Since Penard
II patently aligns with Ha A2 in the central European sequence, Limehouse should
align with early Ha B1, with Wilburton aligning with later B1. Worries have
repeatedly been raised, however, that St-Brieuc includes Ha A2 elements, and ever
since Briards original study raised this problem (Briard 1965, 19798) British
researchers have been aware that French colleagues tend to date St-Brieuc rather
illus. 3 Wilburton metalwork the main differences from Limehouse metalwork include:
Wilburton swords (14); curved-mouth chapes (1314); a wide range of fancy spearheads (68,
1011); socketed axes (especially indented) (1516); 3-ribbed Late palstaves (1819); winged axes
(20); harness and belt fittings (21); plate scrap (22). 1 No provenance, possibly Thames;
2 near Cranborne, Dorset; 3 Isleham hoard, Cambs.; 4 Oak Farm, Cockfield, Suffolk;
5 St-Nazaire sword, Isleham Hoard, Cambs.; 6 Wilburton hoard, Cambs.; 7 Walthamstow,
Essex; 8 No provenance, Museum of London; 913, 17, 22 Guilsfield hoard, Montgomerys.;
1416 Wilburton hoard, Cambs.; 1819 Nettleham hoard, Lincs.; 20 Sturry hoard, Kent;
21af Wilburton. (16, 14, 21, after Colquhoun and Burgess 1988; 712, 1517, 22, after
Burgess 1968, 9, 13, after Savory 1965, 1819, after Davey 1973, 20, after Turner 2010) Not to
scale

table 2 The Atlantic Late Bronze Age sequence
BC PHASE BRITAIN MILCENT NW FRANCE SW IBERIA

HOARDS/FINDS 2012 FRANCE
1300 LBA1a PENARD 1 Appleby Bfa1Anc. ROSNOEN Foios Stela
Chaillou ISLA
DE CHETA
1200 LBA1b PENARD 2 Penard Bfa1 Rec. Abbeville-Grigny GRAN

N
Ffynhonnau
1100 LBA2a LIMEHOUSE Bfa2 Anc. ST BRIEUC ALHAMA

Kergurou ST-DENNIS- DE
Caix DE-PILE ARAGN
Wallington emerges? Cl. Bl. Pierre Catoira
Mickleham Combon vora
1000 LBA2a WILBURTON Guilsfield Bfa2 Rec. St Nazaire Rio Sil

WALLINGTON Skidby West BRCY CEZAC HIO
Canteleu Baios
Isleham
Blackmoor Waterden
900 LBA3a EWART PARK1 Harty Llancarfan Bfa3 Anc. St Philbert Huelva deposit
LONGUEVILLE PHOENICIANS
BROADWARD IRON
LBA3b EWART PARK2 CARPS TONGUE Bfa3 Rec. CARPS Cubzac Aldovesta
TONGUE M.S. Idda ct
Vnat swords
800
IRON 1 LLYNFAWR Gndlingen 1er Fer a1 Gndlingen
Ha C1 Thames swords BRANDIVY
Armorican axes
earlier than British scholars have dated Wilburton. Matters came to a head with
Gomezs seminal paper of 1991 (Gomez 1991) in which St-Brieuc was dated c. 1100?
940 bc at a time when Wilburton was still thought of as essentially a tenth-century
phenomenon. As Needham et al. (1996, 135) pointed out, the new C14 evidence then
emerging for Wilburton metalwork tended to support the French line, which meant
that revision of the British chronology, relative and absolute, was a priority.
Some of this discrepancy we can now see arose from the fact that Wilburton and
St-Brieuc had been misaligned, and were not contemporary but successive. Wilburton
clearly was totally different from Penard II, which did have Ha A2 connections in
abundance. St-Brieuc, however, though in the main very different from Rosnon,
does mix in a few archaic elements with all its novelties, some of A2 but some even
older. It is ones attitude to these which colours attitudes to the absolute chronology
of St-Brieuc. The decorated Urnfield knife fragment of Ha A2 in the eponymous
hoard has been a particular source of anxiety, especially as the obvious comparison in
the Atlantic world is with the knife in the Ffynhonnau hoard, Brecon (Savory 1958,
45, fig. 3), and this is undoubtedly Penard II. The St-Brieuc knife is a fragment,
however, and it reminds us that the St-Brieuc hoards regularly include one or two
archaic fragments of Atlantic type, notably the Ballintober sword and the Bignan
armlet in the Kergurou hoard, Finistre (Briard 1961). Since these are always frag-
ments, however, they look like scrap survivals; and no-one has suggested that
St-Brieuc should be Middle Bronze Age because of a fragment of a Bignan armlet.
ALIGNMENTS FOR WILBURTON

If St-Brieuc does not align with Wilburton (Illus. 3), what did Wilburton align with
in France? What followed St-Brieuc in Brittany? The knock-on effect of separating
Wilburton from St-Brieuc is obviously considerable, and will be explored in the pages
that follow, but the implications are summarised in Table 2. The Breton equivalent to
Wilburton should be represented by those hoards in Brittany which contain
Wilburton swords and curved mouth chapes, and all the other Wilburton elements
not found in St-Brieuc hoards. The surprise is that there are none! This was as much
a hoard-free period in Brittany as Limehouse was in Britain. One notable Breton type
which should belong to this shadowy phase is the St-Nazaire sword (Illus. 3), a local
equivalent of Wilburton, its presence in two or three Wilburton hoards in England
making this clear enough (Colquhoun and Burgess 1988). But in Brittany it has not
one association. There is one possible hoard of this period, that from Noyal-
Morandais, Ctes-dArmor (Droguet 1882). This, unfortunately, has long been lost,
and the published illustrations of palstaves, part of a tongued chape, a socketed gouge
and hammer, are not sufficiently diagnostic to distinguish between a St-Brieuc and a
later context contemporary with Wilburton. But Briard may have known more about
this find than is apparent today, because in describing its sword blade fragments he
declares they anticipate the carps tongue type, and he regards the hoard as transitional
to the carps tongue complex (Briard 1965, 177). What we now know about such
swords suggest they are more likely to have been the Huelva-St-Philbert forerunners
of classic carps tongue swords (Brandherm and Burgess 2008), which were beginning
to appear in north-west France in this period to judge from examples in Wilburton

hoards in England. Without hoards it is difficult to know how to refer to this post-
St-Brieuc phase in Brittany, but since St-Nazaire swords were a typical local product
in this phase (to judge from their presence in Wilburton hoards), let this be termed
the St-Nazaire stage. Other regions of North-West France have not only their own
hoards equivalent to St-Brieuc, but also finds which illustrate the metalworking which
followed. The associated finds of Picardy have all been conveniently published
(Blanchet, 1984), like those of the Paris Basin (Mohen 1977), but for Normandy
publication is more patchy. In Picardy the best-known hoard equivalent to St-Brieuc
is that from Caix (Blanchet 1984, 24447, figs 13334), its contents relevant for present
purposes including tiny fragments of Kergurou group swords, straight-mouthed
chapes, trunconnic ferrules and winged axes. Hoards related to Caix are not numerous
in the North-West. For Normandy, this equivalent of St-Brieuc metalworking is repre-
sented by the Combon hoard, Eure. When I saw this find in Evreux Museum nearly
fifty years ago, it was represented only by small fragments in small boxes (including
match boxes), of chapes and lozenge-sectioned swords, which indicated St-Brieuc and
therefore (in those days) Wilburton. But Milcent (2012, pl. 46) has now re-published
this old find and has shown that it contained a Kergurou sword hilt, grooved sword
blades and a trunconnic ferrule, so is related to Caix. Picardy, the Paris Basin and Nor-
mandy have rather more hoards representing the stage which followed, contemporary
with Wilburton. For the Paris Basin, notable is Luzarches, Val dOise (Blanchet 1984,
figs 12931) with curved-mouth chapes, Late palstaves, plate scrap, and sword blade
fragments, some at least from Wilburton weapons. Normandy has the Canteleu hoard,
Seine-Maritime (Marcigny et al. 2005, 88), with Wilburton blade fragments, curved-
mouth chapes, and Late palstaves. But one of the few associations which combines a
recognisable Wilburton sword hilt and a curved-mouth chape is that from Brcy,
Aisne (Blanchet 1984, 24951, fig. 137), which therefore deserves to give its name to
this stage in north-west France contemporary with Wilburton. Another hoard with a
Wilburton hilt comes from far away to the south, from Amboise on the south bank
of the Loire (Cordier et al. 1960), and this has an indented socketed axe and a Late
palstave to emphasize the Wilburton/Brcy connection. A carps tongue sword blade
fragment for long accepted as part of the Amboise find, and more recently suggested
to be from a Huelva/St-Philbert sword (Brandherm and Burgess 2008, 139), is now
revealed as a recent interloper in the find (Jos Gomez pers. comm.).
There may have been a greater survival of St-Brieuc elements in Brcy metal-
working in France than of Limehouse elements in Wilburton industry in England, to
judge from the hoard records of the two regions. Limehouse types appear absent from
Wilburton hoards, but in France there are hoards clearly of the Brecy tradition which
still have elements of the St-Brieuc/Caix stage. In Picardy, for example, the Pontpoint
hoard, Oise (Blanchet 1984, fig. 136) has three socketed axes, two indented, suggest-
ing contemporaneity with Wilburton/Brecy, but its only sword is a fragment of a
classic Kergurou U-butt. Similarly in the Paris Basin, the Boutigny B hoard, Seine-
et-Marne (Mohen 1977, 11718, 12829; Gaucher 1981, figs 10002), has grooved
sword blades, including a Kergurou hilt, combined with curved-mouth chapes and
part of a socketed axe.
illus. 4 Chapes become spearheads: two pieces from

the Pontpoint hoard, Oise, published as tongue chapes.
Their sharp edges and thick metal are not appropriate for
chapes, and turned upside down they appear to be
hollow, lozenge-sectioned spearheads (after Blanchet

1984, 249, 529, figs 128b, 12 and 136, 1314)
Mention of Pontpoint introduces a suggestion which may help to clarify the ques-
tion of Wilburton-type fancy spearheads in north-west France. Their apparent rarity
has always been cited as a major difference between Wilburton England and St-Brieuc
France. With the two no longer aligning the contrast has to be drawn in different
terms: that the fancy spearheads of Wilburton England have little representation in
France. But this may be less so than has always been thought. The Pontpoint hoard,
which we have seen mixes St-Brieuc/Caix and Brcy elements, also includes two
broken pieces which have been published as tongue chapes (Blanchet 1984, 24950,
fig. 136. 13, 14). But are they? Both have sharp, bevelled edges, instead of the flat or
rounded edges typical of tongue chapes; secondly their metal seems to be thicker than
is typical of tongue chapes; and both have a sinuous outline, whereas French chapes
tend to be straight-sided (though ogival examples are known). Turn the page upside
down and what seemed to be chapes are clearly the upper blades/points of two
lozenge-sectioned hollow spearheads, of the type common in Wilburton contexts
(Illus. 4). The absence of fancy spearheads in north-west France, for so long a major
difference between English and French metalworking (Burgess 1968a, 9, 36), may thus
have been overstated. Closer scrutiny of relevant French hoards should show if there
are more finds like Pontpoint lurking.
THE BLACKMOOR PROBLEM

The hoard from Blackmoor, Hants. (Colquhoun 1979) has always presented diffi-
culties of interpretation. In many respects it has seemed a typical Wilburton hoard, but
its swords particularly are a Wilburton-Ewart Park cross, and have been difficult to
classify. When they re-dated the Bronze Age, Needham et al. found themselves with
a period for Wilburton metalworking considerably longer than previously allowed.
Noting the existence of later dates and earlier dates for Wilburton material, they came
up with the idea of a late Wilburton stage transitional to Ewart Park metalworking,
based on hoards containing mainly Wilburton material, but with an admixture of
Ewart Park types. It was termed the Blackmoor stage after the Hampshire weapons
hoard containing a mixture of Wilburton and Ewart Park swords, and an abundance
of spearheads, many of Wilburton fancy types (Colquhoun 1979). The immediate
problem for this writer was that in many respects Blackmoor was then unique in its
makeup, not only in its size, spearheads and especially its mix of swords, Wilburton,
transitional and Ewart Park. How could a metalworking stage be based on one hoard?
Of the supposedly comparable late Wilburton hoards with a Ewart Park element
(Burgess 1968a, 37), the largest, that from Isleham, is quite different in its mixed nature
and more wholly Wilburton in character, especially its swords (ibid.; though the
carps tongue blade fragments mentioned there, and in other Wilburton-Brcy
hoards, must now be regarded as St Philbert fragments: Brandherm and Burgess 2008).
Others which might once have been seen as end-of-Wilburton now seem more
ambiguous, especially those deemed late on the basis of their socketed gouges, notably
Guilsfield (Burgess, 1968a, 13).). These can no longer be regarded as certainly abutting
on Ewart Park now that the long history of socketed gouges from St-Brieuc onwards
is better appreciated (Briard 1965, 18083; Briard and Onne 1972, pl. XI; Eogan
1964; also the hoard from Giraumont, Oise, Blanchet 1984, 24749, fig. 135).
The Blackmoor swords are generally difficult to classify, and only a minority can
happily be termed Wilburton or Ewart Park. Looking back at my views on Blackmoor
over nearly fifty years it is clear that I have always been at a loss how to classify these
swords, and they have been first one thing then the other. Perhaps it is a mistake to
be too rigid in classification. These are transitional swords, and this is what Colquhoun
and the present writer concluded (Colquhoun and Burgess 1988) before Prhistorische
Bronzefunde publication requirements forced them into more rigid categories. They
are transitional because they belong to that fluid moment of development when
Wilburton was becoming Ewart Park. Until recently, only the hoard from Fulbourn
Common, Cambs. (Clarke 1821) could be grouped with Blackmoor, but it is much
smaller, with only two transitional swords, a Wilburton (stepped-blade) spearhead,
and a disc-foot ferrule. The situation has changed recently with the coming together
in Norwich Museum of the scattered elements of the large hoard from Waterden,
Norfolk (Maraszek 2006, I, Abb.49; II, 45961), to reveal an assemblage approaching
Blackmoor in size as well as content. Even more recently, two smaller weapons hoards
have been discovered from Fincham, also in Norfolk (Norwich Museum; Bridgford
pers. comm.), both belonging to this group. All these finds are characterised, like
Blackmoor, by a range of spearhead types familiar from Wilburton manufacture,
notably fancy types with lozenge-section hollow blades, lunate-openings, stepped
blades, and beading-edged (fillet-defined) midribs, but also the distinctive short,
stumpy leaf-shaped type so well represented in Blackmoor. With such a restricted
range of products, almost entirely weapons, this group of weapon hoards now looks
much more like the outward signs of some short-lived socio-religious phenomenon
(cf. Coombs 1975) reflecting a fast-moving period of industrial development, rather
than evidence of a discrete metalworking tradition operating between Wilburton and
Ewart Park. In any case the creation of a pre-Wilburton Limehouse tradition solves
the problem of this lengthened Wilburton stage in a completely different and more
logical way.
SOUTH OF THE LOIRE: SOUTH WEST FRANCE

AND ST-DENIS-DE-PILE
The traditions of warfare and the warrior epitomised by close-quarters combat with
double-edged blade weapons (i.e. dirks and rapiers) had prevailed through the Middle
Bronze Age all over Britain, Ireland and, perhaps to a rather lesser extent, in north-
west France, down to the Loire. Beyond, however, in the centre-west and the south-
west, down to the Pyrenees and throughout Iberia, the almost complete absence of
rapiers suggests a very different Middle Bronze Age martial philosophy. Before going
further it is important to acknowledge problems of chronological terminology in
dealing with Iberia. Since there is confusion even among Spanish scholars in deciding
what is Early, what is Middle, and especially what is Late Bronze Age, I have taken
what is the easiest course for the moment, which is to regard Iberia against the more
settled chronologies of regions further north in Europe. Reference to Brandherms
(2003, 2007) two great volumes on edge implements and weapons of the Copper and
Early Bronze Ages, and on Late Bronze Age swords, and to Mejide Cameselle (1988),
makes clear how little there is to fit into the Middle Bronze Age in the North Atlantic
sense. In particular, there is nothing to compare with the plethora of dirks and rapiers
of Britain, Ireland and north-west France. It seems most unlikely that the absence of
edge weapons can be accounted for by a dearth of dredged rivers and cut peat bogs,
which is where most dirks and rapiers have been found in north-west Europe. The
tendency is to stretch the available material from the earlier Bronze Age, the riveted
knives, daggers and enlarged daggers, to fill the gap, but this is very dangerous when
so few have a good chronology or context. Nor do I have much faith in the very early
edge-weapons claimed as Middle Bronze Age on Iberian stelae, for sword types are
seldom securely identifiable on these stones. I know of none earlier than the Rosnon
swords clearly depicted on some stones (Burgess 1991, 40; Mederos 2012). The sim-
pler solution is to accept that the dirks and rapiers of regions beyond the Pyrenees had
no equivalent in Iberia, and take at face value the plethora of arrowheads. I am grateful
to Richard Harrison for reminding me that evidence for horse breeding is also
abundant on Middle Bronze Age Iberian sites, that horse riding in Iberia had a long
history, and that rapiers would be of much less use to horse warriors than archery. The
implications of this for social structure cannot be explored further here, but it is pos-
sible to conclude that, from the centre-west to Andalusia, the archer may have been
king. Wherever there is domestic evidence there is a ubiquity of arrowheads, for
example in the Duffaits Group of western France (Gomez 1995) and in Iberian Middle
Bronze Age settlements (e.g. Harrison et al. 1994, 16378). This is in complete con-
trast to the situation in Britain and Ireland especially, where there is very little
evidence for archery after the Early Bronze Age. From the centre-west to Iberia
familiarity with edge-weapons had to await the innovations ushered in by the arrival
of Urnfield swords. It is only at this point that Atlantic rapiers of appropriate late forms
also appear (for example in the Isla de Cheta hoard). Their social and political impact
must have been all the greater in these regions of very different warrior traditions.
The presence of early swords from Rosnon types onwards (Burgess 1991, 40)
shows that swords spread very rapidly across Atlantic France and beyond into Iberia.
This extensive block of territory was at last, in the 13th century bc, brought into regu-
lar and close contact with regions further north (Burgess and OConnor 2008), and
for the first time one can speak of an Atlantic Bronze Age taking in all the lands from
Britain, Ireland and northern France to the Algarve and Andalusia. The process is
demonstrated by the emergence in south-west France of an industry closely paralleling
St-Brieuc, represented by the hoard from St-Denis-de-Pile (Garde 1950; Coffyn, 1966
4855). The eponymous hoard contains, for example, local versions of U-butt
Kergurou swords, but also swords which are generally similar in their grooved blades
and slight ricassi, but have straighter V-shoulders. These compare to swords in
St-Brieuc hoards from the Paris Basin and Picardy, such as that in the Champcueil
hoard, Essonne (Mohen 1977, 118, 130). These Champcueil swords may be typo-
logically equivalent to Mortlake swords in retaining blade grooves in combination
with V-shoulders, but certainly lacked the broad, heavy blades of the Mortlake
weapons.
The associated chapes of St-Denis-de-Pile are straight-mouthed, as in St-Brieuc,
but these south-western hoards do show major differences from the lands beyond the
Loire. Like Wallington in Britain they may reflect distance from where the main
innovations of this period were taking place; for as with Wallington they retain
anachronisms from the past, notably flanged axes of Mdoc type, inherited from the
local Middle Bronze Age. On the other hand they show some exotic imports, notably
Iberian palstaves (Coffyn 1985, figs 39.2, 40.1), a connection which may explain other
local developments in this phase. Notable are triple-slot swords, alas few in number
and usually fragments, so there can be no certainty about their origins and their place
in the Atlantic sword sequence. But the only complete example, from the River
Dordogne between Domme and St-Cyprien (Chevillot and Coffyn 1982, pl. 4:2),
suggests they had straight blades with multiple blade grooves, which if not a local
development borrowed from St-Denis-de-Pile swords, could indicate another con-
nection to the south in Iberia, and in particular swords such as Type Catoira (Brand-
herm 2007, lam. 46). There may well have been a local equivalent of Brcy metal-
working in this area, represented by the hoard from Czac, Gironde (Daleau 1880),
and characterised by these swords, whether local or Iberian, with indented socketed
axes showing the Brcy-Wilburton mainstream Atlantic connection. Of course it is
always possible that the triple-slot Girondin swords were a local development out of
the St-Denis-de-Pile swords, but there are simply far too few to be certain whether
they were following the familiar flow of Atlantic influence southward into Iberia
(Burgess and OConnor 2008) to influence Iberian swords. The presence of Iberian
palstaves in the regions hoards demonstrates there was a south to north flow, and
swords with triple slots and straight blades are much more an Iberian tradition. It is an
important problem to solve, because it is key to the origins of Huelva/St-Philbert
swords, and thus the whole problem of carps tongue sword origins. The point is
emphasized by the presence of blade fragments of Huelva/St-Philbert swords in the
Czac hoard (Coffyn 1985, fig. 42.14) (not from classic carps tongue swords as has
long been assumed: Brandherm and Burgess 2008).
DEVELOPMENTS IN IBERIA
Despite a long Middle Bronze Age insularity and unfamiliarity with edge-weapons,
swords spread very rapidly during the Late Bronze Age in Iberia as influence from the
north brought Iberia into an Atlantic orbit. In a period which is contemporary with
Penard and Rosnon, the 13th century bc, the range of rapiers and swords produced
and circulating in Iberia was almost as extensive as in north-west France, Britain and
Ireland, though slight differences of form suggest local production rather than impor-
tation. This phase, termed Isla de Cheta by Brandherm (2007), had late Group IV
rapiers (Isla de Cheta itself), hilt-tang swords (much reshaped), and a range of early
flanged-hilt swords with parallels on both sides of the Channel. The parts published
recently of the large hoard from Gran, Rioja (Alonso Fernandez and Jimnez
Echevarria 2009), show what else was available, and provides a much better name at
least for the later part of this stage. Most of the swords, alas, lack hilts, but all bar one
have the lozenge-sectioned grooved blades of Penard-Rosnon metalworking, and a
fine Erbenheim sword provides a sure chronological fix. The other three complete
hilts, in their variability echo the initial lack of standardization shown by early sword
production on both sides of the Channel. The associated ferrules, tapering to a blunt
point, are reminiscent of those in the Ffynhonnau and Ambleside hoards of the Penard
phase in Britain (Needham 1982), but are even more like the trunconic ferrules of the
Caix hoard.
The St-Brieuc, St-Denis and Limehouse metalworking which followed Rosnon
and Penard beyond the Pyrenees had its equivalent in a tradition represented by the
Alhama de Aragn association from Zaragoza province (Coffyn 1985, pl. XII.4). Of
all the early swords from Iberia it is this Alhama find which is likeliest to be an import
from further north rather than a local copy. It would not be at all out of place among
the Kergurou swords of St-Brieuc and St-Denis-de-Pile and the Limehouse swords
from southern England. It is certainly not a St-Nazaire sword as claimed by Coombs,
an identification in which he was followed by Brandherm (2008, 4849). Most
satisfyingly, the associated chape at Alhama is straight-mouthed, as it should be. Two
other swords of Brandherms Type Catoira (ibid.), the eponymous pair dredged from
the River Ulla, are also very like the French and British weapons, but are probably
local products, but the rest of the Catoira swords have a local stamp, seen particularly
in their wide-splayed shoulders. The vora variant swords in their wide heavy blades
invite comparison with Mortlake swords, but the wide-splayed shoulders are very
different. Apart from Alhama de Aragn there are no other useful associations to flesh
out the production of this stage. Typologically the Cordeiro swords should follow,
but whether in the Alhama phase or in the succeeding Ho stage (Burgess 1991),
equivalent to Wilburton, cannot be determined from the existing evidence. There are
too few examples, and the one association, from the Ro Sil (Almagro Basch 1960),
has no certain pointers. But at least its basal-looped spearhead smacks of traffic from
further north, and its hollow, lozenge-sectioned spearhead shows that this Atlantic
type, too, was part of Iberian metalworking.
Next in the Iberian sequence come Huelva swords, and there are many, though the
majority occur in the eponymous find. The synchronization of this find (and its very
nature) have long been matters for debate, but in recent years it has been aligned with
Wilburton (Burgess 1991), and especially with Blackmoor at its end (Brandherm 2007,
7786). This would place it with Brcy further north, as is confirmed by the presence
of fragments of the St-Philbert manifestation of Huelva swords in typical Wilburton
hoards such as Isleham and Waldeshare, Kent (the latter in Dover Museum), and less
certainly in Brcy itself (Brandherm and Burgess 2008, 139). The apparent Wilburton
connections of Huelva inclined Brandherm and Burgess (2008) to the view that
Huelva/St-Philbert swords were developed in Iberia and spread north into France
rather than vice-versa, though this was acknowledged to run against the general trend
of Atlantic sword development (Brandherm and Burgess 2008, 13943). Milcent,
however (2012, 12331), has reminded us that the Wilburton elements in Huelva are
ambiguous, that they include such things as a lunate-opening spearhead and long
spearshaft ferrules that are also typical of post-Wilburton, Ewart Park I, contexts in
Britain, in both the Waterden group and Broadward (see below). In fact most of the
Huelva ferrules have expanded ends, which are probably more common after Wil-
burton. Not surprisingly, therefore, Milcent decides Huelva is post-Wilburton, and
assigns it to his Longueville horizon (Milcent 2012, 12528), in his Bfa 3 ancien. Thus
far his conclusions are possible, and I shall refer to the problem again below; but there
is less chance the Baies assemblage belongs as late as this (Milcent 2012, 131, pl. 61),
because it includes simply too much archaic material. Iberia slipped out of Atlantic
Late Bronze Age metalworking after Huelva, transformed by the arrival of oriental
(Phoenician) influence, and entered a precocious Iron Age (see below). For this writer
the Huelva find, whatever its nature, is a one-off, like Blackmoor, but rather than a
snapshot of what was to come in relationship to what had been, it is indicative of what
was coming to an end, the last gasp of the Atlantic Late Bronze Age in Iberia.
Brandherm (2007) had a problem of what to do with a large series of Huelva swords
showing some typological spread, because he was writing at a time when Wilburton
still aligned with St-Brieuc; also, Needham had created his separate Blackmoor phase
to help deal with the longer span which appeared to have emerged for Wilburton. It
is important to deal with these problems because of the widespread distribution of
Huelva/St-Philbert swords in Atlantic Europe and their consequent importance for
connections and chronology. Brandherms response was a Ho phase aligned with
Wilburton and St-Brieuc, following the suggestion of this writer (Burgess 1991, 36),
and incorporating Huelva swords of Series 1 and 2. To accommodate Series 3 Huelva
swords, he envisaged a Huelva phase aligning with Blackmoor. But the separation of
St-Brieuc from Wilburton and creation of a Limehouse phase has thrown all this into
confusion. The Alhama de Aragn phase must now be aligned with St-Brieuc and
Limehouse, and this leaves a much shorter period, perhaps only a century, available
for the Ho phase and its Huelva swords. Since the Huelva deposit contains swords of
all three series there seems no reason why they cannot all be contained in a unified
Ho phase.
BACK TO BRITAIN: WALLINGTON AND WILBURTON

In 1968 I proposed a Wallington tradition to encompass the metalwork characteristic
of northern England (and Scotland and Ireland) at the time of Wilburton metal-
working in southern England (Burgess 1968b). Those who think that northern and
western Britain and Ireland are rather peripheral to the Atlantic Bronze Age will now
be aware that these lands served by Wallington metalworking constitute exactly
Milcents (2012 passim) Province nord-atlantique, and that he gives the phenomenon
considerable consideration. However, Milcent is persuaded by Needhams (1990)
arguments that Wallington aligned with Penard and not with Wilburton. He seems
unaware of this writers initial brief riposte to Needham (Burgess 1995) reaffirming the
Wilburton connection, and consequently assigns Wallington to his Bfa I (Bronze final
Atlantique I), contemporary with Rosnon and Penard. For this reason it is important
to amplify the arguments why Needhams, and now Milcents, views on Wallington
chronology are inadequate. In 1968 Wallington metalworking seemed essentially a
survival of archaic Middle Bronze Age fashions (such as Group IV rapiers and looped
spearheads) into a period when Wilburton industry dominated further south. At least
partial contemporaneity of the two was indicated by a few Wilburton elements pres-
ent in Wallington hoards, notably Late palstaves. More than two decades later, Need-
ham (1990) proposed, in the light of new finds, that Wallington should be separated
from Wilburton, and regarded mainly as a northern variation of Penard metalworking.
He argued that there was little if any overlap with Wilburton, but subsequently I
disputed this interpretation, and reiterated the Wilburton connection, particularly
with Wallingtons axe novelties in mind (Burgess, 1995).
The title of Needhams paper, and of the section under which the affinities of
Wallington were considered, was The Penard-Wilburton Succession . . ., but if the
thesis of the present paper is correct, there was no Penard-Wilburton succession.
There was a Penard-Limehouse succession, and a Limehouse-Wilburton succession,
so the affinities of Wallington metalworking demand reappraisal. The first thing to
admit is the archaic, and especially Penard, aspects of Wallington, which underlay the
original Wallington concept, as Needham has emphasized. Three of the main
elements of Wallington come under this head, its continuing use of Group IV rapiers,
of straight-based basal-looped spearheads, and of Transitional palstaves. Thus far
Needhams doubts are justified. Rare bronze and gold ornaments in the Wallington
hoard, and in that from Croxton, Norfolk, may represent even older Middle Bronze
Age survivals, as both this writer (Burgess 1968b, 19) and Needham (1990) agree. But
there are major aspects of Wallington metalworking which have nothing to do with
Penard, and on reflection not enough was made of the innovative aspects of
Wallington in the original publication (Burgess 1968b, 19). The first were long-socket
spearheads, best-known in the protected-opening type, but also with single-looped,
side-looped and asymmetric-looped versions. There may well have been unlooped
examples too. The sockets are often so long that fragments may sometimes have been
misidentified as parts of long ferrules of Wilburton type. What cannot be resolved at
present is whether such spearheads were invented in Ireland or in northern Britain, an
insoluble problem given the lack of hoards of the period in Ireland. The protected-
opening type at least is much more common in Ireland, but so many other things are,
as a result of the extent of nineteenth-century peat cutting and dredging there.
The second novel aspect of Wallington with no Penard connection are stout-
socketed axes with strong collars, either flat or flattish bands, looking back to
Hademarschen collars (Smith 1959), or, more often, with multiple mouth-mouldings.
These, too, are common in Ireland (Burgess 1968b), and raise similar problems of
origins. All these axes are far heavier and more advanced than anything normally
found in Wilburton, where socketed axes were comparatively unimportant apart from
the distinctive indented type. Wilburton concentrated more on Late palstaves, and
winged axes may have been more common than previously thought. To those in the
Wilburton hoard from Sturry, Kent (Jessup 1943; Grace 1944; fig. 3.20), can be added
that in the Wilburton hoard from Waldeshare, Kent (Dover Museum). Wilburton
contemporaries in Atlantic Europe generally follow the same trend. Brcy and the like
do have indented socketed axes, but these were usually greatly outnumbered by
winged axes and the local versions of Late palstaves. In Iberia, Ho metalworking has
very few socketed axes of any kind, and distinctive local forms of palstave were the
norm, including heavy forms with overhanging stop very similar to the Wilburton
Late type.
So Wallington led the way in Late Bronze Age socketed axe development in
Britain and Ireland. The eponymous Wallington find contains examples with a flat, or
flattish, collar, going back ultimately to Taunton-Hademarschen axes. These are
combined with multiple moulding axes, including one unusually stumpy axe, of a
remarkably Irish aspect, having a cord-moulded collar. Needham (1990) misleadingly
relates this artefact to the supposedly similar socketed axe with cord-moulded collar
in the Bishopsland hoard (Eogan 1964, fig. 5.2) However, this otherwise is a classic
Taunton-Hademarschen axe, and the fact that cord moulding also decorates the
Bishopsland socketed hammer (Eogan 1964 fig. 5.4), shows this was a decorative
device applied to various tool types, with, as Eogan there reminded us, a long history
in northern Europe going back at least to M II. In northern England cord-moulded
socketed axes are fairly common in the Wallington tradition, but it is the Bishopsland
situation all over again, and these should be regarded as part of the series with multiple
mouth mouldings (Burgess 1968b, fig. 11).
That socketed axes with multiple mouth mouldings were indeed an important
product of Wallington metalworking is confirmed by the five, one with cord mould-
ing, in the Skidby West hoard, Yorkshire (Manby pers. comm.). Two Wilburton
types are associated, a Late palstave, a type which probably only came into general use
in Wilburton, and part of a lunate-opening spearhead of the common Wilburton type
with hollow lozenge-sectioned blade. There is no evidence that this form emerged
before Wilburton, indeed, the only definitely pre-Wilburton lunate-opening spear-
head, in the Clos de la Blanche Pierre hoard (see above), has the openings in a broad-
blade leaf-shaped spearhead with pronounced midrib.
Needham is inclined to play down the significance of multiple moulding axes and
Late palstaves in Wallington metalworking. For the former he concentrates only on
the cord-moulded examples, and concludes that it is too chronologically insensitive to
provide a Wilburton link. This is true only of cord moulding as a decorative device.
He skates over the majority of multiple moulding axes, which are specifically Walling-
ton on both sides of the Irish Sea. In addition to the Skidby West hoard, such axes
occur in at least four other contact finds with Wilburton material: the archetypal
Wilburton hoard from Guilsfield (Burgess, 1968b, fig. 11.5; three examples, one cord-
moulded); the Ulleskelf hoard, Yorks. (ibid., fig. 21.4); the Fimber, Yorks., mould
find, with Wilburton sword and tongued chape matrices (ibid., fig. 21.1); and in the
assemblage from the River Ribble, 1800 (ibid., fig. 21.2). Late palstaves, as we have
seen, first appeared in Limehouse metalworking, but only came into general use in
Wilburton metalworking. Needham was unimpressed by the significance of those in
the Yorkshire Wallington hoards from Shelf and Roundhay (Burgess 1968b, figs 6 and
7) as evidence for Wilburton contact; but the Skidby West example is harder to dismiss,
as it is of the three-ribbed type which appears unknown before those in Wilburton
contexts, and thus provides excellent evidence of a Wallington/Wilburton overlap.
In light of the new finds, and Skidby West in particular, how can Wallington
metalworking best be summarized? Undoubtedly it took much from Penard and even
earlier metalworking, notably Transitional palstaves, rapiers and basal-looped spear-
heads. However, it is entirely possible that these archaic weapons seen in Wallington
contexts were parade heirlooms from an earlier age, and not products of Wallington
craftsmen. But its innovations, notably its long-socket spearheads, its tools and espe-
cially its socketed axes (the most advanced and numerous in Britain at the time) had
nothing to do with Penard. The assumption must be that Wallington metalworking
emerged in the North from its Penard roots, though whether derived from or ances-
tral to the equivalent Irish industry cannot be determined given the paucity of
associated finds. This happened as the Limehouse tradition was emerging in the South.
With the development of Wilburton metalworking, southern Yorkshire emerges as an
important area of contact between the two traditions, and here are many of the
associations which demonstrate Wallington/Wilburton contemporaneity. It is in this
zone of contact that ongoing development of mouth moulding socketed axes may
have led to the proliferation of socketed axes which later came to characterize Ewart
Park metalworking not only throughout Britain and Ireland but also contemporary
metalworking in north-west France. This has been given emphasis by Milcents
illustration of socketed axes in the (incorrectly dated) Wallington hoard (Milcent
2012, pl. 36) with some from the later Plainseau hoard, Somme (ibid., pl. 50). A
development from the first to the second seems much more reasonable than from the
few distinctive socketed axes of Wilburton and Brcy to those of Plainseau. Mention
must be made here of the classic Wilburton hoard from Nettleham, Lincs. (Davey,
1973, fig. 29), for some reason completely misdated by Milcent (2012, pl. 42 A). He
has it on a page of Bfa 2 ancien hoards with the find from Worth, Devon, which is
Penard and earlier, and Alhama de Aragn, Zaragoza, which is indeed contemporary
with St-Brieuc. Nettleham has a long ferrule, Late palstaves with three ribs of the
specifically Wilburton type, as well as indented socketed axes, one with the band
collar, one with multiple mouldings (as if to try both options). But the Nettleham
hoard came from the interaction zone between Wallington and Wilburton, and even
this typical Wilburton hoard shows Wallington influence in the form of a basal-looped
spearhead.
But if Wallingtons long-socket spearheads fizzled out, another major contribution

of Wallington metalworking to the events which followed may have been in sword
development. Colquhoun and Burgess (1988, 68) more than two decades ago sug-
gested that Ewart Park swords may have been developed in the North, especially in
that south Yorkshire and Lincolnshire contact zone in which are found both
Wallington and Wilburton hoards (Burgess 1968b, fig. 23; for early Ewart Park
swords, Colquhoun and Burgess 1988, pls 12728), certainly away from the traditional
areas of sword development in the south of England.
WHAT CAME NEXT?

The final phase of the Late Bronze Age which followed had at least 120 years to run
in Britain and much of France before the general adoption of iron changed Bronze
Age to Iron Age around 800 bc. This final Bronze Age in many areas has more
surviving metalwork finds than the rest of the Late Bronze Age put together, but has
proved the most intractable phase in terms of ordering and subdivision. It is a period
on both sides of the Channel that has been dominated and distorted by the great mass
of carps tongue metalwork. However, this confusion has recently been diminished by
work on carps tongue swords, and the identification of St-Philbert swords (as we
must term Huelva swords in the north) as pre-cursors of classic carps tongue swords
(Brandherm and Burgess 2008). A significant gap has opened up in the French
sequence after Brcy-Wilburton to accommodate St-Philbert swords, a shadowy
period with few hoards which must have lasted hardly less than a couple of genera-
tions (Brandherm and Burgess 2008, 142). It means that classic carps tongue swords
and the carps tongue complex can only have emerged well into the ninth century bc.
Furthermore, all those hoards may belong to a bronze abandonment episode right at
its very end (Burgess, 1979; Brandherm and Burgess 2008).
In important ways, the Atlantic world changed after Wilburton, Wallington and
Brcy. Iberia went its own way after Huelva, diverted by Phoenician contacts (Burgess
and OConnor 2008, 5557; Brandherm 2008). This had already been signalled in the
Ho phase, for example in the material at Baies in northern Portugal, where oriental
elements and iron were both present (Burgess and OConnor 2008; Armbruster
20023). Southern England and north-west France, which had been so close in the two
hundred years of St-Brieuc/Limehouse and Wilburton/Brcy metalworking, now
drifted apart, though contacts of a different kind persisted. The inheritors of Wilburton
and Wallington were dominated by weapon hoards which had no counterparts in
France. The localised Waterden group was only one step on from Blackmoor, but the
Broadward complex (Burgess et al. 1972), also drawing much from Wilburton and
Wallington, was widespread in southern Britain and endured at least through Ewart
Park 1. Other hoards, from the East Midlands, are also rich in spearheads and have
reminiscences of Wilburton: for example Bagmoor 2, Lincs. (Davey, 1973, figs 4042);
Great Freeman Street, Notts. (Smith 1957a, GB 22.2); and Marston St Lawrence,
Northants. (Hawkes and Smith 1955, GB 12.3). There is no echo of these spearhead-
rich hoards in France nor the sword hoards spread throughout north-east Britain from
north Yorkshire to the Moray Firth (Burgess et al. 1972, fig. 1.d). Britain had
developed its own swords, the Ewart Park series, whereas France had St-Philbert
swords. The latter are important markers in hoards on both sides of the Channel,
helping to date finds such as Llancarfan, Glamorgan (Lodwick and Gwilt 2008),
Longueville, Calvados (Milcent 2012, pl. 51), and perhaps that from Hellez, Ctes-
dArmor (Fily pers. comm.). But just as the French hoards are full of winged axes, so
the British finds are dominated by socketed axes. Many of these are ribbed, and unusual
in France. What do the ribs mean, and what was their origin? Was there a connection
with the three-rib motif of the Late palstaves of Wilburton and Wallington?
All this seems far from the Limehouse and Wilburton metalworking whose proper
ordering was the main point of this paper, but was it? Since hoards of Ewart Park 1
are so few, one final hoard of Ewart Park 1 deserves mention in this context, the
neglected find from the Isle of Harty, Kent (Smith 1956, GB 18.3). This time it is axes
not weapons which are of interest; its wing-ornamented socketed axes are just a step
from the indented socketed axes in the Sturry hoard, Kent (Turner 2010, illus. 130),
found just a dozen or so miles away. But Sturry is a Wilburton hoard. Harty also
contains plain socketed axes with multiple mouth mouldings which would not be at
all out of place in Wallington contexts, a reminder that there was also this northern
contribution to Ewart Park metalworking. The past was not that far away and still
apparent, even if Harty also has hints of carps tongue connections. It is a world far
removed from St-Brieuc and Limehouse if not from Wilburton and Wallington.
CONCLUSION
It is a curious fact that for the present writer and other scholars throughout Europe
the 1968 chronological scheme was in general use for over forty years before suddenly
its fatal flaw was realised. There are many conclusions to be drawn, not least that there
is always more information to be wrung from artefacts, and that it is always worth
looking again at the longest-held truths. The theorists would ask what such studies tell
us about past societies, but that it is worthwhile to look again at a familiar artefact is
demonstrated by this writers recent re-examination of South Welsh socketed axes in
France (Burgess 2012). This revealed that the French were not content to accept any
old versions of these axes, but selected what they wanted carefully; furthermore, that
a proportion of South Welsh axes in France may actually have been made there. Oh
that we could have been standing on French beaches in the 9th century bc (or did the
transactions take place on the English side of the Channel? Nothing is certain!).
The main conclusions of this paper are firstly that Wilburton metalworking did not
align with St-Brieuc metalworking in France, and that separating the two requires
new industrial traditions be created which must be inserted into the sequence to
balance the resulting dislocations. One, in Britain, is Limehouse, which must be slotted
between Penard and Wilburton, and is contemporary with St-Brieuc; and the other,
in north-west France, is Brcy (let us call it St-Nazaire in Brittany, after the swords),
follows St-Brieuc and is contemporary with Wilburton. A second conclusion is that
the apparent industrial break (Burgess 1968a, 17) at the end of Wilburton and
Wallington must be played down; that the Ewart Park metalworking which followed
still shows many aspects of the Wilburton and Wallington traditions in its early stages.
Ordering developments in this final phase of the Late Bronze Age has long been
difficult, but recognition of St-Philbert swords as precursors of classic carps tongue
swords provides valuable clues on both sides of the Channel. This is particularly
important in France, where an apparent hoard-free phase after Brcy has long been a
problem. Awareness of the Longueville hoard does much to fill this gap, and shows
there may be other finds which help illuminate this shadowy period between Brcy
and the Carps tongue complex.
Thirty three years ago I lamented with David Coombs (Burgess and Coombs 1979)
the uneven distribution of hoards in time and space, and the apparent existence of
hoard-free periods which make it so difficult to be even-handed with the Bronze Age.
The present study has shown how much this problem remains to bedevil researchers.
As I have indicated above, there is always more to be gleaned from artefacts, so there
is no lack of future work still to be tackled. I may have missed other misalignments,
but what is clear is that correct alignment, what goes with what, is as vital in the
Bronze Age as in megalithic astronomy. This is something the theorists seem not to
realise, as they continue along their chronologically challenged paths. Targets for
future work must be to flesh out the contents of Lambeth, Brcy and Longueville, and
the duration and nature of the Carps tongue complex. We may never be able to stand
on a beach on the Normandy coast and await a boat arriving from across the sea, but
enough remains in artefact studies to tell us something of the boats, and what those
waiting expected.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I have shaped the opening of this paper with an obvious nod to Jane Austen in memory of a very dear
friend, Ian Shepherd, with whom I shared many a crack while bussing through the Continent,
trudging up windy Alps and baking on arid plains in Spain. Curiously I discovered quite late that he
was a keen Austenite like me. How compartmentalised we all are in this business!
I have not forgotten, too, the role of my old friends Jacques Briard and David Coombs in making
clear what Atlantic Late Bronze Age metalworking was all about. That their influence lives on will be
clear in the pages above.
It was another old friend and former editor of Archaeological Journal the late Jim Forde-Johnston who
was instrumental in helping me rescue my original Late Bronze Age survey from threatened oblivion
and publishing it over forty years ago in Archaeological Journal, CXXV, 1968. While on this tack, I must
pay special thanks to a colleague very much alive, Ben Roberts, who on a bus ride from Guarda to
Porto in spring 2012, while discussing publication problems, first suggested that Archaeological Journal
would be an appropriate home for it. Later, knowing that I was no longer able to draw, he arranged
for Craig Williams to prepare the illustrations for this paper. I owe Craig a very great debt, for tackling
this task so speedily and capably, and for all his patience.
As one becomes older and more infirm, one is increasingly dependent on friends and colleagues to
keep one up-to-date and for providing references and details of new finds. I have been lucky in the
generosity of a wonderful array of friends in Britain and in Europe who have been so generous in
helping to keep me in the loop. The list which follows is in no particular order. Stuart Needham,
Brendan OConnor and Dirk Brandherm all read various versions of my typescript, and were free in
their advice and guidance. I had stimulating exchanges with Richard Harrison on the problems of
Iberian chronology, especially the Middle Bronze Age, and he at least liked my ideas on Middle
Bronze Age archers in western France and Iberia. Jos Gomez de Soto, as ever, was a rock, always
speedy in answering my queries. Others who helped me along the way, whom I thank most sincerely,
include Sue Bridgford, Ian Colquhoun, Muriel Fily, Michel Le Goffic, Cyril Marcigny, Steve
Matthews, and especially Pierre-Yves Milcent, who unleashed the most important volume on the
French Atlantic Late Bronze Age since Jacques Briards of 1965, just as I was unloading my manuscript
on Howard Williams. I am grateful to Howard (and his referees) for ensuring that I absorbed some of
Pierre-Yves scholarship into the pages above. Others who helped out, and may not always have
realised what they were doing, include Veronica Edwards, Roger Miket, and especially Avril Oswald,
who has made it possible for me to visit so many museums in south-east England in recent years. From
beginning to end, my wife, Norma, got me through it in challenging times. She prepared the tables
from my scribbles, read the absolutely final typescript, and still found things which needed correcting
and changing! My sincere thanks to all of you.
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Colin Burgess
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Alignments: Revising the Atlantic Late

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Alignments: Revising the Atlantic

In Memoriam: Jacques Briard, David Coombs, Ian Shepherd

Archaeol. J., 169 (2012), 127158

128 re vis ing t he atl ant i c l a t e b r o n z e a g e s e q u e n c e

r e vis ing t he atl ant ic l a t e b r o n z e a g e s e q u e n c e 129

130 re vis ing t he atl ant i c l a t e b r o n z e a g e s e q u e n c e

Burgess, 1968* 2012**

r e vis ing t he atl ant ic l a t e b r o n z e a g e s e q u e n c e 131

ROSNON, PENARD AND THE BACKGROUND TO THE

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r e vis ing t he atl ant ic l a t e b r o n z e a g e s e q u e n c e 133

SOLVING THE ST-BRIEUC AND

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136 re vis ing t he atl ant i c l a t e b r o n z e a g e s e q u e n c e

FINDING A BRITISH EQUIVALENT FOR ST-BRIEUC

illus. 2 (opposite) Main products of a hypothetical Limehouse tradition: 1 Limehouse

r e vis ing t he atl ant ic l a t e b r o n z e a g e s e q u e n c e 137

138 re vis ing t he atl ant i c l a t e b r o n z e a g e s e q u e n c e

CONNECTIONS WITH CENTRAL

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table 2 The Atlantic Late Bronze Age sequence

BC PHASE BRITAIN MILCENT NW FRANCE SW IBERIA

1200 LBA1b PENARD 2 Penard Bfa1 Rec. Abbeville-Grigny GRAN

1100 LBA2a LIMEHOUSE Bfa2 Anc. ST BRIEUC ALHAMA

1000 LBA2a WILBURTON Guilsfield Bfa2 Rec. St Nazaire Rio Sil

r e vis ing t he atl ant ic l a t e b r o n z e a g e s e q u e n c e 141

ALIGNMENTS FOR WILBURTON

142 re vis ing t he atl ant i c l a t e b r o n z e a g e s e q u e n c e

to appear in north-west France in this period to judge from examples in Wilburton

r e vis ing t he atl ant ic l a t e b r o n z e a g e s e q u e n c e 143

illus. 4 Chapes become spearheads: two pieces from

hollow, lozenge-sectioned spearheads (after Blanchet

THE BLACKMOOR PROBLEM

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r e vis ing t he atl ant ic l a t e b r o n z e a g e s e q u e n c e 145

SOUTH OF THE LOIRE: SOUTH WEST FRANCE

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r e vis ing t he atl ant ic l a t e b r o n z e a g e s e q u e n c e 147

148 re vis ing t he atl ant i c l a t e b r o n z e a g e s e q u e n c e

r e vis ing t he atl ant ic l a t e b r o n z e a g e s e q u e n c e 149

BACK TO BRITAIN: WALLINGTON AND WILBURTON

150 re vis ing t he atl ant i c l a t e b r o n z e a g e s e q u e n c e

r e vis ing t he atl ant ic l a t e b r o n z e a g e s e q u e n c e 151

152 re vis ing t he atl ant i c l a t e b r o n z e a g e s e q u e n c e

But if Wallingtons long-socket spearheads fizzled out, another major contribution

WHAT CAME NEXT?

r e vis ing t he atl ant ic l a t e b r o n z e a g e s e q u e n c e 153

154 re vis ing t he atl ant i c l a t e b r o n z e a g e s e q u e n c e

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156 re vis ing t he atl ant i c l a t e b r o n z e a g e s e q u e n c e

true, in Roche et al. (eds), 2004, 18499

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Dchelette, J. 1910. Manuel dArchologie Prhistorique, Celtique et Gallo-romain. II Archologie Celtique ou

158 re vis ing t he atl ant i c l a t e b r o n z e a g e s e q u e n c e

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