Scottish Bronze Age Hoards

Abstract

The article presents a classification, analysis, and comparison of the component parts of Scottish hoards. The discovery of two associated objects is treated as a hoard, even though they may be examples of the same type of relic, and an attempt is made to correlate, as far as possible, the weapons and implements with the pottery of the period. Owing to the absence of the larger objects of bronze from the sepulchral deposits, from which practically all the pottery has come, this is not easy. The number of Scottish implements is not large when compared with those found in England and Ireland. Seventy Scottish hoards are arranged in four chronological horizons according to the occurrence in them of flat copper axes, flat bronze axes, flanged axes and palstaves, and socketed axes, or of known contemporary types of objects.