Luffness: Chapter 3

The Bronze Age of Luffness

The start of the Bronze Age in Scotland can be dated to the late third millennium BC when the new technology was slowly introduced from Europe and continues until about the eighth century BC; this is when iron objects begin to be introducedⁱ.
However, like most changes in culture and technology there is an overlap between the old Neolithic lifestyle and the brave new world of bronze. The period of prehistory when both stone and bronze implements were used is called the Chalcolithicⁱⁱ. This was a time when the prized objects that were fashioned in stone were now beginning to be cast in Bronze. We can see from the axehead find at Luffness (Table 1) that there was some continuity in the objects that the people of the new age valued.

RCAHMS SITE NUMBER	LOCATION OF FIND	SITE TYPE
NT48SE 9	Gullane	SOCKETED AXEHEAD (BRONZE)(BRONZE AGE)
NT48SE 24	Gala Law	JEWELLERY (GOLD)(BRONZE AGE)
NT48SE 23	Gala Law	FOOD VESSEL (BRONZE AGE)

Table 1: The Bronze Age finds

The miniature socketed bronze axehead (NT48SE 9) (illustration 1)ⁱⁱⁱis dated to the Bronze Age on the RCAHMS website^iv and described thus:

'A late Bronze Age socketed and looped axe, almost 2 1/2" long, and covered with a fine green patina was found in 1923, about 15' N of a probable Bronze Age burial in one of the sandy ravines E of Gullane (NT 48 82). It is now in the National Museum of Antiquities of Scotland [NMAS] (Accession no: DE 126).'.

However on the National Museum of Scotland (NMS) website it is described as dating from the Iron Age.

Illustration 1: These miniature axeheads, one of stone and the other two of bronze, were found at Hawick in Roxburghshire, at Blairbury in Wigtownshire and at Muirfield at Gullane in East Lothian. They were probably used as amulets. Miniature polished stone axe head, from Hawick, Roxburghshire. Axeheads were symbols of power and prestige for a long period, probably with religious significance as well. They were sometimes used as offerings to the gods. Miniature examples were probably amulets, and remained popular for thousands of years. Dates of axeheads, left to right: between 4000 and 1500 BC, between 950 and 750 BC, between 200 BC and 100 AD.

What ever the date, this does show us that the axehead as a symbol or as a tool continued through the Bronze Age. A couple of Bronze Age axeheads were found on North Berwick Law and one is shown here (illustration 2)^v.

Illustration 2: This bronze axehead was found at North Berwick Law in East Lothian. It dates from between 1150 and 950 BC. The long narrow socketed axehead has an oblong mouth encircled by a slight moulding. A wooden handle would have fitted into the axehead's socket. A thong could also have attached the axehead to the socket through the loop. Socketed axeheads appear to have been invented on the Continent. They are part of a range of socketed tools and swords made by smiths requiring more complex casting techniques.

What does the new material and the objects tell us about the people and society of the Bronze Age?

Bronze is an alloy of copper and tin which are not usually found together but require the ingenuity of man to extract and combine them. To produce the items that have been found in the Luffness area would require often distant sources and technology, which dictated that Scotland had to become part of an international network facilitating the distribution of metal and other materials^vi.

Therefore, we must have had a society that not only had miners and metullargists but also a hierarchy who could purchase goods such as the gold jewellery (NT48SE 24).

What is also needed for the people of the coastal plain of eastern Scotland is a form of commerce allowing them to purchase the items made by the bronze 'industry'^vii. This was a period of dramatic social, economic, and cultural change, characterised by changes in social stratification, rich regional diversity and an increase in inter-regional, indeed international, interaction, and development of the landscape.

It has been suggested that the Bronze Age can be considered as a tunnel into which the Neolithic cattle train disappears to emerge as two millennia later as an iron horse. So, let us now exit the tunnel and see the light of the Iron Age.

i Scotland After the Ice Age: An Environment, Archaeology and History 8000 BC - AD 1000:

Kevin J. Edwards, Ian B. M.Ralston.

Edinburgh University Press, 2003; Page 8

iiThe Consise Oxford Dictionary

iii http://nms.scran.ac.uk/database/record.php?usi=000-100-032-872-C&scache=4a7ul64fo1&searchdb=scran&PHPSESSID=hnlkvlfb5sflvoga7p7bu2iga6

iv http://canmore.rcahms.gov.uk/en/site/55084/details/gullane/

v http://nms.scran.ac.uk/database/record.php?usi=000-100-104-703-C&scache=5byzr64fod&searchdb=scran&PHPSESSID=hnlkvlfb5sflvoga7p7bu2iga6

vi http://tinyurl.com/clxgf5s

vii The New Penguin History of Scotland: From the Earliest Times to the Present Day
edited by: R. A. Houston, W. W. J. Knox
London, Allen Lane, The Penguin Press in association with the National Museums of Scotland,  2001, ISBN: 9780713991871 Page 6.