Llyn Cerrig Bach: a study of the copper alloy artefacts from
the insular La Tène assemblage, by P. Macdonald
Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 2007, pp 295,
figures 26, plates 6, colour plates 4, tables 19, hb ISBN 978-0-7083-2041-9 (£60)
It is difficult to follow a seminal book with an update. I had not thought it possible
to better the publication in 1917 of Glastonbury Lake Village by Bulleid and Gray
(1917), though John Coles and Steve Minnitts’s masterly reinterpretation of the
original data managed to produce a volume just as as important to Iron Age studies
as the original. Also this was the excavation report to make me laugh out loud (see
their analysis of Clarkes interpretation, Coles & Minnitt, 1995, pp 181-90). Cyril
Fox’s A Find of the Early Iron Age from Llyn Cerrig Bach (Fox 1947) was also a seminal
book, an inspiring volume about one of the most important groups of metalwork in
British prehistory. The bronze and iron objects were found with quantities of animal
bone during the construction by the RAF of an airfield in 1942. The peat containing
the deposit was quarried away and used to consolidate nearby sand dunes so that
the runways could be built. Fox catalogued the objects found, analysed the art on
some of them and suggested what the deposit might have meant in the context of Iron
Age Britain. The illustrations are some of the clearest examples of metalwork drawings
ever prepared.
After 60 years, the Board of Celtic Studies felt that it was time for a new look
at the objects from Llyn Cerrig Bach, with new modern approaches: a survey of the
site; radiocarbon dates; metallurgical analyses; and a new catalogue and illustrations.
The survey of the site, using EDM, resistivity and magnetometer surveys has answered
some niggling questions. There is apparently nothing left of the peat in which the
objects were deposited and it is impractical to survey the area in which the peat
was first dumped to let it drain. It might, however, be possible to identify where
the peat was dumped on the airfield, and where the objects were first discovered.
Fox himself found one of the currency bars here and it is possible that other objects
remain to be discovered. Moreover, a new island has been identified in the middle
of Llyn Cerrig Bach, perhaps the focus of ritual activity in the Iron Age. Both
of these sites would repay further survey and perhaps excavation.
The radiocarbon dates on the few remaining animal bones are also interesting, suggesting
a long period of deposition as discussed by Fox (1947), possibly from the fourth
century BC to the first century AD. This is supported by new metallurgical analyses
by Killian Anheuser and Mary Davis, which add greatly to the understanding of the
objects. The authors bring together previous analyses although it is clear that
many of those done earlier were unreliable or restricted in scope. The analysis
has identified a group of artefacts made of low arsenic bronze, usually, but not
exclusively, used in the Roman period; this suggests that these objects are late
Iron Age or early Roman in date. Unfortunately the analyses are relegated to an
appendix and the individual analyses are not discussed at all, a disadvantage to
the non specialist. For example, it would have been useful to have ICPMS and WD
and so on explained in Table 18. The analyses are rarely referred to in the main
part of the text, or the catalogue; eg, the sidelinks and centre link of bridle
bit Fox’s no 51 (no 11 in this volume) are identified as leaded bronze, but listed
in the catalogue as copper alloy. A very interesting discussion of the metal evidence
(pp 162-6) is not integrated into the main discussion of the artefacts or in the
conclusion.
This volume contains a new catalogue with up to date summaries of the objects. The
original report had measurements in inches! Many parallels have been found since
1947, and these are listed in detail in the text, some of it in rather too much
detail, especially as much was already listed by Macgregor (1976) and Spratling
(1972). More judicious use of tables might have cut down the listing.
One unnecessary and entirely avoidable complication in this volume was the renumbering
of the artefacts. Fox’s 1947 numbering has been followed by all subsequent writers
such as Lynch (1970), Macgregor (1976) and Spratling (1972). The National Museum
accession numbers end with his numbers. Why was there felt to be a need to renumber,
especially as the study was only of the copper alloy and not the iron work? I also
feel that the modern drawings were unnecessary and disagree that the 1947 drawings
do not meet the high standards required in modern reports (p7). In the present volume
they are reproduced very faintly (perhaps over reduced). Comparing the illustrations
side by side with the photographs shows that some in the present volume are slightly
better, correcting small faults on some of the original illustrations, others are
less good. The decoration is clearer on the 1947 illustrations (eg, terret number
46, no 3 in present catalogue: ‘pseudo-stitching’), the shape better in the present
ones. Another problem is with the layout of this book; most modern finds reports
now illustrate the objects alongside the catalogue descriptions and discussion.
In this volume the need to refer to at least three sections of the book at once
(and sometimes five with photographs and metallurgical analysis) means that the
reader needed to have a fair level of dexterity not to lose the thread of the discussion.
The concluding chapters (Chapters 6 and 7) are very useful, bringing the study of
Llyn Cerrig Bach up to date and taking into account parallels found since 1947.
I was surprised to see that in most of the discussion consisted of three questions,
the same questions that were asked of the deposit by Fox sixty years ago: the source
of the artefacts; the date of the deposit; and the question of what was the site
used for. The date of the site and the interpretation of the deposit have not altered
substantially. There have been some alterations in ideas about the source of the
artefacts. When Fox was writing he suggested that there were centres of metalworking
in Britain, the lack of finds from Wales indicating a poverty of metalworking. Numerous
excavations since have changed this idea. Finds of metallurgy in Britain (Foster
1980; Spratling 1979) now suggest that metalworking was widespread, probably in
small settlements such as Weelsby Avenue, Grimsby (Foster 1995) and Craw Cwellt
and Bryn y Castell, Merioneth (Crew 1986, 1989). It is likely that most of the objects
in the hoard were made locally, rather than being imported from Ireland and southern
England. The last chapter contains an interesting discussion of the type of deposit
here, damping down Fox’s excesses with Druids and surveying the types of ritual
deposits in Iron Age Europe. Some bridle bits are likely to have come from Ireland:
it would be interesting to look at the contacts between Wales and Ireland in the
Iron Age. A more detailed analysis of the types of objects and why the types of
metalwork were so restricted (associated with vehicles and war) would also have
been useful. Unfortunately the present volume covers only the copper alloy objects,
a significant disadvantage to the author when trying to analyse the meaning of the
assemblage.
Two minor quibbles: The colour photo of the crescentic plaque (Plate 2, Fox no 75)
has been reversed in the reproduction, so that the bird (as interpreted by Spratling,
forthcoming) is facing right rather than left. The preface mentions that Llyn Cerrig
Bach is a collection dating to the Early Iron Age; this period was known as such
in Fox’s day, but it is more usual today to refer to the period of most of the deposit
as the late Iron Age.
In conclusion, this is a useful update of the copper alloy objects from Llyn Cerrig
Bach, but the original report retains the edge in its readability; Fox’s account
encapsulates the excitement created by the original spectacular discovery and all
the ideas that that stimulated.
Jennifer Foster
Dept of Archaeology, University of Reading
References
Bulleid, A. & Gray, G.S.G. 1911. The Glastonbury Lake Village,
Volume 1.
Glastonbury: Privately printed
Bulleid, A. & Gray, G.S.G. 1917. The Glastonbury Lake Village, Volume 2.
Glastonbury:
Privately printed
Coles, J. & Minnitt, S. 1995. Industrious and Fairly Civilised: The Glastonbury
Lake Village. Exeter: Somerset Levels Project
Crew, P. 1986. Bryn y Castell hillfort - a late prehistoric ironworking in north-west
Wales. In Scott, B. G. & Cleere, H. (eds), The Crafts of the Blacksmith.
Belfast:
Ulster Museum, 91-100
Crew, P. 1989. Excavations at Crawcwellt, Merioneth, 1986-1989, Archaeology in Wales,
29, 11-6
Foster, J. 1995. Metalworking in the British Iron Age: the evidence from Weelsby
Avenue, Grimsby. In Raftery, B., Megaw, V. & Rigby, V. (eds), Sites and Sights of
the Iron Age: essays on fieldwork and museum research presented to Ian Mathieson
Stead. Oxford: Oxbow Monograph 56, 49-60
Fox, C. 1947. A Find of the Early Iron Age from Llyn Cerrig Bach, Anglesey. Cardiff:
National Museum of Wales
Lynch, F. 1970. Prehistoric Anglesey. Llangefni: Anglesey Antiquarian Society
MacGregor, M. 1976. Early Celtic Art in North Britain: a study of decorative metalwork
from the third century BC to the third century AD. Leicester: Leicester University
Press
Spratling, M. 1972. Southern British Decorated Bronzes of the late Pre-Roman Iron
Age. Unpublished PhD thesis, University of London
Spratling, M. 1979. The debris of metalworking. In Wainwright, G. (ed.), Gussage
All Saints. London: HMSO, 125-49
Spratling, M. forthcoming, On the aesthetics of the Ancient Britons. In Garrow,
D., Gosden, C. & Hill, J.D. (eds), Celtic Art: new approaches. Oxford: Oxbow
Review Submitted: December 2007
The views expressed in this review are not necessarily those
of the Society or the Reviews Editor.
|