EARLY MAN 



(a) Bronze was a metal so much valued that implements and 

 weapons formed of it were often hidden underground as a security against 

 robbery. 



(b) When bronze implements, etc., were worn out, or broken, or 

 spoiled in the casting, the metal was preserved and melted down for 

 fresh castings. 



(c) There were men whose special trade or craft it was to cast 

 objects in bronze. 



(a) Bronze objects after being cast were kept for some time before 

 being finished off. 



(e) Tin is never found separately from copper in bronze hoards, 

 although lumps of practically pure copper are found ; from which it 

 may be concluded that tin was perhaps used in a powdered form, and 

 therefore is not easily detected. 



The bronze age antiquities of Buckinghamshire comprise a group 

 of implements which must unquestionably be regarded as one of these 

 hoards. At Lodge Hill, Waddesdon, five socketed celts, varying in 

 length from 2\ inches to 2| inches, and of plain character, were 

 found together in the year 1855. They were lithographed on a 

 plate by Mr. Edward Stone. Probably this was the hoard of a 

 dealer in bronze celts, and from the socketed form of the celts it 

 is evident that the deposit belongs to the middle or latter part of 

 the bronze age. 



It is now upwards of half a century since Mr. (now Sir 

 John) Evans exhibited at a meeting of the Society of Antiquaries 

 of London a bronze sword found in 1851 in a field in the parish 

 of Hawridge. It is two-edged, pointed, and measures 21 inches 

 in length. The lower part exhibits perforations through which 

 the studs or rivets pass fastening it to its handle. Mr. Evans 

 remarked that " the present specimen differs in no material point 

 from others already known, though the substitution of slots or 

 longitudinal openings for the series of circular rivet-holes is not of 

 frequent occurrence." 



Some important discoveries of objects belonging to the 

 bronze age were made near Wycombe Marsh in December 1888. 

 Attention was first drawn to the matter by an accident. As a 

 man was guiding his plough one of the horse's feet stepped into a 

 hole, and on examination it was found that this hole was the 

 interior of a large cinerary urn buried in the earth. The site of SWORD* 

 this discovery was known as Barrow Croft, and it is probable FOUND 

 that the urn had once been covered by a sepulchral mound or AT 

 barrow which had become levelled in the course of many years of RIDGE . 

 cultivation of the soil. 



Subsequent investigations of the deposit were superintended by 

 Mr. John Parker, F.S. A., who contributed to the Society of Antiquaries 



* Proceedings Society of Antiquaries, 1st series, vol. ii. p. 215. 



