86 Archaeology 



Middle Bronze Age. The Middle Bronze Age in Cambridgeshire was 

 a period of prosperity undisturbed by invasion. Bronze implements 

 came more widely into use; no fewer than 122 palstaves, two daggers and 

 dirks, 20 rapiers, and 27 looped spearheads, have been recorded from the 

 Coimty. Irish gold also found its way into the area in some profusion ; and 

 there have been two famous finds from Grunty Fen, WHburton, one in 

 1844 comprising a splendid multiple-ribbon twisted gold tore with solid 

 terminals and three looped palstaves, and another in 1850, which included 

 a similar tore, a part of a bronze rapier, and a gold bracelet with attached 

 ring money. 



The pottery in use locally at this time was the overhanging-rim ware, 

 known from a single open setdement in Isleham Fen, and from many 

 burials. Cremation was the dominant rite, the ashes being contained 

 either in an urn or in some kind of bag. It is to this period that many of the 

 Bronze Age round barrows in the County belong; although some had 

 already been erected in the Early Bronze Age, the cremations being 

 inserted secondarily. The barrows on the chalk belt are strung out along 

 the line of the Icknield Way in five main groups ; at Chippenham, on 

 Newmarket Heath, at Upper Hare Park, near the junction of the Fleam 

 Dyke and the Icknield Way, and on the downs east of Royston in the 

 parish of Melboum. The group of fen barrows, found mainly within the 

 triangle Mepal-Manea-Chatteris, is significant from its occurrence at heights 

 barely above inean sea-level; this emphasises the geographical conditions 

 prevaUing in the earlier stages of the Bronze Age in this region. 



Late Bronze Age. The Late Bronze Age saw a further substantial 

 increase in the use of metal. Finds are nearly three times as numerous as in 

 the preceding period and they embrace a much wider range of types. A 

 high proportion of the bronzes (some 374 out of a total of 495) comes 

 from 19 hoards. Some of these, like the pair of shields from Coveney Fen, 

 are probably "votive"; others, e.g. the leaf-shaped swords from Chippen- 

 ham, mark a local metallurgical industry; but most of them belong to the 

 classes known as merchants' hoards (e.g. the WUburton hoard of 163 

 pieces — mostly spearheads), and founders' hoards (e.g. the hoard at Green 

 End Road, Cambridge, containing many broken objects and over 17 lb. of 

 metal cakes). Together, these reflect the extensive trade responsible for the 

 introduction of a flood of exotic types, mainly of Central European origin, 

 to Cambridgeshire. It is evident, from the fact that all the leaf-shaped 

 swords belong to the "V" type, that the "U" sword complex did not 

 affect Cambridgeshire in its earliest stage. Further, although marginal to 

 an area strongly aflfected by the "Carp's tongue" sword complex, 

 Cambridgeshire was hardly influenced; none of the characteristic sword? 



