68 SCIENTIFIC SURVEY OF NORWICH AND DISTRICT 
BRONZE AGE. 
Bands of armed invaders from the east and south east, ‘ Beaker men’ 
of the A complex, with flint daggers, stone axe hammers, V-bored buttons 
and riveted bronze knife-daggers, entered by way of the Wash 3° and 
spread over the adjoining area, where they seem to have developed the 
handled beakers and polished discoidal knives, of which this district 
appears to be the primary centre. Almost at the same time Bronze Age B 
invaders moved northwards from the Suffolk coast, with archers’ wrist 
guards and tanged metal daggers. 
A fine handled beaker (Norwich Castle Museum) *° associated with a 
_ skull comes from Smuggler’s Road, Bodney, whilst a fragment of a 
polished axe has recently been found near the site. Flint daggers are 
recorded from Rushford (Norwich Castle Museum), Weeting and—yet 
unpublished—from Bowthorpe. Numerous records of polished knives 
come from the Brecks, whilst the area around Castle Acre has produced 
several recent finds. Flat bronze axes of early type come from Heacham, 
Methwold Hythe and West Runton. 
Over 200 round barrows are recorded for the county, and many of 
these appear to belong to the early part of the Bronze Age, whilst the 
cooking sites investigated by Apling in the Thetford valley *% and at 
Hoe, and others recorded on the slopes of the Cromer-Holt Ridge, may 
belong to this period. 
Among the B beakers is a curious horizontally hooped specimen from 
East Tuddenham (Norwich Castle Museum).”° 
Of the numerous hoards of later Bronze Age date the great find at 
Carlton Rode in 1845 (Norwich Castle Museum) is outstanding, com- 
prising gouges, punches, palstaves, hammer, chisels and celts; whilst 
that at Stibbard near Fakenham with its 80 implements fresh and un- 
used—7o palstaves, each made in a separate mould, and 10 spear heads 
—is equally important. Two hoards at Eaton and others at Stoke Ferry 
and Reepham may be mentioned. Sword blades from Thetford and 
Methwold, a dagger from Cromer, and another, with amber beads and 
thin gold plates, associated with a contracted male skeleton at Little 
Cressingham, belong to the late Bronze period. Bronze sickles are 
recorded from Corton beach (over the border in Suffolk), Dereham 
(Norwich Castle Museum), and ‘ Norfolk’ (exhibited at the Archzo- 
logical Institute in 1881), whilst a gorgeous specimen, recently found in 
Norwich by a schoolboy (Norwich Castle Museum), will be the subject 
of a forthcoming monograph. Gold is recorded from Ashill, Downham 
and Foulsham—two torques and an armilla. A fine circular shield was 
recovered from Sutton,*! and a bronze torque from Stoke Ferry.*? 
Among the pottery A-C beakers are common and varied, whilst B, 
penetrating from the south-east, are scarcer. A good deal of the material 
from the round barrows awaits examination. Deveril Rimbury fragments 
at Cambridge are labelled Sheringham. 
18. PS, Wawa oTe 39 P_P.S.E.A., VII, i, pp. 107-110. 
39a P.P.S.E.A., VI, iv, pp- 365-370. 40 P.P.S.E.A., VII, iii, Plate XIX. 
4 P.P.S.BAs IE, i, Plate XVI. &2 PIP. E'A.., Tl, iy pagrgs 
