- Before the Bronze Age, there were a number of manufactured objects available which could have been used to inflict harm on people as well as animals. It has, however, been argued that it was only during the Bronze Age that objects were specifically developed to commit acts of violence against human beings. This may be linked with a new focus on individuality, posing the question whether the individuals we see buried accompanied with knives and daggers saw themselves as warriors, leaders, or hunters. Perhaps the roles they played in life were a complex combination of all these things (Garwood 2012, 301). One thing is certain from all these individual graves: the incumbents equipped in this way were all male.
- Each of the various phases defined within the Bronze Age is characterised by its own suite of weaponry. Small copper knives, flint arrowheads and archers’ wristguards are characteristic of the Chalcolithic, where they may be recovered in individual burials. Dagger burials continue into the Early Bronze Age. Some of the weapons included in these burials, in particular the late Early Bronze Age daggers of the so-called ‘Wessex’ culture, look impressive, with multiple grooves running down the blades. A dagger of this type was recovered from a grave excavated in Blackwaterfoot.
- Graves, however, are not the only locations where such objects were placed. Another dagger of this type was found accompanied by two developed flat axes in the Gavel Moss hoard, Lochwinnoch. This hoard was deposited in a wet place: similar locations have revealed examples of another characteristic type of Early Bronze Age ‘weapon’ termed the ‘halberd’ by modern archaeologists. The large asymmetrical copper alloy blades are believed to have been mounted horizontally on a vertical shaft, potentially as a display item. Experimental archaeology has, however, suggested that these objects could have been used as weapons in one-on-one combat.
- The dirks and rapiers of the Middle Bronze Age, like the rapiers which made up the Drumcoltran hoard, are equally convincing as weapons. Their presence weakens the suggestion that it was only with the development of the leaf-shaped sword in the Late Bronze Age that we finally encounter a weapon designed and developed for combat with another human being. Leaf-shaped swords were slashing swords, as opposed to the dirks, daggers, rapiers and knives, which were all stabbing weapons. The large circular shields of the Late Bronze Age, like the example from Lugtonridge, appear to have had a particular defensive role in counteracting the downward blows of swords. So the combination of sword and shield could provide the earliest evidence for a more formal fighting technique. This, in turn, could be an indication of a more specialised warrior role in society.
- Swords are commonly found across the British Isles, where they are often recovered from riverine locations. It is thought their presence reflects the fact that they represented valuable objects offered as gifts to gods or ancestors as votive deposits. Such finds are rare in South West Scotland, but they are not unknown here. A leaf-shaped sword was recovered from Carlingwark Loch from the same body of water that produced a much later Iron Age hoard. The broken pieces from another leaf-shaped sword were recovered as part of a larger hoard found at Dalduff, which also included socketed axes and – possibly – spearheads (Knight 2022) as well as the two looped handles from a sheet bronze cauldron. This unusual hoard cannot be simply dismissed as a stashed supply of raw metal mislaid by a bronzeworker. The inclusion of a broken sword and cauldron handles appears to have been entirely deliberate, and it shows that swords circulated more widely than the known distribution map suggests.
- Undoubtedly, the most dramatic example of warrior equipment that has been found in the region to date is the hoard of sheet bronze shields from Lugtonridge. Discovered in the late 1790s, this hoard originally contained five or six such objects, now dated to the Late Bronze Age (Evans 1878). Only one now survives, unfortunately: this is a spectacular object which features an intricate design comprising 29 rows of raised concentric bosses, each separated by a raised rib. The bronze element would originally have formed part of a composite object, which was repeatedly pierced by something sharp, perhaps a spearhead. This damage may not have been sustained through active combat. Instead, it may have been sustained when the object was decommissioned and removed from use. This shield (and potentially, its companions) could even have been ritually ‘killed,’ in an act of performative violence carried out as part of the ritual would end with all of the objects placed in a circle in an area of wet ground.
- We should be careful not to let daggers, rapiers, swords and shields dominate our views on Bronze Age warrior culture or warrior equipment. Spearheads are a consistent presence in the archaeological record from the Early Bronze Age onwards. A late Early Bronze Age tanged spearhead from Langstilly was found not far away from the Gavel Moss hoard. What is particularly interesting is that hoard and spearhead are roughly contemporary. Looped spearheads characteristic of the Middle Bronze Age and pegged spearheads of the Late Bronze Age are also consistent finds across the region. They occur in much larger numbers than swords, which begs the question: was the deposition of spearheads playing a similar role in South West Scotland to that assumed by the sword in other areas? Axeheads could also potentially have functioned as a weapon. It is possible to envisage a scenario where a majority were armed with an axe and/or a spearhead, or even both, while only elite individuals, perhaps taking on the role of ‘champions,’ were equipped with swords and shields.
- The visual trappings of a so-called warrior culture become increasingly evident from the Chalcolithic onwards. But this does not necessarily equate to actual violence or unrest within wider Bronze Age society. For this, evidence is needed of physical trauma on contemporary human remains, or an association between a human body and a Bronze Age weapon. Such evidence is few and far between. One example is provided by the Middle Bronze Age looped spearhead found lodged within a human skeleton at Tormarton, Gloucestershire (Knight et al. 1972).
- With the Late Bronze Age in particular, there is a lack of available skeletal material which could be used to assess the potential for trauma or a violent death. Experimental archaeology undertaken on Late Bronze Age swords and other Bronze Age weaponry by Sue Bridgford and others suggests, though, that detailed wear analysis can indicate when bladed objects met edge-on, potentially during combat situations. To date, such analysis has not been widely undertaken on the Bronze Age weapons recovered from South West Scotland and certainly no work of this kind has been published as yet.
- One interesting piece of evidence noted in antiquarian accounts involved the recovery of a skeleton from a cist on Glenquicken Moor. The body appeared to have had one arm dislodged and the injury was associated with a broken greenstone ‘axe’ (Yates 1984). There are several problems with this account. The mention of a ‘cist’ infers a Bronze Age date, and while the presence of an inhumed skeleton is unusual, it is not unknown. The term ‘axe’ would suggest a Neolithic implement, but it cannot be ruled out that the fragmentary object in question was a battle-axe or axe-hammer.
- It is quite possible that pressure on resources caused tensions within Bronze Age society, exacerbated by climatic deterioration associated with a substantial volcanic eruption in Iceland. This eruption was originally thought to have coincided with the beginning of the Late Bronze Age. This was linked with the development of weapons and defensive equipment specifically intended for use against other human beings. There was also an assumption that the widespread deposition of swords and other fine metalwork in wet contexts was linked with this period of instability. Whether this association remains valid is questionable. Colin Burgess has argued that the climatic deterioration began much earlier, during the Middle Bronze Age or even during the late Early Bronze Age (Burgess 1974, 166-7). This fits in well with widespread evidence to suggest that all of these things supposedly linked with the onset of the Late Bronze Age, whether lethal weaponry, deposition in wet contexts, or times of unrest or hardship, had much earlier origins.
- In physical terms, the potential trials and tribulations endured by Bronze Age communities are evidenced by pathological traces in the human remains from Craig Tara and South Boreland. These revealed physical changes in some individuals, which were potentially caused by hardship and malnutrition. With such stresses evident in the local population, the potential for conflict and violence becomes greater, even if the two complementary bodies of evidence – the human remains and the metalwork – cannot yet be conclusively linked.