Find Spot record MDR10912 - Bronze Age metalwork, Shardlow Quarry, Aston upon Trent

Nineteen Bronze Age metalwork artefacts were recovered from Shardlow Quarry between 1977 and August 2004. The quarry is located close to the present-day confluence of the Rivers Trent and Derwent and the area has been interpreted as a network of palaeochannels and lakes during the Bronze Age. The metalwork was usually discovered by the metal detection equipment on the conveyor, and it was usually possible to trace back the batch of gravel in which the artefact was found to the precise site that was being worked at the time. All the artefacts with find sites recorded in this way can be traced to a palaeochannel or palaeolake. Seven of the nineteen artefacts are weapons and twelve are tools. One is dated to the Early Bronze Age, eight to the Middle Bronze Age and ten to the Late Bronze Age, so that the assemblage as a whole covers a period of production of almost a millennium. While the majority of the artefacts are common types, one of the spearheads is unique in design, and the context of a sword shows clear signs of votive deposition, having been recovered in situ in an upright position as though it had been thrust into the river gravel. Overall, the contexts of the metalwork and the good condition of the artefacts support the view that they had been deposited as a votive offering, a practice which is known from elsewhere also. (1)