First Metalworkers - Bronze Age - 2000 BC - 600 BC

The Isle of Man has naturally occurring copper deposits which are likely to have been used by the first metalworkers travelling around the Irish Sea. They would also have exploited the tin found in Cornwall and the copper and gold found in Ireland and Wales.

Evidence of gold and copper artefacts indicates that metalworking had been introduced into Britain and Ireland from Europe by about 2600 BC.

An artist’s impression of first metalworkers

Around 2000 BC a new system seems to have emerged where personal and political power was also related to the control of prestige goods, such as those often made of bronze.

Settlement evidence on the Isle of Man is scarce but elsewhere in the British Isles, people lived in small settlements, often individual farmsteads, with round and sometimes rectangular buildings set within a stockade.

Social changes took place across Northern Europe after 1200 B.C. which may have been due to increasing population and demand for farmland, as well as the onset of colder, wetter weather. Defended hilltop settlements were established and a powerful warrior class controlled land, cattle and local peasant farmers, as well as the output of metalworkers and the distribution of their products.

Burials, bothInhumation andcremation, with their associated grave goods, give important information about the earlier Bronze Age and are plentiful on the Island.

A selection of Bronze Age objects -

• Irish Type Food Vessel
• Socketed Axe
• Bronze Sickle
• Sword
• Bronze Razor

For more information see -

• Bronze Age Metalworking
• Bronze Age Pottery
• Bronze Age Burial Practices