Bronze Age bronze artefacts in Estonia

This book presents a richly illustrated and annotated catalogue of the earliest metal artefacts discovered in the territory of present-day Estonia. Over the past 190 years, 167 copper-alloy artefacts have been found in Estonia. The earliest dates to the Late Neolithic, while the remainder belong to the Bronze Age, c. 1900/1800–500 BC. Approximately half of these objects have been discovered in recent decades by recreational metal detector users undertaking systematic field surveys. In addition to the detailed catalogue, the volume provides typological, chronological and cultural-geographical analyses of the bronze artefacts. It argues, among other things, that local bronze working began in Estonia during the second half of the second millennium BC, as evidenced by the production of so-called Estonian-type palstaves. One particularly significant finding is the marked decline in the number of bronze artefacts – especially axes – at the transition from the Early to the Late Bronze Age, a development also observable elsewhere along the eastern coast of the Baltic Sea. The assemblage furthermore provides rare evidence of long-distance contacts extending in almost every direction, reaching as far as Western Europe, the Caucasus and Siberia. This book marks an important milestone and opens a new chapter in the study of the Bronze Age in Estonia and the eastern Baltic region. It will appeal to a wide readership, including researchers and students of Bronze Age archaeology, and will be particularly valuable as an educational handbook for amateur archaeologists and recreational metal detector users. The author, VALTER LANG, is Professor of Archaeology at the University of Tartu and a member of the Estonian Academy of Sciences. He has published extensively on the Bronze Age and the Iron Age in Estonia.