Description

Summary: 1 oblong tablet of light grey Chlorite Slate, with two countersunk holes at each end, carefully wrought and polished, either an archer's wristguard or bracer, or a breastplate or gorger, from barrow G8 on Roundway Hill, Roundway, Wiltshire, excavated by W Cunnington, 1855.

Research results

An Early Bronze Age stone bracer, found in 1855 during William Cunnington's excavation of Roundway G8, a barrow on Roundway hill. The bracer is well made and polished, from an amphibolite-rich stone of an uncertain source, probably from Wales or the South West. These artefacts are a feature of beaker-period graves and appear to have been sewn onto clothes in the area of the lower arm. Thought functions related to archery and even falconry have been suggested, their role ultimately remains uncertain.

This category of artefact is discussed by Wallis (2014), who critiques their interpretation as potential guards for use in falconry. They argue that they would have been wholly unsuitable for this purpose as it would have still required the use of a leather gauntlet, and would pose a threat to the bird during take off (as talons could have become caught). They also note that in many cases the weight of the bird and the shifting of their talons would have damaged these relatively fine bracers. Finally, they also highlight the lack of convincing faunal remains for falconry before the late Roman period.

Woodward & Hunter (2011) have examined all of the stone bracers from Britain and note some interesting themes. They suggest that bracers were ultimately introduced to Britain from the continent, bracers on the latter tend to be red or black, whilst those in Britain, except for the earliest examples which may in fact be imports, tend to be grey-green, perhaps due to a resemblence to Jadeite. Within the British corpus they are also able to identify two clear groups: one, focused on Wessex and the Thames Valley, tends to be earlier and are produced from Cornish or Welsh amphibolite stone sources, whilst the other has a more northerly distribution and is slightly later, produced from the Langdale Tuff, in Cumbria, a well known source of polished axeheads.