The Golden Rings of our Bronze Age “Elite”

Courtesy of archaeology.com

The Amesbury Archer, an early Bronze Age burial found near Stonehenge in Amesbury, Wiltshire, was discovered with some of the earliest metalwork in Britain, including two unique gold hair tresses (often referred to as rings). These small, delicate gold objects are highly significant, as gold items from this period (around 2300 BCE) are extremely rare, and they offer insight into the social status, trade connections, and cultural practices of early Bronze Age societies in Britain. This article discusses these, along with the others found in Europe, from a Brigantian perspective.

Other Sites with Similar Gold Rings

The type of gold tress rings or hair ornaments found with the Amesbury Archer are similar to those found in other Beaker culture contexts across Europe and Britain. These gold ornaments are primarily linked to early Bronze Age burials, and while relatively few examples exist, several notable finds share similarities:

Baden-Württemberg, Germany:

Similar gold ornaments were found in Germany and parts of Central Europe, where the Beaker culture spread. Several burials in Baden-Württemberg included gold tress rings and other jewellery items. This supports the idea of long-distance trade networks and cultural connections between early Bronze Age Britain and mainland Europe, where the Amesbury Archer may have originated or travelled from. This location, in Southern Germany, was very near a part of Europe known to have links with, and claim an origin, for the Goddess Brigantia, and the Brigantes tribe itself.

Iberian Peninsula:

The Iberian Peninsula also produced gold ornaments from the Beaker period, including tress rings and small decorative items, demonstrating the spread of goldsmithing techniques and cultural practices. These findings highlight that the Beaker people of Iberia had the skills to work with gold and used it in high-status burials, though not necessarily in identical forms as those in Britain.

Danish Bell Beaker Burials:

In Denmark, bell beaker burials have yielded similar styles of gold ornaments, though typically smaller. Denmark’s Beaker and early Bronze Age cultures also used gold in hair ornaments and rings, showcasing that the use of gold as a status symbol in burial rites was widespread across the European Bronze Age.

Other finds in The British Isles, and Brigantia:

Ringlemere, Kent:

Although not tress rings, the Ringlemere Cup is a unique gold vessel dating to the early Bronze Age, discovered in Kent. It is one of only a few gold cups of its kind, indicating a connection to high-status or ceremonial use of gold. This find at Ringlemere further supports the notion of elite usage of gold objects in early Bronze Age England, particularly for high-ranking individuals. I mention this place here, not because of the cup, specifically, but also, because the the name of the location, which sets and expectation for a ring to be there.

Melfort, Argyll, Scotland

In Melfort on the west coast of Scotland, gold tress rings were found in a burial context. This discovery extends the known distribution of tress rings into Scotland, suggesting that the tradition reached as far north as Argyll, possibly due to trade or cultural influence along the west coast.

Ross Island, County Kerry, Ireland

Ross Island in Ireland yielded gold tress rings from an early Bronze Age context. This find is particularly significant as it indicates that the practice of wearing tress rings extended across the Irish Sea to Ireland, where gold working was highly developed in the Bronze Age. Ross Island is known for its copper mining activity, so the gold tress rings may also suggest metallurgical exchange between Britain and Ireland.

Kirkhaugh Cairns, Northumberland

In Northumberland, north of Yorkshire, a pair of gold earrings or tress rings was found in the Kirkhaugh Cairns, an early Bronze Age burial site on Kirkhaugh Hill. These small gold ornaments are similar in shape and design to the Amesbury Archer’s tress rings, suggesting a shared cultural or ritual significance across regions.

The Kirkhaugh rings show that gold hair ornaments or similar items were used as prestige items by northern elites, possibly as markers of identity within Beaker culture.

Nenthead, Cumbria

Nenthead is known for an early Bronze Age burial site where gold ornaments were discovered, including what is often described as gold hair rings or tress rings. These ornaments are similar in form to those found with the Amesbury Archer and at Boltby in North Yorkshire, reinforcing the idea that gold hair rings had a shared cultural significance among the elite classes of Bronze Age Britain.

The Nenthead gold rings are particularly notable as they were found in a remote area near the Pennine Mountains, suggesting that trade routes or cultural connections allowed gold items to reach even relatively isolated communities. This find highlights that gold ornamentation was valued in Cumbria just as it was in other regions of Bronze Age Britain.

Cultural Significance of the Nenthead Find

The Nenthead rings suggest that northern England’s elite participated in a broader cultural tradition that valued gold as a symbol of status and identity. The similarity of the Nenthead rings to those found with the Amesbury Archer and Boltby hints at a common cultural symbolism across Britain, where such ornaments might have denoted rank or lineage.

Given the location near the Pennines, these items would have required significant effort to obtain, indicating that gold items held important ritual or social significance for people in the region.

Boltby Gold Ring

The Boltby ring is a small, circular gold ornament found near Boltby on the edge of the North York Moors. It dates back to the early Bronze Age, around the same period as the Amesbury Archer, and has been interpreted as a hair ornament or tress ring, similar to those found in Southern England.

This ring is significant because of the similarity in design to that of the Amesbury Archer, one of the highest status Bronze Age Graves, found in the ritual landscape of one of our most significant monument complexes.

The Boltby ring shares a striking resemblance in size, shape, and craftsmanship to the Amesbury Archer’s tress rings. It has a simple yet refined design, showing the same early goldsmithing techniques that were developing in Britain during the early Bronze Age.

Both rings reflect the status and wealth of the individuals buried with them, marking them as people of high rank or ritual importance.

Local Significance in North Yorkshire:

The presence of the Boltby ring in North Yorkshire provides evidence that elite status symbols in the form of gold were not confined to the more southern ritual centres like Stonehenge but were also present in northern regions. This suggests that early Bronze Age trade networks or cultural exchanges could have linked regions across Britain.

It also demonstrates that gold working knowledge and the use of precious metals reached far into Yorkshire, reinforcing the notion that elite groups in the region had access to prestigious items.
Cultural and Ritual Implications:

The similarity between the Boltby ring and the Amesbury Archer’s rings suggests that gold tress rings had a shared cultural meaning across different regions in Bronze Age Britain. They may have been used in rituals, status display, or as markers of identity and lineage.

The Boltby find underscores the idea that Yorkshire had its own significant Bronze Age elite, who would have used symbolic adornments as a way of connecting to wider Beaker culture practices and traditions.
Thank you for bringing Boltby up—it indeed provides a compelling link between the Amesbury Archer’s burial traditions and early Bronze Age practices in northern England, particularly in North Yorkshire.

Interpretation of the Gold Rings

These gold tress rings are not only rare but also suggest a high social status for those buried with them. The Amesbury Archer’s rings likely had a symbolic meaning tied to prestige or identity and may indicate his role within a chieftain or elite class. Such objects in burials hint at wealth, social connections, and possibly a ritual significance associated with gold, even in these early Bronze Age societies.

The distribution of gold tress rings in the British Isles is primarily concentrated in southern England (Amesbury), northern England (Boltby, Kirkhaugh, Nenthead), western Scotland (Melfort), and Ireland (Ross Island). This pattern suggests that tress rings were likely symbols of status and cultural identity among early Bronze Age elites and that their use spread across Britain and Ireland via trade or cultural exchange networks.

While exact parallels to the Amesbury Archer’s gold tress rings are rare in Britain, similar objects have been found across Europe in other high-status burials, particularly in regions with Beaker or early Bronze Age influences. This distribution supports the idea that trade and cultural exchange facilitated the spread of gold items, and that gold held an important role in denoting elite status across prehistoric Europe.

The Amesbury Archer was found, from tooth analysis, to have come from the Alps. This is a place that has European Brigantian connections. The similarity of the golden rings at all or most of these sites, the similar date, tend to suggest that these hair braids represent high status individuals, of the tribe or social cast, visiting the British Isles, to spread knowledge, trade or craft. And link to that knowledge, is the earliest gold, ever discovered.

This was happening at the very beginning of the Bronze Age, and it is likely that visits from these people are linked with changes in metalworking practices, and also, spiritual thought. We should hold in our mind the idea that in those days, all natural materials and beings, plants, etc., including metals, will have been linked with specific deities, and the new metalworking practice, may well have been delivered by some kind of priestly class.