London - South-west Britain was the scene of a prehistoric gold rush, new archaeological research has revealed.
A detailed analysis of some of Western Europe's most beautiful gold artefacts suggests that Cornwall was a miniature Klondyke in the Early Bronze Age.
Geological estimates indicate that up to 200kg of gold, worth almost £5m today, was extracted from Cornwall and West Devon's rivers between the 22nd and 17th centuries BC.
Archaeological and metallurgical studies suggests that substantial amounts were exported to Ireland, with smaller quantities probably also going to France. The elites of Stonehenge almost certainly obtained their gold from the south-west peninsula, as did the rulers of north-west Wales, who took to wearing capes made of solid gold.
Dr Chris Standish, an archaeologist at Southampton University, believes that although Cornwall's prehistoric gold production was culturally and political significant, it was just a by-product of an even more important industry - tin extraction. “The available evidence strongly suggests that in Bronze Age Cornwall and west Devon, tin wasn't obtained through mining, but was instead extracted from the areas' rivers, probably through panning or sophisticated damming and sluicing systems,” said Dr Standish. “But, as well as finding tin in the sand and gravels of the streams and rivers, they also found gold.”
Fine sheepskins may have been used to “catch” the tiny grains of both tin and gold in a technique similar to that which gave rise to the Ancient Greek myth of the golden fleece.
Cornish tin was crucial to the development of the Bronze Age in Britain and Ireland. In order to make bronze, prehistoric metalworkers had to combine copper with tin. Local rivers eroded out both tin and gold from the South-west peninsula's exposed granite and other hard rock landscapes.
The ratio of gold to tin in the upper reaches of many of those rivers in the Early Bronze Age was potentially as high as 1:5 000 - so, combining archaeological and geological evidence, it is likely that up to 200kg of gold were extracted during that period.
“Back in the Bronze Age, gold deposits in the headwaters of many Cornish and west Devon rivers would have been very much richer than now,” said geologist Simon Camm, an expert on Cornish gold and author of Gold in the Counties of Cornwall and Devon.
Mr Camm said that in an average year a propector could expect to extract 150 grams of gold, which could be doubled in a good year.
Some tin was almost certainly exported to Ireland to be mixed with Irish copper to make bronze. Prior to this new research, archaeologists had thought most of the Bronze Age gold artefacts found in Ireland and Britain had been forged with Irish gold.
Although estimates suggest that some 200kg of gold were extracted from the streams and rivers of the South-west, only around 270 gold artefacts from that period have ever been found and recorded in Britain and Ireland. Most of the major individual pieces that have survived are housed in museums in London, Dublin, Edinburgh and the West Country.
Most of the gold was almost certainly repeatedly melted down over the centuries to manufacture later artefacts - with some prehistoric Cornish gold likely to be still in circulation. Hundreds of other original gold artefacts are thought to lie buried as offerings to the gods by Bronze Age priests.
The most important centre for South-west British gold and tin exports at the time may well have been north Cornwall's Padstow area, where the estuary would have provided shelter for merchant vessels.
Much of the gold was beaten into thin sheets that were then cut into crescent-shaped breast plates, and may have been used as part of sun worship rituals. It's even conceivable that some of the golden breast plates were “worn” by wooden idols - as well as potentially by local religious leaders or shamans. Additional metallurgical tests on Bronze Age gold treasures in Britain and Europe are planned by the archaeologists - and are likely to yield further information as to where prehistoric Cornwall exported its gold.
The Independent