Crafting and currency
Tools and pottery show us how technology developed over time for those living in Cornwall. Tools were made first from stone, bone and wood, and later from metal. Changes in design and decoration show changes in culture and beliefs.
Trade brought new objects, ideas and influence. Metal objects were often precious and could be used as currency. Investigating what people were making and where helps us understand more about technological advances and how people lived.
Pottery
The Bronze Age is the richest era for archaeological finds in Cornwall. Beakers (or earthenware pots) are an indicator of an increasingly sophisticated society. They were multi-purpose, with uses ranging from drinking cups to funerary urns. Other beakers were used to smelt copper, some have organic remains of beer, mead, and food. They were also a show of status and some Bronze Age tribes can be identified through the patterning they used.
The Heart of Cornwall Gallery explores the stories that pots and vessels tell about the people living in Cornwall through time. Artefacts such as a 2000-year-old copper alloy bowl decorated with a stylised ram’s head mounted on the side. Rams feature prominently in Iron Age and Roman decoration around the world, but to date, little roman archaeology has been found in Cornwall. It’s possible there may have been interaction with Romans in the north of Cornwall, but it might also be reverence for rams and goats which was typical of this time.
