Water has always influenced where and how people have lived. In southern Britain during the Bronze Age, the transition to a more settled life-style would have affected how a community accessed water. It is mooted that these changes led to new ways of thinking and this study will consider both the functional and symbolic treatment of water in the context of contemporary communities. In a landscape in which field boundaries became more prominent, the watery 'edge' created by rivers, streams and marsh can be shown to have strongly influenced the behaviour and inhabitation patterns of the community. By the end of the Bronze Age the evidence suggests that water had become a significant conceptual and 'spiritual' element in people's lives. The new evidence from the study area, i.e. the adjoining coastal zone and downland block of West Sussex and East Hampshire, focuses on these issues. In particular, a contextual study investigates the deposition patterns of metalwork and the role and place of 'burnt mounds' in Bronze Age society is considered. A study of the bore-hole logs and hydrology of the region demonstrates how later post-Medieval abstraction has significantly lowered the water table. An assessment is made of how this may have impacted on the riparian environment of the study area and reduced the riverine flow in the modern era. This new approach has proved important to the contextualisation of the Bronze Age landscape. From about 800 cal. BC southern Britain underwent a landscape transformation and re-organisation. These changes occurred alongside an initial increase in metalwork deposition practice followed by an abrupt curtailment of this behaviour. Was climate change involving increased precipitation rates, a factor or component of the changes seen in the archaeological record for the 9th and s" centuries BC? A critique of the evidence is undertaken.

This research explores the phenomenon of Bronze Age spearheads between the Middle and Final Bronze Age (18th century-9th century B.C.) in Italy. It will explore how these objects change over time and analyse patterns of distribution as well as changes in depositional context. The thesis consists of a catalogue of examples from the Italian Peninsula which are analysed in two ways: first, a typological sequence has been constructed, in order to identify differences in form, appearance and dimension, in order to analyze chronological and regional variation. Second, edge-wear analysis is conducted on a sample of objects in order to gain an appreciation of how this method can inform the archaeological interpretation of artefact biographies. The premise of such a study is rooted in a theoretical framework which argues that objects embody fundamental aspects of people’s social lives. As weapons for both hunting and warfare, spears embody rich symbolism which was drawn upon by Bronze Age communities, in many different ways. The biographical approach reveals close connections between these objects and the lives of individuals, the places they lived in as well locales which were of ritual importance to them. The edge-wear analysis also suggests that these objects were conceptualized as having lives which were ritually ended through deliberate damage, in addition to natural wear, damage and repair. These studies are situated within broader traditions of northern European archaeological evidence. The thesis concludes by arguing this biographical approach considerably enriches more traditional typological approaches to material culture. When used in combination with the study of the context of deposition, it suggests Mediterranean scholarship on prehistoric metallurgy can benefit greatly from these conjoined methodologies.