File:Bronze Age Spearhead (FindID 458653).jpg

English: Bronze Age bronze spearhead fragment, of uncertain type and of Middle to Late Bronze Age date, c. 1500 - 700BC

The spearhead is fragmentary and is represented by the tip only (with a surviving length of 47.8mm and a weight of 22.7g). The spearhead has broken across the blade in antiquity and near the end of a circular socket (4.1mm diameter at the break and with a surviving depth of 5.8mm), positioned slightly off-centre. The fragment has a prominent rounded midrib (giving the spearhead a maximum surviving thickness of 10.5mm where the fragment has a maximum surviving width of 19.8mm). The midrib weakens slightly towards the tip but remains prominent. The original blade edges and tip have been lost, making the original outline uncertain but the more complete edge is gently convex and may originally have been straight or near-straight. Patches of the original surface survive with a dark-green patina. Sharpening striations are discernible running both along the blade and at an acute angle to the blade edge.

Socketed spearheads begin in the Acton Park metalworking industry dated to the beginning of the Middle Bronze Age and continue to the Llyn Fawr Industry at the very end of the Bronze Age, although spearheads of the Llyn Fawr industry are rarely recovered, with most spearheads dating to the Ewart Park phase or before. Needham (1996) dates the corresponding Industries from his Period 5, begging c. 1500BC to the end of Period 7 at c. 750BC.