Question about those bronze age spear tips found in the Thames

I used to think stuff found in rivers was mostly just lost by accident, no big deal. But then I talked to a guy named Dave at a dig open day near Oxford who explained how they found a cluster of 12 spear tips all in the same 50-foot stretch of riverbed. He said it lines up with old ritual offering practices, not just someone dropping their gear. Has anyone else heard about intentional deposits in rivers like that?

4 comments

4 Comments

ivan_mason4d ago

Dave from the Oxford dig sounds like he knows his stuff. I remember reading about a study that mapped out 47 bronze spear tips pulled from the same stretch of the Thames near Windsor, all from the same time period. The guy running that project said it looked like they were chucked in deliberately, maybe as some kind of offering to the river gods or whatever they believed in back then. I'd probably drop my spear tip in the river by accident too, knowing my luck I'd trip over my own shoelaces while trying to make a big ritual point. It makes you wonder how many of these finds are really just clumsy oafs like me versus actual ritual deposits.

carter.gavin4d ago

Man, that's a great point. @ivan_mason, your trip story reminds me of this time my buddy Phil was helping with a canoe portage and he straight up dropped his entire tackle box into a creek. We fished around for it for like an hour and never found it. Now every time I see those old spear tips in a museum, I think about Phil and his stupid tackle box. Makes you wonder if some archaeologist 3,000 years from now is gonna pull it up and start a whole theory about ancient fishing rituals. But your point about the Windsor cluster is solid, too many in one spot for it to all be butterfingers. I guess they had their clumsy oafs too but there's got to be a line somewhere, right?

logan2363d ago

Yeah the whole river offerings theory makes a lot of sense. @carter.gavin you see the same thing in modern life too like how people toss coins into fountains or throw stuff off bridges for luck. Just another version of the same thing I guess.

king.aaron3d agoMost Upvoted

Yeah that Windsor cluster really drives home the point, too many in one spot for it to be just clumsy people.