Discovery that was 3,000 years in the making

An array of objects more than 3,000 years old have been found by metal detectorists spread across two fields in Northumberland.

- TONY HENDERSON

The discoveries at the location between Haydon Bridge and Chollerford suggest it may have held special significance for the middle Bronze Age people who made the implements. They include a spear head, a hammer and axe heads

They are in particularly fine condition, indicating that they were deposited shortly after manufacture and were unlikely to have been used.

The connection between water and ritual deposition of objects was a feature of prehistoric times and continues in the modern practice of dropping a coin in a fountain or well.

The find near the South Tyne was probably a boggy landscape and a suitable site for ritual offerings such as the discovered objects.