Paper short abstract:

The burials of Bell Beaker metalworkers are found across central and western Europe and they are often of high status. These men are not thought to have been specialist smiths and the tools placed in the graves were used in the making of objects, not making metals. Being a metalworker was only one aspect of the identities that their mourners chose to signify.

Paper long abstract:

Stone tools used in metalworking are found in Bell Beaker graves across central and western Europe. The burials are invariably of men and they often date to early in the local Bell Beaker sequences (24th-22nd centuries BC). As assessed by grave and monument types and the Number of Artefact Types placed in the grave by their mourners, these men were often of high social status. In contrast Early Bronze Age and later burials with metalworking tools are much less frequent.

Comparative, compositional and experimental studies all indicate that the stone tools found in Bell Beaker graves were used in the making or finishing of small metal objects such as gold ornaments or copper knives. In comparison to the knowledge and skills that were needed to prospect for ores, extract them and process them, the technological skills needed to make or finish the objects were modest. However, the stone tools used in the extraction and processing of ores were almost never placed in graves.

Several of these graves contain multiple examples of the same type of objects suggesting the practice of ‘over–provision’ as a way of indicating the highest status. Even so, few would regard the individuals with whom these metalworking tools were buried as specialist (or at least full time) craftsmen and in many cases the skills - or status – of a metalworker and the wide ranging connections it symbolised is only one of several persona signified in these graves.