Early Bronze Age Beaker Culture barbed and tanged flint arrowhead

Code: 11490

A superb and intact barbed and tanged arrowhead dating from the Beaker period (c.2500-1500 BC). The arrowhead is triangular in plan: 25 mm in length, 23 mm in width at the base, 5 mm thick and weighs 1.68 g. Both faces have been thinned by the removal of many small, shallow, invasive pressure-flakes. Two notches have been formed by pressure flaking at the base of the triangle, to form the tang and two barbs, and the two notches carefully shaped by further pressure flaking. The two barbs have obliquely shaped ends and the tang is square, placing the arrowhead within Green's group CF: the base of the arrowhead is flat, the barbs and the tang being of precisely the same length. Finally, the tapering edges have been finished by the removal of many very small, parallel, invasive pressure-flakes, to produce two straight, sharp, symmetrical edges.  The flint is a uniform pale grey-brown. The dorsal face is slightly less well-finished than the ventral face, where there is a slight impurity in the flint.

Butler (2005) illustrates a similar arrowhead which is Green's Conygar Hill type on p.163, fig.68, no.1 and p.165, fig.69, no.4 which are dated from the Beaker period and the Early Bronze Age c.2500-1500 BC.

OBJECT: Arrowhead

CULTURE: Early Bronze Age (Beaker period)

DATE: c. 2500 - 1500 B.C.

MATERIAL: Flint

SIZE: 25mm x 23mm x 5mm 

WEIGHT:  1.68 grams

PROVENANCE: Private collection, East Riding of Yorkshire