Libraries and leisure

Settled Communities and the First Metal Users

The Bronze Age is marked by the appearance of more permanent habitation sites and the first use of metal. Bronze Age settlements tend to be more substantial than the semi-permanent Neolithic settlements and often include timber round-houses, fields and banks and ditches around the farm areas.

Copper and bronze metalworking also makes its first appearance, although initially a ‘prestige’ material used only for weapons and ritual purposes. The most common surviving Bronze Age monuments are the burial mounds or ‘round barrows’. These, like the earlier long barrows, are often sited in prominent locations, but usually only contain a single burial, accompanied by artefacts or ‘grave goods’.

Many Bronze Age barrows and ring-ditches (ploughed down burial mounds) are known from Hertfordshire. They are the single most common type of archaeological site in the county with more than 400 examples. The best example is the cemetery group at Therfield Heath which is associated with the earlier Neolithic long barrow.