“If I had a hammer”: Bronze Age metalworkers and their tools
Channel: The Ulster Archaeological Society
Date: 2022-04-25

Ireland has yielded some of the most famous Bronze Age gold ornaments in prehistoric Europe, but we know relatively little about the craftsmen, their workshops and the tools behind these masterpieces. In this talk we will look at some little explored aspects of Bronze Age metalwork production in Ireland, and draw comparisons with other parts of prehistoric Europe. 

Dr Linda Boutoille
At nine years old, Linda discovered archaeology, and except for her discovery of chocolate, it has been the most wonderful discovery of her life. At age 10, she wanted to become an Egyptologist and then a Human osteologist. At age 12, during the Christmas dinner, she succeeded in making her older sister sick throw up the turkey by explaining how to make a perfect 13th century BC Egyptian mummy. 
Because she was no longer allowed to talk about mummification and prehistoric dead people, she decided to research prehistoric craftsmanship and especially metalwork production instead. She graduated in 2006 with a Master's thesis about metalworkers’ tools from Late Bronze Age hoards at the University of Toulouse in France, where she also discovered the fascinating world of Irish prehistoric woodcarving. Working on her Master’s, she noticed that we did not know anything about the stone hammers and anvils used by early metalworkers and decided to do her PhD on this topic, which allowed her to identify c. 180 previously misinterpreted stone implements as metalworkers’ tools.
After receiving her PhD from the University of Burgundy in Dijon, she came to Belfast on the back of a Marie Curie Fellowship to continue her research about metalworkers’ stone tools on Europe’s Atlantic façade. She is currently working at QUB as a research fellow funded by the Gerda Henkel Foundation on a project about Early Bronze Age metallurgy in southern Spain.

This lecture is prerecorded and comments can't be passed on to Dr Boutoille. You can contact her via email - l.boutoille@qub.ac.uk