Bronze objects discovered by metal detectors in a field close to the historic town of Yarmouth on the Isle of Wight, southern England, have been identified as Bronze Age axes.
     Alan Fairbanks and Julian Trout found them during a metal detecting rally organised by the Vectis Searchers. The British Museum dated them to the period 1400 BCE to 1275 BCE, putting them in the Middle Bronze Age.
     The axes - which were declared treasure trove - consisted of two unlooped palstaves, a looped palstave, and a damaged socketed axe. More axes had been found in the 1930s in clay at Werrar on the River Medina.
     County archaeologist Frank Basford - who is the finds liaison officer of the Portable Antiquities Scheme, which records finds to go on a national database - stressed the importance of finds such as these to local museums, adding "Analysis of the composition can tell you the temperature in which it was cast."
     The axe found by the Vectis Searchers is typical of the earliest socketed type in Britain, and similar to examples found in Dorset and Hampshire.

Source: Isle of Wight County Press (22 June 2004)