As part of her PhD on Bronze Age European metal deposits, Marieke Visser showed  the practice of metal deposition was an expression of people's relationships with the world around them.
     "Archaeologists have become stuck in very strict interpretation models," says Visser. "Certain criteria were drawn up and boxes ticked per find. The assumption was that there were religious and non-religious depositions. I find this approach problematic because the data often don't fit in these boxes. You can't simply project the modern idea of religion onto the Bronze Age."
     While it may seem illogical to throw something so valuable away, Visser points out that it is no different than the modern throwing of coins in a fountain instead of the bin. To gain a better understanding of these actions, Visser's project focuses on the actions instead of the motives, going on to say: "An incredible number of depositions have been found from throughout the Bronze Age. If you systematically research these, look at which object in which place, you discover the conventions. That shows that these objects weren't lost by accident. There are clear patterns. This was deliberate."
     One such pattern was the lack of naturally occurring metal in the areas where the deposits occurred, making the finds even more valuable. These finds then show a connection to the outside world and the networks these locations worked within. One example seen from Denmark showed finds from Central Europe and Great Britain.
     Visser's project studies Denmark, Northern Germany, and the Northern Netherlands, which have never been compared on this scale. Part of her project relies on the construction of a database to make it easier to recognize the patterns in the landscape.

Edited from PhysORG (7 December 2021)