Archaeologists at the University have found evidence of an ancient gold trade route between the south-west of the UK and Ireland.
A study suggests people were trading gold between the two countries as far back as the early Bronze Age (2500BC).
The research, in collaboration with the University of Bristol, used a new technique to measure the chemical composition of some of the earliest gold artefacts in Ireland.
Findings show the objects were actually made from imported gold, rather than Irish. Furthermore, this gold is most likely to have come from Cornwall.
Lead author Dr Chris Standish says:
“This is an unexpected and particularly interesting result as it suggests that Bronze Age gold workers in Ireland were making artefacts out of material sourced from outside of the country, despite the existence of a number of easily-accessible and rich gold deposits found locally.
“It is unlikely that knowledge of how to extract gold didn’t exist in Ireland, as we see large scale exploitation of other metals. It is more probable that an ‘exotic’ origin was cherished as a key property of gold and was an important reason behind why it was imported for production.”
Dr Alistair Pike, a co-author from the University, adds:
“The results of this study are a fascinating finding. They show that there was no universal value of gold, at least until perhaps the first gold coins started to appear nearly two thousand years later. Prehistoric economies were driven by factors more complex than the trade of commodities – belief systems clearly played a major role.”
Further information can be found on the press release
You can read the paper A Non-local Source of Irish Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age Gold here.