Axe-heads have always been objects of admiration and intrigue, from the times of their production to their present-day locations in museum cabinets or on people’s mantel pieces. We know that axe-heads were important to past people from the raw materials that were chosen, the forms and finishes they were given, the lives they had, and the ways in which they were deposited. This makes them one of the most useful items of material culture for interpreting and understanding prehistoric societies. As well as being made locally, they were imported from across the Channel in the Neolithic and have been brought over as manuports and souvenirs in more recent times. We can unpick much from their lengthy biographies. This talk is a tale of the detective work needed to ascertain the credentials of each axe-head: to establish where it originated, whether it arrived in prehistoric times, and therefore what it can tell us, or whether it came to Britain in the last few hundred years.

Biography
Katharine Walker is a prehistorian who specialises in the Neolithic of northwest Europe, the era of the first farmers between 5000 and 2000BC. She is Visiting Research Fellow at Bournemouth University, Collections Manager at the New Forest Heritage Centre, and a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London. She studied at the Universities of Bristol, Cardiff, and Southampton where she gained a PhD in 2015. This was the subject of her 2018 book on Axe-heads and Identity, published by Archaeopress.

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