A community of practice approach to the management of metal resources, metalworking and hoarding in Bronze Age societies.

The burial of metals in hoards is a trademark phenomenon of prehistoric Europe that may be counterintuitive to perceptions of value nowadays. For the first time here, we establish detailed biographies of a large corpus of hoarded metal objects, providing new insights into how societies in the second millennium BC engaged with their convertible material wealth. We move beyond previous research on prehistoric hoarding commonly focussing on separate questions such as what was placed in hoards, who selected the objects, what were the origins of materials, and where and when they were buried.