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Traditional African shield resembles a Bell Barrow
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Re: Traditional African shield resembles a Bell Barrow
Dec 07, 2012, 00:04
Roger "massive leap of imagination" . Thank you .

I think it possible that this was not simply an African shield, though the design may have arisen there, and is preserved there to the present . Rather i imagine that the design traveled with our human diaspora ; but that in most places was forgotten at some point during the Iron Age as it seems to have been best suited to defense against fighting sticks and clubs, and these were being replaced by axes and daggers as the Bronze Age progressed.

It's going to be essentially impossible to find a shield of this design in the archaeological record if by the time Bronze was plentiful enough to make a shield, the style had changed to something more along the lines of the Battersea, Wandsworth or Witham pieces, (each from the Iron Age) . However, one of the things i consider here is the tendency to go traditional in funeral custom . The design may not have been selected for being the most current shield, but for being one which called up ancestral images of honor and valor.
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Re: Traditional African shield resembles a Bell Barrow (tjj)
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