Archaeology

The Mixenden tool kit

It must have been quite a treasure of its time; a fine bronze palstave or axe, retaining a sharp edge, and other items of what appeared to be a Bronze Age tool kit for a pastoral farmer.

The bronze axe was accompanied by a black whetstone, a stone axe “of a beautiful green pebble, speckled with white”, a grooved hammer stone, some arrowheads and a stone gouge. Why they were buried in a group on Mixenden Moor is a mystery, but the acid soil of the moor preserved all but their wooden holders until the last quarter of the eighteenth century, when they were found by a peat cutter.

These are of course not the only stone and bronze implements found around Calderdale, which appears to have had extensive settlement during the Bronze Age. H Ling Roth’s 1906 book, ‘The Yorkshire Coiners 1767-1783, and notes on Old and Prehistoric Halifax’ (part of Calderdale Libraries' Local studies and family history resources) contains sketches of several of these, along with other artefacts from the Bronze Age. Since then, finds of further objects and sites from the period have deepened our knowledge of prehistoric Calderdale.