English: A very late Middle Bronze Age to Late Bronze Age (1100 - 900 BC) Blackmoor type spearhead with lunate openings. The spearhead is complete and in very good condition although the blade edges are now a little uneven. The patina is dark green/brown and there are iron concretions in a number of places, especially around one of the openings. On one side there is a large area of green/blue thin coppery scale which extends from the socket to a point some two-thirds along the length of the object. A pronounced rib accompanies the openings along one side but is largely absent on the other. The length is 203mm and the width is 58.78mm. The diameter of the socket is 27.31mm and the socket is 147mm long. There are no traces of wood or other preserved organics within the socket. The presence of iron deposits suggests the spear was deposited within a wetland environment.

Richard Davis (Bronze Age specialist in Spearheads of University of Nottingham) comments:

This spearhead has transitional characteristics between the protected looped spearheads of the Middle Bronze Age and the lunate spearheads of the Late Bronze Age. The rib (ridge/flange/fillet) which runs all round the blade apertures is matched by a similar one on the spearhead from Ardmillam which I classified as protected-looped. The rib is larger and cruder than on the Late Bronze Age lunate spearheads. The blade shape with the strong concave line of the blade edges from above the lunates to the tip are present on several Late Bronze Age lunate spearheads, but is not as marked on protected-looped spearheads. The blade openings are larger than those of the protected-looped spearheads.

Based on these attributes this spearhead seems to be a transitional design somewhere in the continuum between the protected-looped, and the mature lunate spearheads typified by those from the Blackmoor hoard. This would date it to the late Middle Bronze Age (MBA III) or early Late Bronze Age (LBA I). The two protected-looped spearheads that have been tested had a low lead formulation typical of the Middle Bronze Age, while the lunate spearheads generally had a high lead formulation typical of Late Bronze Age metalwork.

To date the metal of this spearhead has not been tested.

Given the date range provided by Richard Davis this example would fit within Needham's (1996) Period 6 or 7 and Burgess's Metalwork stage XI.