Witham Shield - Related Finds

Related Finds

An unusual triple headed dress pin was also found in 1826. This pin set was also found in the River Witham near Fiskerton. This is described as the only surviving set of triple dress pins and has been dated as 8th century and Anglo-Saxon. The pin set is also held in the British Museum.

In the 20th century a series of posts were found together with an early to mid Iron Age sword when a dyke was being cleaned near Fiskerton, near where the Witham Shield had been found. Excavations in 1981 revealed the posts to be a wooden causeway which dendrochronologists dated to a period between 457 and 300 BC. It appeared to have been repaired and added to every eighteen years or so during that period, even though the construction and maintenance of a walkway on such a scale at that time would have been a major feat of engineering. Hundreds of artifacts were also found around the causeway, including eleven spears, six swords, woodworking and metalworking tools, as well as part of a human skull which had a crescent-shaped chop mark, probably inflicted by a sword; this injury is unlikely to have killed the man.

Twenty years later, during further excavations at the site, more sections of the causeway were dug out, some of them containing posts several metres long, plus a complete spear, a currency bar, a sword, a dagger and some bronze fittings, all of which appeared to have been deliberately damaged before their burial. The most important discovery was two Iron Age votive boats. One of these boats, as well as other artifacts from the site, can be seen at The Collection in Lincoln. The area around the site of the causeway was opened as a nature reserve managed by the Lincolnshire Wildlife Trust in 2006.