The Bronze Age was a period of human history (roughly 2500 BC to 800 BC) in which people developed the technology to work with metals. Before this period people made all of their tools from things like stone, bone, or antler. It could easily have been called “The Age of the Axe” because the axe was the most versatile tool that had been developed. They were not only tools, but also symbols of wealth and power.

These axes were chosen because they are unusually small, only 7 cm long (2.75 inches). Most axes of this time were at least twice this long. The copper mines in Wales and Ireland have passages so small (only twelve inches in some places), that archaeologists think that children worked as miners. Could it be that these axes were made for children to use?
– Giovanna Fregni, 2007 Intern in Archaeology and Conservation