From around 3500 to 2500 BC the knowledge of how to work metal spread across much of central and eastern Europe. The first metals to be exploited were copper and gold. Both of these are relatively easy to extract from their ore and gold can be found in river deposits (known as placer deposits). Both metals are also relatively soft which means that they can be worked into the required shape by cold hammering, that is without the use of melting or heating.

In around 2500 BC this knowledge was introduced to the British Isles as part of a new range of material culture known today as ‘Beaker’. Beaker burials are individual and contain grave goods. They are not the earliest examples of individual burials in Neolithic England, but for the first time the grave-goods include objects made from copper and gold.

Copper knives or daggers are commonly found in Beaker graves, along with ornaments made of sheet-gold. In some graves other objects such as archer’s wrist-guards have been decorated with sheet gold. These are among the earliest metal objects found in England.