This paper describes a Late Bronze Age copper alloy barbed spearhead found by metal detector in Park Wood, Ruislip. It can be dated to the 9th-8th centuries BC, and had a shaft of ash secured by a copper alloy peg. Subsequent excavation around its findspot revealed that it had probably lain originally within the fill of a shallow sub-oval scoop disturbed by a large ?tree-hole, along with several small abraded sherds of flint-tempered pottery, fragments of burnt flint and flecks of charcoal and daub.

Concluding discussion places the find in its local/regional context, suggesting that the upper Colne valley was a favoured locality in the Late Bronze Age. Its success was probably founded equally on the ability of its local communities to exploit a wide range of natural resources, and on their participation in the movement of goods and raw materials up and down the valley between the central Chilterns and the Thames.

The spearhead itself is currently in the possession of the finder; all other finds and site records are held by the Museum of London.

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