The Thun-Renzenbühl axe (c. 1800 BC), found near Thun and attributed to the Rhône culture, is one of the earliest examples of the use of damascening technique in the world.[8][9] The gold inlay decoration on the axe may also have a numerical, astronomical meaning.[10]
^Mordant, Claude (2013). "Chapter 32: The Bronze Age in France". In Harding, Anthony; Fokkens, Harry (eds.). The Oxford Handbook of the European Bronze Age. OUP Oxford. pp. 571–593. ISBN978-0-19-957286-1. The Rhône culture, in its strictest sense, occupies the Franche-Comté, eastern Burgundy, the northern Alps close to the Swiss Plateau, and the Valais, but a wider definition of this entity could be said to cover the whole of the Rhône Valley, extending even beyond part of the Massif Central (Gallay 1996). The fact remains that certain types of metallurgy or particular characteristics of pottery thought of as 'Rhodanian' spread right across eastern and central France and the Rhône corridor. This highlights the significant impact of metal production, which used metal resources from the western Alps during the late part of the Early Bronze Age.
^Kipfer, Barbara Ann (2000). "Rhône culture". Encyclopedic Dictionary of Archaeology. Kluwer Academic. p. 479. ISBN9780306461583. The Rhône culture is the Swiss and east French counterpart of the Early Bronze Age cultures of central Europe. The metalwork and pottery are similar to those of the Straubing group in Bavaria.
^Kipfer, Barbara Ann (2000). "Straubing". Encyclopedic Dictionary of Archaeology. Kluwer Academic. p. 538. ISBN9780306461583. Straubing: Early Bronze Age regional variant of the Unetice culture in Lower Bavaria, Germany.
^"History Museum of Valais, Sion". Musées Cantonaux du Valais. 2013. The Rhone Culture originated from Central Valais and the Thun area ... The burial of Thun-Renzenbühl in the Bernese uplands, with its axe decorated with gold nails, allows us to draw parallels with the princely burials of Eastern Central Europe.
