An ancient gold trade route dating back to the Bronze Age 4,500 years ago has stunned archaeologists, who have determined that most of Ireland’s gold artifacts came from gold mined in Britain.

Scientists arrived at their findings, which were published in the journal Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society, by measuring the chemical composition of some of the oldest gold artifacts in Ireland, determining that they actually came from Cornwall in Britain, said lead author Chris Standish of the University of Southampton, who called it an “unexpected” discovery that indicates Ireland disregarded their own gold mines in favor of more “exotic” gold from other societies as far back as 2500 BC, according to a report by The Statesman.

Using a process called laser abiation mass spectrometry, Standish and his research team looked at about 50 gold pieces that were in collections at the National Museum of Ireland dating back to the Bronze Age, including items like necklaces and basket ornaments.

By measuring isotopes of lead and comparing them with the composition of gold deposits in various locations, they were able to find that the gold originated in Cornwall and not in Ireland, and therefore must’ve been traded.

And it’s not like Ireland didn’t have gold on hand — they lots of readily accessible gold deposits in their country, but seemed to like the fact of having gold from “exotic” origins, which explains why there is more British gold in Ireland from that time period than in all of Britain. Apparently, there was no universal value for gold at the time, so different societies valued it differently, and clearly the early Brits didn’t treasure it quite as much as the early Irish.