shield reinforcing

[Matt Lukes]

There are metal handle reinforcing bars from Vindonissa and a bunch of other sites too, but then that's rather more understandable because the impacts occurring during close combat would put a good deal of strain on the handle-board connections. Maybe even a year or years of lugging the thing around caused enough breakages to warrant the reinforcement just to keep the repair details from being overworked.

Makes me wonder if arrows were the main weapon they were used against.

Do you mean that they might be intentionally made light to deal with the most common threat Jim?