Using brooches to explore regionality in Roman Britain

What is it about?

We looked at a sample of about 10,000 brooches and modelled how long they might have remained in use. This allowed us to map the adoption of this important dress accessory and when it went out of use. We could show that there were very different regional patterns across the country. The rise and fall of brooch use reflects the adoption and rejection of particular types of clothes. This is vital information for exploring the identities of people who lived in the province.

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Why is it important?

We introduced the concept of use-life for an artefact. People always look at when a type is first found in the archaeological record. They do not necessarily think long enough about how long it might have remained in use. The modeling approach we developed to look at use-life can be applied to other bodies of data from different places and times to reveal what patterns might be hiding within them.