Description

Summary: 1 iron penannular brooch, the terminals bent at 90 degrees to dominate plane, pin fragmentary but apparently straight and attached off centre, from the Romano-British period, from site OD XII at Overton Down, West Overton, Wiltshire, excavated by Peter Fowler, University of Bristol, 1959.

Research results

A Romano-British iron penannular brooch, excavated from the Romano-British settlement at Overton Down, by Peter Fowler and the University of Bristol, 1959.

This brooch was examined by Anna Booth (2015) as part of her PhD on penannular brooches in Britain. This study compiled an updated corpus of brooches and was able to identify a number of new types and regional practices. Booth idenifies concentrations of penannulars in South-Western England and East Yorkshire, with her type F being local to Wiltshire and in particular the Avon valley. Penannulars first develop in the early Iron Age, but their use and variety of forms expanded rapisly in the first century AD, and unlike other Brooch forms do not decline in use in the third century, and rather become more popular extending into the fourth century, perhaps as deliberately selected as a "British" accessory in the context of increasingly regional dress styles in the late Roman period.