Chapter 5. the Geographical, Chronological and Contextual

Chapter 5 235 CHAPTER 5 THE GEOGRAPHICAL, CHRONOLOGICAL AND CONTEXTUAL DISTRIBUTION OF THE TYPES OF DRESS- ACCESSORY : A BRIEF SUMMARY The individual types of dress-accessory have now been is now Denmark, it is more common at this date to examined separately, and both their spatial distribution encounter Continental and/or Dano-Continental and the immediate contexts in which the known items forms of cruciform brooch: Types Witmarsum and occur have been explicated. From this examination Groß Siemss ( Jørgensen 1994a; Reichstein 1975). certain trends in the distribution, in time and space, of This area of western Scandinavia emerges gradually these selected types of dress-accessory have emerged, from the end of the Late Roman Iron Age onwards and in this chapter these trends are synthesized, and and during the transition to the Migration Period. In linked more directly to the manifestation of identity phase D1, meanwhile, the distribution of cruciform through the use of costume. This is done initially by brooches extends further northwards in Norway, and taking a ‘step backwards’, with an integrated presenta- a distinct type evolved in the north-west of west- tion of the distribution of the selected dress-accessories ern Scandinavia in Møre og Romsdal and Sogn og as this distribution occurs in the period under exam- Fjordane in the form and range of Type Nygard. ination. In Chapter 6, the overall distribution pattern A new region also appears in the north, comprising will be interpreted in light of the proposition that the Nord-Trøndelag, Nordland and Troms, through the jewellery represents components of costume which development of a specific regional type of cruciform were used in a discourse concerned with cultural and brooch, Type Røssøy. ethnic identity. The relief brooches display a partially congruent distribution pattern in the earliest phase of the Migration Period in that these also cluster in western Scandinavia, 5.1 THE GEOGRAPHICAL, CHRONOLOGICAL albeit with a more conspicuous southerly centre of AND CONTEXTUAL DISTRIBUTION OF THE gravity within the zone. With the exception of one TYPES find from Sør-Trøndelag, the brooches are distributed 5.1.1 Distribution patterns in the Migration Period largely between the coastal area of southern Norway A synthesis of the distribution patterns of the three from Rogaland round to Vestfold, and in the south- different types of dress-accessory – cruciform brooches, west of Scandinavia in Jutland, Sjælland, Falster and relief brooches and clasps – produces a variegated Skåne. One can make out a tendency towards the picture with overlaps and continually shifting distri- division of the area into two, through the distribution butions throughout the Migration Period. From the of relief brooches with rectangular headplates to the end of the Roman Iron Age into the transitional phase north and those with semi-circular headplates to the leading to the Migration Period an extensive western south. There may also be a distinct south-western and Scandinavian area can be discerned which comprises western Norwegian type of relief brooch (B-2), but as the southern half of Norway below and including Møre there are so few finds, and one specimen of the type og Romsdal in the north, and reaches to the coastal from Sjælland, the specific regional association of this area of western Sweden (especially Västergötland and type has to be considered uncertain. What is most Bohuslän), while also including (principally) Jutland, characteristic of this phase is actually the multiplicity in the south (Maps 5.1 and 5.2). Within this area, of types of relief brooch. spiral- and ring-shaped clasps (types A1 and A2a) From the transition from the Late Roman Iron Age were in use. In the northern part of this extensive area, through into phase D1 there is, as has been noted (Ch. in the southern half of Norway and along the western 4.2.1.3), a constant tendency for the development of coast of Sweden, there were also common types of narrowly local and more tightly regionally distributed cruciform brooch in use: Types Åk and Lunde. In the variants of brooch-type, and this cumulatively rein- southern part of the area, by contrast, within what forces the further sub-division of the area of western 236 Chapter 5 Map 5.1 The distribution of types of dress-accessory of Phase C3. The shaded area shows the distribution of spiral- and ring-shaped clasps. The ringed areas show the distribution of cruciform brooches of 1: Type Åk, 2: Type Tveitane-Hunn, 3: Type Witmarsum. The red circle shows the distribution of Type Kvassheim and the blue circle the concentration of ring clasps. The geographical, chronological and contextual distribution of the types of dress-accessory 237 Map 5.2 The distribution of types of dress-accessory of D1. The area with diagonal shading shows the distribution of spiral clasps, and the area with horizontal shading shows the distribution of relief brooches. The ringed areas show the distribution of cruciform brooches of 1: Type Lunde, 2: Type Eine, 3: Type Gross Siemss, 4: Type Nygard, 5: Type Røssøy. The blue circle shows the concentration of copper-alloy spiral clasps. 238 Chapter 5 Scandinavia. This is the case, for example, with the and Öland are distinguished by the use of their own cruciform brooches of Types Tveitane-Hunn and Eine, types of relief brooch with semi-circular headplates. which are largely restricted to southern Norway, and Within these regions, it is sometimes possible to the concentration of Type Kvassheim in Rogaland – identify particularly local individual types of cruci- particularly at the cemetery site of Kvassheim. We form brooch (such as Type Sagland in Rogaland, and have also seen that ring-shaped clasps of type A2a Type Gjerla in Vestfold/Telemark) or relief brooch have a markedly southern Scandinavian, and probably (for instance Type A-5 on Gotland and Type A-6 on a specifically Jutlandic, distribution. This is also the Bornholm, and a distinct version of ridge-foot brooches case with spiral clasps of copper alloy, which concen- in Telemark with en face masks as the lobes on the trate on the cemetery at Sejlflod (cf. Ch. 4.2.3.3). footplate) (Map 5.4). It is also possible to demonstrate The earliest Scandinavian relief brooches belong trends towards specific regional and/or local vari- to a relatively limited period of time at the end of ants, for example in the case of relief brooches of the phase D1, and several of the finds are dated to the ridge-foot type with a ‘northern’, primarily Norwegian, transition between D1 and D2a. This is the period in sub-group that is distinct from the non-Norwegian which several of the Scandinavian type C1i clasps were brooches that usually carry spiral ornament. In some manufactured, and these have been interpreted above areas there are several of these brooch-types, or indeed as an experimental period in the production of clasps, all the different types. In Sweden, meanwhile, there is a when the standardized spiral clasps were going out marked difference between the Mälar region (Uppland, of use and button clasps taking over as the principal Södermanland and Västmanland), where particularly form (cf. Ch. 4.2.3.7). The earliest relief brooches local variants of button clasps are concentrated and of this stage, with their many divergent forms, can where there is a general absence of cruciform brooches, also be interpreted in such a way. They may represent and Västergötland, which has no local type of clasp but an experimental period before the following phase’s where there were local variants of cruciform brooch standard forms ‘bed in’. in use (Map 5.3). Some areas also have several local In phase D2a, the outlines of this area of western variants of a single artefact-type. This is the case in Scandinavia can be traced further through the dis- Rogaland, for example, which is the core area of the tribution of button clasps with punched ornament distribution of the cruciform brooches of Types Lima and one of the sub-groups of relief brooches with and Søndre Gammelsrød and Types Varhaug and rectangular headplates – the ridge-foot brooches. The Sagland. A similar state of affairs is also found in the plane-foot brooches are also distributed in part within Mälar region, where button clasps both with ‘running the same area, although like the relief brooches of the spiral’ designs (type B1ii d) and with domed buttons preceding phase their distribution has a more southerly with relief decoration (type B1 vi) are concentrated. centre of gravity within the zone. At the same time, In these cases, however, it is not always possible button clasps with Style I decoration were used both to exclude the possibility that the types in question to the east of the Scandinavian peninsula and the west, represent a chronological development in the course while plain button clasps or button clasps with ring of the phase within which they occur: in other words designs appear to have been common Scandinavian that the individual types are not contemporary in types, albeit with a limited distribution in northern the sense that they were used by the same genera- Norway, where the clasp-habit never seems to have tion. The phases cover periods of some 50–75 years made any great inroads. and so represent a number of generations (Hines What is most characteristic of this phase, however, 1993a:91–2; Reichstein 1975:69). It is therefore is the great flourishing of regional and local variants impossible to ignore the possibility that several of of various types of dress-accessory (cf. Hines 1993a: the types of dress-accessory were worn or were in 88, 91), which helps to distinguish various regions of circulation for only a limited amount of time within Scandinavia from one another (Map 5.3).

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