Ball Brooches in the Age of Citizen Science

Abstract

Ball brooches make a difficult research theme in Denmark. This is mainly because very few of the hitherto published specimens were found in a context or under circumstances that help to shed light on their chronology. The most recently published study is a very brief paper by Jesper Laursen on the chronology and typology of ball brooches (Laursen 1984). Laursen’s paper was published at a time when hobby metal detecting was only at its early stages in Denmark. Therefore, this hobby had not yet had its impact on the material. Metal detecting favors objects with much metal and since cultivated soil contains a lot of iron waste most hobby detectorists tend to screen for iron. Consequently, objects of bronze, silver and gold will have a tendency to dominate the finds brought in by these people, and especially massive objects. Thus, ball brooches, especially the cast bronze specimens, would have a good chance to be detected and collected. As the internet developed, some private sites were established were the finders themselves published their finds. Recently the app named DIME launched by University of Aarhus (in September 2018) and until today (29.09.2021) 121.186 finds have been registered by private users in the database. The newly available information, correlated with the previous ones, offers the possibility of a preliminary study of the ball brooches, which we propose in this article.