Casting the Net Wider: Network Approaches to Artefact Variation in Post-Roman Europe

Toby F Martin

doi:10.1007/s10816-019-09441-x

Abstract

This paper explores the stylistic variability of fifth- and sixth-century brooches in Europe using network visualisations, suggesting an alternative means of study, which for more than a century has been dominated by typology. It is suggested that network methods and related theories offer alternative conceptual models that encourage original ways of exploring material that has otherwise become canonical. Foremost is the proposal that objects of personal adornment like brooches were a means of competitive display through which individuals mediated social relationships within and beyond their immediate communities, and in so doing formed surprisingly far-flung networks. The potential sizes of these networks varied according to their location in Europe, with particularly large distances of up to 1000 km achieved in Scandinavia and continental Europe. In addition, an overall tendency toward the serial reproduction of particular forms in the mid-sixth century has broader consequences for how we understand the changing nature of social networks in post-Roman Europe.

Highlights

Speaking, few classes of object can claim a higher level of influence over the archaeology of their periods than the elaborate bow brooches of the fifth to seventh centuries
A mass of predominantly typological literature stretches back to the late nineteenth century, yet for some decades, there has been a palpable ambivalence toward the typological method due to an impasse in debates over the relative subjectivity of the method (e.g. Adams and Adams 1991) as well as scepticism toward the idea that typology will ever provide a definitive means of tracing ethnic identity (Hakenbeck 2007; Gauß 2009; Theune 2014), leading to polarised opinions that have made it harder to traverse the divide
This paper suggests that network methods present an alternative to typological classification, bringing with them new research questions that help to put brooches back into an integrated research framework

Summary

Introduction

Speaking, few classes of object can claim a higher level of influence over the archaeology of their periods than the elaborate bow brooches of the fifth to seventh centuries. Four major groups of brooches from fifth- to sixth-century Scandinavia, Britain and continental Europe are compared for the first time on equal terms These broader scales immediately transcend questions to do with ethnic identity because they exceed any reasonably conceived scale over which such identities might have operated, and this has been achievable only through transcending traditional typological methods and turning toward network visualisations. This paper will illustrate these ideas with a well-studied series of brooches that share the same form (square headplates and diamond-shaped footplates) and are appropriate objects for comparison They happen to be the ‘deluxe’ brooches of the fifth and sixth centuries, being the primary vehicles for the animal art that typifies the period (‘Salin’s Style I’), reaching relatively large sizes, and frequently cast in precious metals.

Headplate outer frames of type Masks06

Summary