Description

Summary: 2 La Tene I fibulae, one incomplete, found on surface from Cold Kitchen Hill, Brixton Deverill, Wiltshire.

Research results

An early Iron Age brooch and copper alloy fragment, a chance find found on the ground surface at Cold Kitchen Hill, Brixton Deverill. Cold Kitchen Hill is known to have been occupied in both the Iron Age and Roman periods, and was the site of a possible Romano-British temple. Dating evidence for this form of brooch is poor: most were probably produced and deposited in the third or fourth centuries BC, but the earliest production could be earlier and the form may have continued beyond this range.

This brooch was examined by Adams (2013) as part of her PhD with the University of Leicester. This PhD examined an updated corpus of Iron Age Brooches across Britain in order to re-evaluate existing typologies and widely accepted chronology, as well as to investigate potential regional patterns and production. In particular the study highlights that direct dating evidence for most brooches is in fact quite poor, despite them often being used as chronological markers in the period. Reviewing all published radiocarbon dates associated with Iron Age brooches, Adams suggests that brooches were first introduced c. 450 BC, as well as refining the chronology of a number of specific types, although they note that the evidence is scarce.