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COMPARATIVE ASSEMBLAGES
by Ray Ludford
The majority of the small finds from the Boneyard excavations date from the Middle Saxon period. Many of these objects are comparable with finds from Brandon, Suffolk. The Brandon settlement site is dated by radiocarbon dating as commencing AD 640+/-70 and AD 660+/-80, with probable desertion in the last quarter of the ninth century (Carr, Tester and Murphy 1988). Brandon is only about fifty miles by sea and river from Sedgeford, and contact by trading is very likely.
In general the Middle Saxon small finds from Sedgeford could be placed with the finds from Brandon, Southampton or any other Middle Saxon assemblage around England without anything looking out of place. Trade with Ipswich is accepted considering the large amount of Ipswich ware pottery from the site. The Series R sceatta from a possible mint at Ipswich would also indicate trade with this emporium. The existence of a possible emporia at Ely should show itself in some of the finds when they are published for comparison.
One group of objects could prove interesting to link with other sites. These are the safety-pin brooches with ring-and-dot decoration. All three of our examples have a similar layout of ring-and-dot, but only one of the nine safety-pin brooches from Flixborough, Humberside, have this design. The only brooch of this type from Brandon has similar decoration to the Sedgeford brooches. No other brooches of this type have been found in Norfolk despite the excellent relationship between metal detector users and archaeologists. This may indicate a source for these brooches from outside the county, or a very limited distribution from a local production site. There are none of these brooches recorded from Ipswich, but we have obvious links with Ipswich in the Ipswich ware pottery and as the source of the Series R sceatta.
The Romano-British small finds and coins found on the site are either residual, possibly from the Romano-British site two kilometres to the south, or they may have been handed down as curiosities from generation to generation, or used as perfectly serviceable brooches.
References
Carr, Tester, and Murphy. 1988. 'The Middle Saxon settlement at Staunch Meadow, Brandon', Antiquity 62.
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