The majority of what we know about Anglo-Saxon peoples comes from archaeological excavations of graves over the last 200 years. Brooches and other metalwork from them have fuelled longstanding debates about personal identity. This talk will question what new evidence from other sources can tell us about people in life, death, and the bits we’re missing in-between.

Metal detected and casual finds recorded on the Portable Antiquity Scheme have offered a new source of evidence. The PAS now has hundreds of examples of metalwork such as brooches that are changing what we think of as 'normal' accessories and dress styles.

In 2010, a comparative study based on Southeast England by Mclean and Richardson showed that metal detectorists and archaeologists were finding different brooches. They suggested that archaeologists were potentially finding a costume of death, and metal detectorists were finding accidental loss in life.

14 years later and with the benefit of thousands more items found and recorded, this study asked if this was true for Yorkshire and Humberside. Using brooches from the North Lincolnshire Museum archives and other collections in comparison with the Portable Antiquity Scheme, the study asked: is there a brooch for life and death?

Adrienne Ponsford has worked in education, museums and heritage, including English Heritage, for almost 10 years. She has recently completed a masters in Medieval Archaeology at the University of York, for which she received a Distinction and was nominated for the Geoff Egan Finds prize.