‘Sexing’ Small Finds

Abstract

John Clayton in 1880, when discussing why Coventina's Well was full of artefacts, put forward the hypothesis that 'lovesick damsels cast into the Well their spare trinkets in the hope of obtaining the countenance of the Goddess in their views'.'To these interesting ladies we are doubtless indebted for the brooches, rings, and beads found in the Well' (Clayton 1880: 31).In 1979 Charles Daniels wrote of the buildings, referred to as 'chalets', discovered during his excavations at Housesteads: 'both Mr Gillam and the writer were struck by the preponderance of brooches and other trinkets at Housesteads XIII.To the writer this suggested that the chalets had been married quarters of some sort' (Daniels 1980: 189).Both archaeologists, separated by one hundred years of improved archaeological techniques, were basing their hypotheses on the premise that there were certain small finds which could be identified as having been used or worn by men and others only by women.With the recent development of interest in the topic of gender in archaeology many researchers are being tempted to base their theories of space allocation/role/status, etc., on the evidence of small finds.This paper looks at some groups of finds from Romano-British contexts, traditionally regarded as 'female', in order to see if there really are classes of artefact which might be assigned to gendermight be termed 'male' or 'female'.Many archaeologists have continued to follow Clayton and Daniels' view that brooches are indicative of a female presence despite the overwhelming evidence for men wearing brooches throughout the period of Roman Britain.Almost every military and civilian tombstone where the deceased is

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