The Quoit Brooch Style and Anglo-Saxon Settlement: A Casting and Recasting of Cultural Identity Symbols

The quoit brooch style, a decorative style of animal and geometric motifs, is unique to southern England in the fifth century AD, with the greatest concentration of such items occurring in Kent. Suzuki defines the style through an analysis of its design organisation, and, by comparing it with near-contemporary styles in England and on the continent, he identifies those features which make it unique. He argues that the quoit brooch style was made and remade as part of the process of construction of new group identities during the political uncertainties of the time, and sets the development of the style in the context of the socio-cultural dynamics of an emergent post-Roman society. The rigorous archaeological analysis of the style and the study of its historical implications in the light of written sources illuminate the wider issues of social interaction in a period of change, and the formation of cultural identity. SEIICHI SUZUKI did his Ph D in linguistics at the University of Texas at Austin, his MA in medieval studies at the University of York, and he is currently Professor of English and Germanic Studies at Kansai Gaidai University, Japan.