In Dutch, with English summaries at the end of every chapter, this book is neatly structured and easy to use, although at a bookshelf-stressing 2.72 kg (exactly 6 lbs), the ease is cognitive, not physical. As with all publications, any attempt to match weight to effort will never convey the reality of the work needed to produce it. It is principally aimed at archaeologists and metal-detector users. Initially the authors were motivated by three things: the absence of certain brooch types from the Netherlands, assumptions regarding dates and provenances that were not validated by the evidence, and a desire to clarify the terminology. In a variety of ways they ended up taking their research much further than these things suggest, not least because they now view the work as a pilot study for the Portable Antiquities of the Netherlands scheme, and many of the detector-users who allowed the brooches in their collections to be photographed and catalogued now contribute to PAN.

The authors’ dataset includes over 20,000 brooches running from the Iron Age to the medieval period, and, as well as presenting an easily used typology, they have looked closely at the forms in use during the cultural transitions and various social contexts within that date range. They have also devised meaningful ways of comparing assemblages. The chapters on terminology and earlier research are short, easing the reader into the typology, which presents 91 types and a few unique pieces. A type might cover quite a large series of brooches, e.g. Alésia-Aucissas, or a smaller grouping, e.g. enamelled bow brooches with ‘construction 10’ hinges. Within each type are sections on definition, subdivision and variants, date and distribution, an English summary, and a tabular overview of the number of known examples and date to/from by subtype/variant. The accompanying drawings are as neat and concise as the text and show the brooches in the ‘head’ down/‘foot’ up position, as worn. There is a distribution map for each type, although subtypes are not distinguished. This simplifies navigation through the types, which are usefully cross-referenced to some other major typologies, although sadly not to Don Mackreth (Brooches in Late Iron Age and Roman Britain (2011)).

Ch. 5 examines the methods of brooch manufacture and the alloys used, and the social or cultural contexts of each. Ch. 6 looks more closely at social and cultural contexts through the lenses of chronology, typology (types and subtypes), distribution and site type. Ch. 7 extends this with a more theoretical excursus on brooch biographies from production to recycling; both are exceedingly useful, and for academic readers perhaps the core of this book. The final chapter is one that would gladden the heart of Vera Evison, the distinguished professor of Anglo-Saxon archaeology, who warned back in 1981 against leaping to conclusions from distribution maps (‘Distribution maps and England in the first two phases’, in V.I. Evison (ed.), Angles, Saxons and Jutes. Essays presented to J.N.L. Myres (1981), 126–67). Here the authors discuss the factors, ancient and modern, that can affect what is found where, such as search strategy (including tolerance or otherwise of metal-detecting), land use and soil conditions. Finally, a list of the findspots is coded by country and province, and on the plates that follow this coding is extended to cover individual brooches, thus providing a unique reference number for each. They are also labelled by type, allowing the user to refer back to findspot or typology as required.

The authors are to be congratulated on a volume that is useful, succinct or discursive as necessary, well presented and easily navigated. It says something about the state of archaeology today that this valuable analytical study was done pro bono publico, having been self-funded by Heeren and van der Feijst from inception to printing and publishing, with friends rallying round to help with the practical aspects of production. Its impact is evident in the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam's PAN project.