How to Date a Find: A Beginner’s Guide to UK Artefact Dating

You’ve just pulled something from the ground. It’s encrusted with soil, your heart is racing, and the first question that hits you — after “is this treasure?” — is almost always: how old is this thing? Dating a find is one of the most satisfying skills a detectorist can develop, and it’s far more accessible than most beginners realise. You don’t need a university degree or a laboratory. You need observation, good reference material, and an understanding of how British history left its mark in the soil.

This guide walks you through the practical methods, reliable resources, and key visual clues that will help you assign a date range to almost anything you dig up on a UK permission. From Roman coins to Victorian buttons, the clues are always there — you just need to know where to look.

Why Dating Your Finds Matters

Artefact dating isn’t just an intellectual exercise. Under the Treasure Act 1996 and its 2023 amendments, certain finds must be reported to your local coroner within 14 days of identification. The definition of Treasure includes items over 300 years old that meet specific criteria around metal content and context. Getting the date wrong — or simply not bothering — can mean failing a legal obligation.

Beyond the legal angle, accurate dating helps the Portable Antiquities Scheme (PAS) record your find properly. The PAS, run through the British Museum and Amgueddfa Cymru (National Museum Wales), maintains one of the most important archaeological databases in the world. Every well-dated record you contribute adds genuine scientific and historical value. Your find could be the piece that fills a gap in the distribution map of a particular coin type, or confirms a settlement existed in an area previously unknown.

Dating also protects you at rallies and club meetings. Experienced detectorists will always ask. Knowing your periods reflects your commitment to responsible detecting and earns you respect in the hobby.

Start With the Basics: Understanding British Historical Periods

Before you can date anything, you need a working mental map of British history. The following periods are the ones you’ll encounter most frequently in the field:

Prehistoric – Before 43 AD. This covers the Mesolithic, Neolithic, Bronze Age, and Iron Age. Finds include flint tools, bronze implements, and iron objects.
Roman – 43 AD to approximately 410 AD. Coins, brooches, pottery, and military equipment.
Early Medieval (Anglo-Saxon & Viking) – 410 AD to 1066. Some of the rarest and most significant UK finds fall into this category.
Medieval – 1066 to approximately 1500. A rich period for coins, seals, mounts, and dress accessories.
Post-Medieval – 1500 to 1700. Trade tokens, lead cloth seals, dress hooks, and early firearms fittings.
Early Modern – 1700 to 1900. Coins, military buttons, Georgian and Victorian personal items.
Modern – 1900 onwards. Usually not reportable unless of specific military or cultural interest.

Print this list out and keep it in your detecting bag alongside your finds box. Having a rough period in mind before you research further saves enormous time.

The First Clue Is Always the Metal

What your find is made of narrows the date range immediately. This is your first and fastest filter:

Bronze and Copper Alloy

Copper alloy objects appear across virtually every period from the Bronze Age onwards. However, the type of alloy and the construction method changed significantly over time. Roman copper alloy tends to be a leaded bronze, often quite dense. Medieval copper alloy objects were frequently made from latten (a brass-like alloy). By the Post-Medieval period, the alloy composition changed again as new smelting techniques arrived. A Finds Liaison Officer (FLO) can sometimes identify period from composition alone using XRF analysis.

Silver

Silver coinage was in widespread use from the early medieval period. The fineness of silver also changed — Roman silver coins (denarii) were debased dramatically in the 3rd century AD, which itself becomes a dating tool. The silver content of English coins is well documented through assay records held at the Royal Mint Museum in Llantrisant.

Gold

Gold objects are rare and almost always significant. Pre-Roman gold is typically high-purity. Roman gold coins (aurei and solidi) have consistent weights. Medieval gold coins were introduced under Edward III in 1344. Any gold object warrants immediate contact with your FLO.

Lead

Lead bale seals, spindle whorls, and cloth seals are predominantly medieval and post-medieval. Neolithic and Bronze Age lead objects are essentially non-existent in Britain, as lead smelting wasn’t practised here in any meaningful scale until the Roman period.

Iron

Iron corrodes heavily and is harder to date visually without specialist input. That said, shape and context remain useful indicators. Roman iron hobnails are distinctive. Medieval iron horseshoes changed profile over the centuries — a fact well-documented in equine archaeology literature.

Coins: The Detectorist’s Dating Shortcut

Coins are the single most dateable category of find, and the UK has an exceptionally well-documented numismatic record. If you find a coin, you can often pinpoint the date of manufacture to within a decade — sometimes to a specific year.

Roman Coins

The definitive reference is Roman Imperial Coinage (RIC), but for field use, most detectorists rely on David Sear’s Roman Coins and Their Values, available in five volumes covering the full Roman period. Online, the Online Coins of the Roman Empire (OCRE) database at numismatics.org is free and comprehensive. Learn to identify the obverse portrait — each emperor has distinctive features — and read the reverse legend. This alone will date most Roman coins.

Key identification points for Roman coins:

Pre-reform coinage (before Diocletian’s reforms in 294 AD) tends to be larger and more varied in silver content
Late Roman bronzes (4th century) are typically small, thin, and heavily debased
The radiate crown worn by the emperor on the obverse indicates a specific denomination (the antoninianus) and dates from 215–295 AD roughly

Medieval and Later British Coins

For British coins from the Saxon period through to the 20th century, the standard field reference is Coins of England and the United Kingdom by Spink & Son, published annually. The Spink catalogue is the industry bible and is found on the shelf of virtually every serious detectorist in the country. The British Museum’s Corpus of Early Medieval Coin Finds (EMC) is freely searchable online and is particularly useful for pre-Conquest coins.

Post-Conquest hammered coins (1066–1663) often carry a mint mark and monarch’s portrait. The Early English Coins resource at fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk provides a searchable image library from the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge, which holds one of Britain’s great coin collections.

Brooches and Dress Accessories: A Visual Typology Approach

After coins, brooches are probably the most commonly found dateable small find in Britain. The evolution of brooch types over two millennia is extraordinarily well documented.

Roman Brooches

Roman brooches (fibulae) changed type roughly every generation. The Hull typology, set out by M.R. Hull and refined by Don Mackreth in his two-volume Brooches in Great Britain and Ireland, remains the standard classification system. Key types to know:

Colchester brooch – First century AD, hinged pin, highly characteristic form
Aucissa brooch – Augustan to early first century, imported from the Continent
T-shaped and crossbow brooches – 3rd and 4th century, associated with military personnel
Dragonesque brooches – Characteristically British, roughly 1st–2nd century AD

Anglo-Saxon and Viking Brooches

These are rarer and more significant finds. Disc brooches, penannular brooches, and equal-armed brooches all have type sequences. The PAS database at finds.org.uk is your primary online reference here — search by object type and browse similar recorded examples with dates assigned by specialists.

Medieval and Post-Medieval Dress Pins and Accessories

Annular brooches (ring brooches) are classic medieval finds, typically 13th–15th century. Lead alloy badges from pilgrimage sites (Canterbury, Walsingham, Bury St Edmunds) are tightly datable and well-catalogued in the Corpus of Medieval Pilgrim Badges. The Medieval European Coinage project at Cambridge is a useful adjacent resource.

Using the Portable Antiquities Scheme Database Effectively

The PAS database at finds.org.uk is arguably the single most useful free tool available to UK detectorists. It holds over 1.7 million recorded finds, each with photographs, descriptions, period assignments, and often specialist commentary.

Here’s how to use it efficiently for dating:

Moving Forward

Once you have the fundamentals in place, the possibilities open up considerably. The UK offers fantastic opportunities for anyone interested in this hobby, and with the right foundation you will be well placed to make the most of them.