The equal-armed dreirundel brooches: A trace of cross-cultural interactions?

For a long time, the Dreirundel brooch was only found on the Continent and was generally considered a Continental type. However, a few scholars suggested that an especially large brooch from Farsleben was Scandinavian. In the late 1990s, a number of Dreirundel brooches turned up at Uppåkra, and a discussion of the cultural affiliation was initiated. Since then, the number of Dreirundel brooches in Scandinavia has increased greatly. Clearly, the large Dreirundel brooch with a pronounced bow dominates in Scandinavia, whereas the small ones with hardly any bow are only found on the Continent and in Kent in Britain. 50 The amount of Scandinavian Dreirundel brooches in Scandinavia is now so large that it gives meaning to analysing the type, concerning typology and chronology as well as distribution, and discussing its relationship with the Continental Dreirundel brooch. The two main groups seem to overlap in the Thuringian area and farther northwards. Actually, the same areas in which a number of Scandinavian brooch types are common, such as small equal-armed brooches and beak brooches, thus indicating a Scandinavian influence in this area.