ABSTRACT
Radiocarbon dating offers the numismatist the welcome prospect of a totally independent scientific method of dating. In the early stages of the development of this technique, radiocarbon dates were insufficiently precise to be helpful to numismatists, but increasing refinements have resulted in much narrower date-ranges which may usefully be compared directly with those reached by numismatic evidence and reasoning. The relative chronology of the various coinages represented in Anglo-Saxon graves is largely secure, although some changes, which could have consequences for dating, remain possible. Establishing the absolute chronology of these coinages is more difficult. In the great majority of cases, the coins do not bear historically-datable regal names, and datingsequences have to be built up by deduction from evidence of varying reliability. External associations with more closely datable coins, comparisons with the contents of English and Continental hoards, metrology and the combination of multiple, interrelated factors have, however, resulted in a dating scheme which has remained broadly acceptable for twenty-five years. The evidence, incorporating new finds, has been worked over in detail during this time by a succession of specialists in the series, in particular Grierson and Blackburn (1986), Metcalf (1993-4) and Gannon (forthcoming), and the main chronological framework of the early Anglo-Saxon coinage has not required serious alteration.
