Artefact biographies are a valuable means of conceptualising the relationships between people, places and objects in the past. It is rare, however, that the detailed contextual information required by such approaches can be extracted from the archaeological assemblages typically found in the often dense and confusing palimpsests of complex urban sites. Eighteenth- to twentieth-century ceramic wares associated with Oxbridge colleges provide one way of exploring this issue. Detailed historical records of property owners and tenants can be combined with ceramics linked to individual colleges by corporate markings such as coats of arms or badges. This enables fine-grained reconstructions which show, in many cases, that ordinary vessels had far from ordinary histories of use and discard.

Documenting a phenomenon that has previously been overlooked, this article examines the later stages of object biography in relation to Romano-British bracelets, namely, their modification and subsequent re-use as smaller rings. Re-use is shown to occur widely and is particularly associated with the late fourth to early fifth centuries a.d., with cut-down bracelets also found in early Anglo-Saxon cemeteries. The making of smaller rings from late Roman bracelets is demonstrated to be part of a wider phenomenon of re-use, repair and recycling at the end of the Roman period in Britain, with attendant implications of cultural and economic change. It is proposed that the transformation of these artefacts was accompanied by changes in meaning which undermine the apparent continuity that is seen in the extended lifespan of the original object. This in turn illuminates the way that wider cultural norms were gradually eroded in the fifth century. Through the study of these artefacts a new perspective is provided on the transition to post-Roman Britain and the relationship between this and the early Anglo-Saxon period.