AmS-Skrifter covers the field of archaeology, including various themes like archaeological method and theory, interdiciplinary studies, museology, heritage management, conservation studies, field work and practice.
The Raven’s Eye. Stylistic references to sight and vision as symbols of knowledge and power
In many cultures throughout history, eye symbolism has a special function in connection with religion, mythology, and superstition. In some mythologies, eyes are linked to birds and their ability to be omnipresent and gather information. In Old Norse written sources, strong, piercing eyes can symbolise power, masculinity, and royal descent, and there is a special eye symbolism associated with the knowledge and esoteric insight that surrounds the one-eyedness of the main god Odin. In this paper, decorative rivets on high-status metal objects from the 5th to 8th centuries AD are interpreted as a stylistic imitation of the characteristic eyes of ravens. The paper takes a closer look at the use of these rivets in relation to eye symbolism in the Scandinavian archaeological material and iconography from the period ca. 200 to 700 AD, drawing further on personal names referring to eyes and ravens and the relations to Old Norse mythology. We suggest that the raven-eye rivets can be seen as representations of Odin’s all-seeing eye and thus his quasi-physical presence, as a way of animating objects, or as symbols of esoteric knowledge. They are therefore interpreted as stylistic traits that were a part of a power symbolism of the elite.
Copyright (c) 2026 Anne Nørgård Jørgensen, Sofie Laurine Albris https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
On the iconography of the gold foil figures from Hauge
The 16 gold foil figures from Hauge depict a man and a woman embracing each other. This scene is very common on Scandinavian gold foils of the Merovingian Period and often is interpreted as a pair of gods or as a wedding rite. What particularly distinguishes the find from Hauge is a staff or plant stem that the woman seems to be holding in her hand. In this paper, I will explore the meaning of this plant, which can also be seen on other Iron- and Viking-age pictorial representations and, against the background of a very rich literary and runic tradition, can be understood as an allium plant, a leek. Since antiquity as well as in the north, this plant has been attributed magical powers and healing properties and was associated with fertility and sexuality.
Copyright (c) 2026 Sigmund Oehrl https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
The 2011 discovery of an Early-medieval cemetery in Bergkamen, featuring notably the burial of a man with rich grave goods, highlights extensive cultural contacts during this period. The presence of multiple shields, unusual in Merovingian-period burials, but well-known from Vendel-period graves in Scandinavia, hints at dueling practices or high-status burial customs that apparently had come to be known to the man buried in Westphalia. The grave's rich inventory and the inclusion of items typically reserved for the upper social echelons suggest that the individual held a significant rank within his society, potentially as a leader or a warrior of high repute. This grave provides valuable insights into the funeral practices and social structures of Early-medieval Germany, particularly in the Westphalian region.
Copyright (c) 2026 Eva Cichy, Ulrich Lehmann https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Landscape, places of knowledge, and religion on Iron-age Bornholm
This paper addresses religious knowledge from a landscape perspective and explores different ways knowledge in a past oral society could have been embedded in and circulated through space and materiality. Drawing on Christian Jacob’s concept of lieux de savoir, the article focuses on the island of Bornholm in the Iron Age, investigating various scales of knowledge transmission. It looks at knowledge in relation to central places, sacral place names, and monumental communication lines, as well as to gold bracteates and gold foil figures. Through the examples, the paper reflects on the production and social distribution of knowledge and differences between open and concealed communication, common knowledge shared by all, and esoteric knowledge passed on in narrowly defined circles.
Copyright (c) 2026 Sofie Laurine Albris https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Nithijo in Illerup and his colleague in Thorsberg
The spoils of war from Roman-period southern Scandinavia offer a wide range of possibilities for analysis and interpretation, also with regard to the production conditions of fine smiths in the 3rd century AD. One striking aspect of this is that for the first time a comprehensive serial production of spears, javelins and shield bosses, which often comprised several hundred pieces, can be proven. This new production process also found its way into silversmithing, as the elaborate shield fittings from llerup, deposit A, show. The combination of Roman and Germanic elements in the equipment of military elites is striking and has been discussed in the literature since Conrad Engelhardt’s discoveries on Thorsberg Moor. Current research into the finds from Thorsberg Moor has revealed a wealth of fascinating individual observations. Through the concept of “conscious or active reception” as a process of appropriation and artistic transformation, these phenomena can now be conclusively summarised in a model that can explain the relevance of this process, especially for the social elites of the later Roman Period in the barbaricum.
the concept of “active or conscious reception”
Copyright (c) 2026 Claus von Carnap-Bornheim https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
An Unusual treasure find of the 3rd century from Suluc in Dobruja (Romania) with fragments of a Scandinavian snake-head arm ring
In 1911, a most remarkable treasure find from the last third of the 3rd century was discovered in Suluc in Dobruja, Romania. It contained four Roman gold coins (Hostilian and Gallienus), the gold head of an emperor’s bust, two silver cups of the Leuna Type, a gold crossbow brooch and three gold arm rings. One of them is a snake-head arm ring of Hildebrand’s Type C. The treasure from Suluc is extraordinary, as a comparable composition does not exist elsewhere in the eastern part of the Roman Empire. There, deposits of the 3rd century mainly contained coins, and occasionally precious-metal jewellery. Silverware, on the other hand, has been deposited more frequently only since the 4th century. It is therefore possible that the find from Suluc was hidden by a non-resident in the Roman Empire. As some of the objects already were in second- or even third-hand use and obviously were worn as jewellery or as “trophies of war”, it is likely that the treasure is connected with the numerous Gothic incursions into the Roman Empire in the second half of the 3rd century.
Copyright (c) 2026 Dieter Quast https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Crampons – Late Iron-age everyday items and/or artefacts with sacred meaning?
The question is whether crampons, ordinary artefacts in everyday use on icy roads, also may have had a sacred meaning. The notion that they did is supported by Old Norse literature: in G.sle Sursson's saga, it is mentioned twice that it was customary to bind helskór to a dead man’s feet. After a description of crampons for horses and people, I have selected Valsgärde and Birka, two well-known burial grounds from the second half of the first millennium in the Mälar valley in eastern Sweden, to study the frequency of crampons and their distribution according to grave type and the sex of the interred. Crampons are rather common and occur in both men’s and women’s graves and in both inhumations and cremations. An exception seems to be children’s graves: in Birka, there probably are at least 80–100 children’s inhumations, and only in one of them a crampon has been found. Strangely enough, there are several examples where a dead person was provided with a horse crampon. Philologist Dag Strömbäck has commented upon the mentioning of helskór in Gisli’s saga. He points out that translators have misunderstood the significance of the custom and strongly rejects their suggestion that the shoes were supposed to fasten the dead person into the grave and prevent him from returning to the world of the living as a ghost. To Strömbäck, it is obvious that the purpose of helskór was to help the deceased persons on their long and arduous journey to the Other World. I find Strömbäck’s argumentation strong and sound, and I join his opinion.
Copyright (c) 2026 Anne-Sofie Gräslund https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Iron-cased cloisonné brooches from the early medieval cemetery of Harmignies (Prov. Hainaut, Belgium)
In this article, the Mero-Jewel project (BRAIN-be 2.0) presents its first production-focused research results regarding iron-cased cloisonné brooches from the Merovingian cemetery of Harmignies. The aim is to elucidate technical aspects of production to possible differentiate artisanal tendencies or shared knowledge, which would help identify the network of production and exchange in which these objects circulated. To this effect, the composition of these brooches is discussed, and key observations are made regarding techniques, material composition and decoration. While specific workshops remain undefined, the article discusses future avenues of research while considering the large amount of data retrieved from this relatively small, yet representative sample.
Copyright (c) 2026 Britt Claes, Femke Lippok, Elke Otten, Helena Wouters https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
The Rosette Fibulas and the Social Strategies of the Late Roman Iron Age
During 2018-2022, the North Jutland Museums excavated large parts of one of three closely located burial grounds by the farm Grønhøjgård southeast of Aalborg, Northern Jutland. Both the graves, their content, and the general character of the site stand out from the region's rich record of contemporary burial grounds, and the rich and varied find material from the site forms the picture of a sacral site without precise parallels from Iron Age Denmark. Among the finds from the burial ground are ten rosette fibulas. The rosette fibulas, found in good numbers in many regions across Denmark, are everywhere else only represented by one-four copies at the individual find locations. This paper presents the fibulas from the Grønhøjgård burial ground and discusses the social significance of the rosette fibula. It is argued that the rosette fibulas may be viewed as a tool of communication that conveyed symbolic meaning at several levels and thus served multiple purposes in a Late Roman social landscape where the roles of some highborn women were changing markedly.
Rosette fibula, Late Roman Iron Age, Social strategies, Gender archaeology
Copyright (c) 2026 Torben Trier Christiansen https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
This paper presents a comparison of Scandinavian spear heads of the Vennolum type through the use of Principal Component Analysis in order to examine the sustainability of an alleged supra-regionality of weapon typology in early 3rd century Scandinavia. It shows that such a supra-regional similarity is exaggerated. There is considerable variation within type Vennolum spear heads and some of these variations have clear regional tendencies.
Copyright (c) 2026 Rasmus Birch Iversen https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Production, Distribution, and Use of Standard and ‘Rogue’ Migration Period Gold Bracteates
Studies of Migration Period gold bracteates often have focused on the iconography of these fascinating yet enigmatic objects. An enduring secondary interest has been the attempt to understand the technology by which they were produced. In this essay, I examine how three approaches—close observation of bracteates and the dies from which they were struck, modern experiments to reproduce early medieval goldsmiths’ techniques, and analysis of geographic patterns of the distribution of bracteate find places—can help us comprehend more about how and where bracteates were made. While most bracteates can be grouped according to iconographic and stylistic features, some examples depart considerably from typical bracteate iconographic choices or display unusual details produced by unconventional techniques. The term ‘rogue’ is introduced by the author to refer to such bracteates, and with the proposal that some of these rogue pieces may have been fabricated by smiths who did not have access to metal dies or did not have the ability to make beaded edge wire or sturdy suspension loops. In addition, it is noted that many pieces that iconographically deviate from established family groups have been discovered in locations geographically peripheral to other members of their iconographic groups, and in some cases, irregular iconography and atypical techniques intersect.
Copyright (c) 2026 Nancy Wicker https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
The number of linear projects such as transmission lines, pipelines, and roads and cables within solar parks increases rapidly due to changing needs for sustainable energy and energy infrastructure. While the supervision of trenches is undoubtedly valuable, this type of archaeology also holds certain restraints, and the results are not necessarily comparable to systematically excavated sites. According to the current recommendations of the Danish Agency of Culture and Palaces, the solar parks need not be systematically examined, but it is argued here, that they pose an immanent threat to our cultural landscapes. Due to the increasing number of such projects, it is becoming increasingly urgent to address certain methodological problems and to increase the awareness of potential threats to the archaeological remains.
Copyright (c) 2026 Pernille Kruse https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Iron Age Norway – an inverted pear-shaped society against the state?
The unification of Norway is a central theme for historians and archaeologists alike. Despite increasing hierarchization, the emergence of local power centers, and the gradual development of larger political entities from the Roman Period, Norway was not unified until the end of the Viking Age at the earliest. In my opinion, the absence of a state is the key political characteristic of Iron Age society. Therefore, I replace the commonly raised question “what caused the unification of Norway?” with the related, but different “how did Western Scandinavia remain stateless for so long?” Inspired by anarchist theory and social anthropological works, I will emphasize the importance of identity politics and present a model that takes into account numerous contemporary high-status environments.
Copyright (c) 2026 Lars Erik Gjerpe https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Household ecology, gender and funerary rites in the 4th or 5th century AD
The Tune runestone is a funerary memorial, first recorded in 1627, at which date it had been incorporated into the stone wall enclosing the churchyard of the parish of Tune, near Sarpsborg in .stfold. Its earlier history has to be reconstructed, and while there is evidence that provides clues to its earliest contexts, the date at which the inscription was made is difficult to pin down. Linguistic features of the inscription and the way it has been laid out on the stone are characteristic of very early runestones from Norway, but even so it could be either of the Late Roman Iron Age or the early Migration Period. In any case, the inscription clearly documents important facets of the social and economic circumstances in which it was made. Those show how valuable it will be when scholarship and science advance to the point at which they can locate the memorial stone in a more precise historical context.
Copyright (c) 2026 John Hines https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Technology – art – identity. Zoomorphic spurs in the light of metallographic analysis
In the 11th century AD, spurs with zoomorphic decoration, cast from copper alloy, were attributes of elite horsemen. The pair of spurs from grave 42/2009 at an Early-medieval cemetery at Ciepłe, Pomeranian Voivodeship, Poland, are the best preserved example in Central Europe. Further specimens are known from Lutomiersk, Cerkiewnik, Wrocław, Lubniewice, Kumachevo, and Skegrie. The spur fragments share formal similarities, which suggest that they were made in one place for a narrow circle of individuals belonging to the Early-medieval elite and served as a form of identifier for them. Judging from the finds’ geographical distribution, they were probably made on West Slavic territory. The discoveries in neighbouring areas are extremely interesting; perhaps they are evidence of the presence of members of a Slavic elite in these areas? The spurs’ rich zoomorphic decoration in the form of serpent/dragon and horse/cattle imagery is in line with reconstructed Slavic cosmological and perhaps eschatological beliefs. However, the imagery can also be interpreted within the context of Scandinavian and Baltic mythology. The similarity of the spurs, indicating replicable technology and alloys, suggested that it might be fruitful to examine selected finds using Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) and Energy Dispersive X-ray Spectroscopy (EDS), through which significant differences in the amount of zinc (Zn) were observed. The proportions of the alloys are similar, but were not strictly maintained from object to object.
Copyright (c) 2026 Paweł Szczepanik, Sławomir Wadyl https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Through an interdisciplinary investigation carried out by four researchers we sought to increase knowledge of Migrationperiod technology and aesthetics. By combining our expertise in archaeology and material science in a detailed inspection of a 6th century brooch, we attempted to understand its life story and the convergence of knowledge behind the elaborate masterpiece. The reverse of the brooch revealed traces of use-wear and a remarkably well-preserved pin arrangement. The use of raw materials suggests a reorientation among artisans from animal ornaments to metals in the terminal phase of the Migration Period: The aesthetic qualities of our brooch are no longer dominated by the chaotic entangled masses of zoomorphic iconography, but rather replaced by a calmer expression of geometric shapes of contrasting colours and materials which highlight the qualities of the metals.
Copyright (c) 2026 Unn Pedersen, Elna Siv Kristoffersen, Nathalie Hanna, Kidane Fanta Gebremariam https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Amber workshops in central Poland during the Roman Period
Archaeological research conducted since the 1960s in the western Mazovia (central region of Poland), has unveiled an extensive iron production centre from the late pre-Roman and Roman periods, referred to as the Mazovian Centre of Metallurgy. This centre, established by the people of the Przeworsk culture, who inhabited vast areas of southern and central Poland from the 2nd century BC to the midd 5th century AD, indicates a significant scale of local iron production, constituting a crucial aspect of the regional economy. However, iron production was not the only branch of the local economy. Relics of amber workshops have been recorded on several settlements. Within them, remains of all stages of amber processing have been discovered: lumps of raw material, semi-finished and finished products (mainly beads). The presence of amber workshops in the western Mazovia is somewhat surprising, as amber does not occur naturally in this part of Poland. Its influx could have been linked to a long-distance exchange, including iron produced in the region.
Copyright (c) 2026 Adam Cieśliński, Marcin Woźniak https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
To date, little is known about the craft productions in Quentovic. However, the artefacts discovered leave no doubt. At the heart of the settlement along the river Canche, the work of amber, metal, antler and glass is clearly documented from the very first occupations at the end of the 6th, until the site was abandoned around the 10th century. On the southern plateau of the valley, a Carolingian potter’s workshop is in use during the 9th century, located at the edge of the monastic estate of Saint-Josse. Our paper will present the current knowledge of these productions, their location and their integration into the site. It will also raise the question of the involvement of the abbeys established near the portus in the exploitation of the resources of the lower valley of the Canche, Quentovic's host estuary.
Copyright (c) 2026 Ines Leroy https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Since the 1970s, fantasy gaming has grown from a small niche hobby to a global multi-billion-dollar industry. Whether played around a tabletop or online, millions of people, including many archaeologists, immerse themselves in imagined worlds or pasts during their spare time. There is no doubt such games provide much-needed enjoyment and escapism for their players. But do some of them also hold the potential to yield real insights into past societies, and can they help us get just a little closer to the lived experiences of our ancestors and the societies and worlds they inhabited? The modern gaming hobby and industry may be a very recent phenomenon, but the human imagination, and mythologies and cosmologies that include the fantastic, are ancient aspects of the human condition; does the fantasy genre, and roleplaying games specifically, have the potential to provide genuine insights into the past? This paper explores such questions. It considers both the value of gaming for those already engaged in the serious study of the past, as well as the potential that the hobby offers as a gateway to an interest in archaeology and history for the millions of gamers worldwide.
Copyright (c) 2026 Julia Rawcliffe, Andrew Richardson https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Technologies on display. The Storhaug ship burial
Ship burials were grand events in late Iron Age society. Great efforts were invested to make a spectacle in memory of the deceased ruler and to promote the new rulers. No other single context has provided us with such a wealth of material culture from the period as the Oseberg ship burial. The Storhaug ship burial in southwestern Norway (CE 779) is an early example of the same phenomenon. The article examines the various components in the Storhaug burial to highlight the technologies on display here. In the burial event, imports and exports, weapon technology, metallurgy, food production technology, transportation technology, woodcraft, and construction technology were activated and displayed within the frame of a ritual technology. While most types of technologies in society were represented, it was a conscious selection. In the paper, food production technology and construction technology are explored as examples. The Storhaug burial complex is compared especially with the better-preserved Oseberg and Gokstad burials. Although significant similarities are identified with Oseberg, important differences also show that ship burials were not one set material complex. The focus on various technologies reflected renegotiations of the roles of the king and society, guided by the regional context and traditions.
Copyright (c) 2026 Håkon Reiersen https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Oval brooches are considered one of the most diagnostic elements of female Viking costume, and they frequently are used to indicate that Scandinavian women accompanied their seafaring menfolk when settling new lands. But while they were known in virtually every other area of Scandinavian settlement in the British Isles, they were missing entirely in the Isle of Man, which presumably was conquered and settled by Hiberno-Vikings after about 870. Their conspicuous absence – and general lack of securely sexed female burials among the Viking graves in Man – gave rise to the assumption that those settlers were all-male groups of warriors, who subsequently married local Christian women, and this formed the basis for far-reaching conclusions regarding the early Viking-Age in the Island. This long-lived notion has been challenged in 2015, but in December 2018, the discovery of two oval brooches in the Isle of Man confirmed the doubts about the previous conclusions regarding the nature of interethnic social contact on the late-ninth-century Man. This paper presents the currently unpublished Manx oval brooches, reconstructs the now-obsolete former interpretations and the objections to them, and discusses the impact of this single new discovery on the scholarly perception of early-Viking-Age Manx history.
Copyright (c) 2026 Dirk Steinforth https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Manufacturing and secondary treatment of gold foil figures
Gold foil figures form a fairly standardised class of archaeological finds. Their overall production process appears to be fundamentally simple. Nevertheless, there still are many unanswered questions regarding the technique and the timing of the various work steps (chaîne opératoire). This article sheds light on the theoretical options for the fabrication. The focus is on detectable alterations to already finished gold foil figures: for example subsequent manipulations on some pieces, such as the attachment of additional gold strips, which are apparently intended to represent neck rings. Actions like this either belong to the usual and proper usage of gold foil figures in the context of the related cult, or they are evidence of later adaptations of individual gold foil figures, possibly for other religious or even secular practices. Other pieces show various signs of damage such as scratches or puncture marks, some of which appear to have been inflicted deliberately. However, as this kind of manipulation cannot clearly be assigned to a specific time, and considerations about their purpose remain problematic.
Copyright (c) 2026 Alexandra Pesch https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
9. Together in Death: Demography and Funerary Practices in Contemporary Multiple Internments in Irish Medieval Burial Grounds
Contemporary multiple interment is a minority burial practice occasionally encountered in Medieval Christian burial grounds that is suggestive of the death of two or more individuals at the same time followed by a conscious decision by the living to bury those individuals together. The study reviews the evidence from thirty-one Irish burial grounds (spanning AD 300 to 1700) to explore the nature of the demographic combinations apparent in these contemporary multiple interments. Drawing upon information gleaned from contemporary historical sources, an attempt will be made to proffer possible scenarios to account for the different demographic configurations apparent in the burials. Funerary practices, in particular, positioning of the bodies, will be explored to see if insights can be gained concerning the nature of the potential social relationships that may have existed between those interred together in each grave. The findings from Ireland will be compared to those of studies of similar burials in Anglo-Saxon England.
Copyright (c) 2019 AmS-Skrifter https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Bronze Age and Early Iron Age house and settlement development at Forsandmoen, south-western Norway
Copyright (c) 2020 AmS-Skrifter https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Intentional fire management in the Holocene with emphasis on hunter-gatherers in the Mesolithic in South Norway
The geographical and altitudinal distribution of the data from 68 palynological sites has allowed the synthesis of a relationship between the microscopic charcoal curves and people over time. Most of the selected sites were of archaeological interest. Quantitative methods, qualitative methods and topics about the relation between fire, charcoal, nature and people in a forested landscape were used. Palynological sites are better suited to revealing fire management activities in the Mesolithic than archaeological sites because intentional burning of vegetation was carried out in areas related to lakes and mires. Climate is ruled out as the cause of the charcoal occurrence because there are no correlations between inferred regional climatic changes and the charcoal. This suggests that an anthropogenic explanation for the charcoal occurrence is the most plausible. There are many indications that hunter-gatherers in the Mesolithic used fire management and that fire was an important part of cultural practice associated with settlement, population density and resource needs. Fire management was a common and regular work task integrated with other activities. The traditional lifestyle of foragers may have included customary controlled burning practices as a part of manipulating the ecological succession and the modification of vegetation communities. Burning may have been central to hunting and gathering practices and the key to many social and cultural activities. The timing of burns may have been related to weather conditions, time of year and annual cultural events. The different pattern of temporal changes in charcoal abundance suggests that no widespread burning (i.e. on a regional or landscape-scale) had taken place. The anthropogenic burning was different from natural fires. The fires set by people were smaller and less intense. Selected areas of vegetation were burnt on a recurrent basis. They were predictable, almost immediately productive, creating mosaics in a complex pattern of vegetation of burnt and unburnt patches. Because they reduced available fuel, they provided protection against the disruptions of natural fires. The occurrence of natural fires is irregular, often with long intervals in between; they are uncontrolled, unpredictable, destructive to the vegetation and potentially dangerous for people. In order for the recorded charcoal occurrences to be considered the result of natural fires, sites close to each other should have had similar charcoal occurrences, but this is not the case. An often low and continuous charcoal presence in a more or less dense forest in the Mesolithic indicates a continuous production of charcoal, which is better interpreted as people’s use of fire than continuous natural fires. The data confirm that anthropogenic fires were much more frequent than natural fires in the Mesolithic. Foragers did not simply adjust to their environment, but had an active, dynamic relationship with nature, using intentional burning both to modify and to maintain the environment. Intentional burning of vegetation during the Mesolithic is suggested to have been enacted by foragers who controlled fire for many purposes and widened its application to preserve their basis of existence, for instance to improve the outcome of hunting and for communication. Two periods with a high frequency of maximum values of charcoal in the pollen diagrams are recorded in the early (9800–6000 cal yr BP) and the late part of the Holocene (younger than 2400 cal yr BP), respectively, and not at the transition to the Neolithic. This shows that early farmers did not produce as much charcoal—measured in maxima—as the huntergatherers did before the transition to the Neolithic, and confirms foragers’ intentional burning as part of Mesolithic land-use in South Norway. The first occurrences and high frequency of maximum values of charcoal pre-date the transition to the Neolithic and thus it can be ruled out that they were correlated with agrarian cultures in South Norway. It is possible that the selective burning carried out by foragers in vegetation paved the way for pioneer farmers to convert land for agricultural purposes. In that sense, the neolithisation was not very revolutionary, as the knowledge of using fire to manipulate and open the forest had a long pre-agrarian history. As the path of the charcoal curve following the transition to the Neolithic is often interpreted as the result of forest clearance by farmers, a fire-related woodland change interpretation for the Mesolithic might also be used. After the transition to the Neolithic, the density of the forest in many areas decreased and allowed more charcoal deposition. The density of the forest affected the charcoal curve resulting in low values before the transition to the Neolithic compared to the values after the transition. This is a strong indication that the charcoal curve during the Mesolithic mainly originated as an effect of human activities. That the density of the forest in the Mesolithic changed more than the traditionally accepted view is probably the result of intentional fire management.
Copyright (c) 2016 AmS-Skrifter https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
The ambition of this monograph is to analyse a limited number of topics regarding house types and thus social and economic change from the extensive material that came out of the archaeological excavation that took place at Forsandmoen (“Forsand plain”), Forsand municipality, Rogaland, Norway during the decade 1980–1990, as well as the years 1992, 1995 and 2007. The excavation was organised as an interdisciplinary research project within archaeology, botany (palynological analysis from bogs and soils, macrofossil analysis) and phosphate analysis, conducted by staff from the Museum of Archaeology in Stavanger (as it was called until 2009, now part of the University of Stavanger). A large phosphate survey project had demarcaded a 20 ha settlement area, among which 9 ha were excavated using mechanical topsoil stripping to expose the habitation traces at the top of the glaciofluvial outwash plain of Forsandmoen. A total of 248 houses could be identified by archaeological excavations, distributed among 17 house types. In addition, 26 partly excavated houses could not be classified into a type. The extensive house material comprises three types of longhouses, of which there are as many as 30–40 in number, as well as four other longhouse types, of which there are only 2–7 in number. There were nine other house types, comprising partly small dwelling houses and partly storage houses, of which there were 3–10 in number. Lastly, there are 63 of the smallest storage house, consisting of only four postholes in a square shape. A collection of 264 radiocarbon dates demonstrated that the settlement was established in the last part of the 15th century BC and faded out during the 7th–8th century AD, encompassing the Nordic Bronze Age and Early Iron Age. As a number of houses comprising four of the house types were excavated with the same methods in the same area by the same staff, it is a major goal of this monograph to analyse thoroughly the different features of the houses (postholes, wall remains, entrances, ditches, hearths, house-structure, find-distribution) and how they were combined and changed into the different house types through time. House material from different Norwegian areas as well as Sweden, Denmark, Germany and the Netherlands is included in comparative analyses to reveal connections within the Nordic area. Special attention has been given to the interpretation of the location of activity areas in the dwelling and byre sections in the houses, as well as the life expectancy of the two main longhouse types. Based on these analyses, I have presented a synthesis in 13 phases of the development of the settlement from Bronze Age Period II to the Merovingian Period. This analysis shows that, from a restricted settlement consisting of one or two small farms in the Early Bronze Age, it increases slightly throughout the Late Bronze Age to 2–3 solitary farms to a significantly larger settlement consisting of 3–4 larger farms in the Pre-Roman Iron Age. From the beginning of the early Roman Iron Age, the settlement seems to increase to 8–9 even larger farms, and through the late Roman Iron Age, the settlement increases to 12–13 such farms, of which 6–7 farms are located so close together that they would seem to be a nucleated or village settlement. In the beginning of the Migration Period, there were 16–17 farms, each consisting of a dwelling/byre longhouse and a workshop, agglomerated in an area of 300 x 200 m where the farms are arranged in four E–W oriented rows. In addition, two farms were situated 140 m NE of the main settlement. At the transition to the Merovingian Period, radiocarbon dates show that all but two of the farms were suddenly abandoned. At the end of that period, the Forsandmoen settlement was completely abandoned. The abandonment could have been caused by a combination of circumstances such as overexploitation in agriculture, colder climate, the Plague of Justinian or the collapse of the redistributive chiefdom system due to the breakdown of the Roman Empire. The abrupt abandonment also coincides with a huge volcanic eruption or cosmic event that clouded the sun around the whole globe in AD 536–537. It is argued that the climatic effect on the agriculture at this latitude could induce such a serious famine that the settlement, in combination with the other possible causes, was virtually laid waste during the ensuing cold decade AD 537–546.
2. Funerary Treatment of Immature Deceased in Neolithic Collective Burial Sites in France. Were Children Buried with Adults?
In France, collective burial sites of the Late Neolithic period (3600-2100 BC) include a variety of structures ranging from simple pits and natural caves to hypogea and megalithic structures. The management of these graves raises questions about their representativeness and about burial practices involving non-adult individuals. This study of funerary selection based on age-at-death compares the results obtained for different sites and offers several potential interpretations concerning the integration of immature individuals in these collective tombs based on their age. The study highlights a particular selection observed in various funerary structures and a chronological difference between northern and southern France. These first results lead to a discussion of distinct cultural choices among different geographical areas.
3. Personal Relationships between Co-buried Individuals in the Central European Early Bronze Age
People were usually buried in single, individual graves in Early Bronze Age Austria and the surrounding areas, but there are some exceptions. In burials of two or more people, it is often the way that bodies were placed in relation to each other that suggests familiarity, if not family. This paper reviews the social relations expressed through co-burials, and aims to better understand relationships between couples, siblings, or parents and children. The chapter particularly highlights mother-child relationships and presents graves of pregnant women and graves of women and children buried together, in order to understand how such individuals were treated by their societies in death. Ages and age gaps between co-buried individuals reveal the most likely ages for life-transitions such as first motherhood and the addition of new family members. The analysis compares evidence from two different, but contemporary cultural groups (Únětice and Unterwölbing) to shed light on prehistoric gender relations, family structures and social organisation through the lens of the burial record.
Evolutionary biology and ethnographic analogy suggest that grandparenting has been critical to the development of human life history and may even explain modern human longevity. However, the roles and functions of grandparents have not previously been investigated in later prehistoric contexts. Ethnographic studies show that grandparents take on an extremely wide range of roles worldwide, whether this is teaching knowledge and skills, providing childcare, or even taking on parental roles and titles. In many cases, grandparents play a critical role in the support and socialization of children. Understanding the roles of grandparents thus has the potential to transform our understanding of prehistoric household and family structures. Through a case study of the Early Bronze Age Traisental in Austria, I explore potential methods for identification of grandparents in the past, and consider the effects of social formations on grandparenting.
5. White Hair and Feeding Bottles: Exploring Interactions Between Children and the Elderly in the Late Bronze Age Aegean
Scholarship on age and gender in prehistoric Greece has taken an adult-centric approach with focus placed mostly on young to middle-aged men and women and, as a result, two significant age groups – children and the elderly – have been widely neglected. Lacking a strong insight into attitudes that were shown towards these two age groups, however means that archaeologists do not really harbour a concept of the whole span of life in the cultures that developed in the Aegean region during the Late Bronze Age. Making children and the elderly visible in the archaeological record and examining their social roles, agency and interactions is vital for a better understanding of the social workings of the prehistoric Aegean world. Integrating an interdisciplinary methodology with a systematic study of the available material remains – ranging from the study of funerary contexts to iconographic sources and textual references, this study seeks to assess the evidence for childhood and old age in the Late Bronze Age Aegean, and to shed light − for the first time − on the interactions between the younger and older segments of the population in both life and death from the mid-seventeenth to the twelfth centuries BC.