The thesis identifies and discusses some fundamental changes that took place during the middle neolithic period in Sweden, with the introduction of the Boat Axe Culture. The possibility of intrepreting the Corded Ware Cultures by way of networks, identified through the regional designes of battle axes, are proposed. With the aid of a reconsideration of the typology of the Swedish boat axes, ethnographic examples of gift-exchanges, and a theoretical reappraisal of the implications of archaeological praxis for prehistorc life-worlds, new possibillities for interpreting the changing role of such prestige items as the boat-axes are presented. A new chronological scheme is also presented for the Swedish boat axes, with a tripartite division of the latter middle neolithic into MN BI-III. The value of the boat axe is further considered to be explicable only in terms of a prestige item, dependent on a system of exchange for its continual valuation. Central to this discussion is the relationship between value and exchange. Several regions within the Swedish Boat Axe Culture are identified, and the boat axes in two of these regions in the southern part of the Mälar valley are thoroughly examined. It is shown that during the cours of the Boat Axe period, the emphasis gradually changed from a regional to an intra-regional focus concerning the development of types and special designes of the boat axes. Identified similarities and dissimilarities of contemporary boat axes within and between regions are explained as a result of a parallel change in gift exchanges, from a regional focus to an intra-regional focus. An hierarchical ordering of the latter middle neolithic soceity is also identified, where only a portion of the boat-axes were selected as burial gifts. This development is chartered onto the broader neolithic development in Sweden, with special focus on the role of prestige items such as battle axes. A fundamental change is identified as taking place during the Boat Axe period, when the full implications of a prestige economy were implemented and the major strategies for power settled on the inter-regional level.

The nature of the relationship between the Pitted Ware Culture and the Boat Axe Culture has dominated Swedish Middle Neolithic research, since the question was raised a century ago. Basically, the debate is concerned with whether or not the two material cultures express two different ethnical groups. Proponents for the currently established perspective stress that the cultures represent two distinct ethnic groups. A large amount of research has focused on identifying differences between the two cultures in the archaeological record. This study will test an alternative approach to the archaeology of the Middle Neolithic. Rather than presuming an antithetical relationship between the two cultures attention will be given to investigating the relationship between the Pitted Ware Culture and the Boat Axe Culture. This will be done by a landscape centered approach. In the first case I will test the conventional opinion expressing that the two cultures are spatially separated to the coast and the inland. In addition, the analysis seeks to understand how different activities were located in relation to various landscape phenomena. In the second case study, phenomenology and current landscape theory combined with a viewshed GIS-analysis will form the basis for a discussion regarding the localisation and function of the Pitted Ware sites. In the third case I will discuss connective features of the Middle Neolithic landscapes in the Lake Hjälmaren area. Focus will be given to the long-term processes and the reproduction of the cultural landscapes over time. Based on the results, I will propose that the Middle Neolithic archaeological record, rather than being the result of two ethnic groups, express a dynamic and active society that manifests itself through a variety of different places, which were maintained for specific purposes.

This one-year master's thesis investigates the late part of the Middle Neolithic on the island of Gotland. This thesis has been written without the influence of a singular theoretical pespective, and has therefore seen input from the processual, and postprocessual theories. By using several perspectives, an attempt is made to view the material remains used in the most objective manner possible. The specific aim of this thesis is to investigate whether the Mid-Neolithic inhabitants of Gotland were a part of the Corded Ware culture (or as it is called in Sweden, the Battleaxe culture or the Boataxe culture). Most recent literature has concluded that Gotland was never a part of the Battlexe culture, though this thesis has discovered many parallels with the mainland culture, including the production of similar objects and ritual practices. There are indications that the Gotlandic culture also integrated traits from several other coastal regions of the Baltic Sea, something most Battle Axe settlements did not. After investigating all the data that have been linked with the Battleaxe culture, this thesis concludes that the people on the island of Gotland were not fully assimilated to the Battleaxe culture, but were approaching the culture in both a material and ritual aspects. This leaves the conclusion that the Gotlandic culture towards the end of the Middle Neolithic was somewhat of a hybrid.