This article is an attempt to put forward the use of new digital techniques and data for understanding prehistoric landscapes. The starting point is that the specific characteristics of the landscape and of the sites included affect the interpretation. One character is the contemporary landscape and its topographies. Ancient landscapes can be successfully recreated digitally using GIS. By applying GIS methodology, a regression equation and new data, we reinvestigated an hypothesis proposed by Welinder in 1978 concerning the acculturation of the Pitted Ware Culture. The results indicate that a reconstruction of the landscape may alter the understanding of the Neolithic land use and the question of the relocation and termination of the Pitted Ware Culture at the end of Middle Neolithic B.

This thesis examines artefacts, raw materials and lithic technology between c. 9200–6200 cal BC in Eastern Central Sweden. The overall purpose of this study is to investigate when people first came to Eastern Central Sweden and where they came from. More precisely, it provides a typological, geo­graphical and chronological survey of artefacts and the use of different raw materials. The study deals with assemblages with artefacts from more than thirty archaeologically excavated sites and loose finds in Eastern Central Sweden. The objects consist of chubby pecked axes, core axes, flake axes, shaft hole picks, microliths and micro burins, points, burins, rulers, uni­facial blade core, conical cores, micro blade cores, blades, drills, re­touched blades and micro blades. The artefacts have been compared with established typologies and chronologies for the rest of the Nordic countries and to some extent Russia and the Baltic States. An analysis of different raw mater­ials present at Early and Middle Mesolithic sites in Eastern Central Sweden was also carried out. The materials are put into a chronological and geo­graphical context. The raw materials included in the study are the non-local rocks flint and Cambrian flint, as well as local raw materials such as quartz, greenstone, local vulcanite, mylonite and red porphyry. From 9200 cal BC there is evidence of the first groups of people in the area, just shortly after that the Weichselian ice cap had withdrawn. Throughout the period studied the artefacts as well as the non-local raw materials exhibit great similarities to those found in the western part of Sweden. The study also shows, regar­ding the use of different raw materials and presence of certain artefacts, that some major events took place, suggesting a new chronological time frame for the Early- and Middle Mesolithic periods. In addition, a discussion re­gar­­ding mobility and migration in Eastern Central Sweden during Early Post Glacial time is carried out.

The aim of this study is to understand the colonization process of the county Närke in relation to the surrounding archaeologically defined areas western Sweden and eastern central Sweden. By using a comparative analysis and a landscape analysis in combination with a theoretical framework that advocates for colonization as a process and not an event, I argue that Närke was colonized from within eastern central Sweden around 8 500 BC, based on the use of local raw material quartz. Further, I argue for the importance of the sea to the mesolithic people in the area around 7 500–4 500 BC as more than just an economic resource. Around 4 500 BC contact with groups in western Sweden increased which in time brought the idea of farming to the area. The late mesolithic sites in Närke show continuity into the early neolithic age, rejecting the idea of a Funnelbeaker migration in the area.

<p>This thesis is a chronological survey over the hut and house remains from the Stone Age to the Early Middle Ages in Eastern Central Sweden. The thesis also contains a test which I have conducted to see which investigation method had the best results in identifying house remains at an archaeological site. I subsequently discuss the result of this test, what it represents and also what may be done differently in order to get other types of results.</p>

This thesis is a chronological survey over the hut and house remains from the Stone Age to the Early Middle Ages in Eastern Central Sweden. The thesis also contains a test which I have conducted to see which investigation method had the best results in identifying house remains at an archaeological site. I subsequently discuss the result of this test, what it represents and also what may be done differently in order to get other types of results.