Gustafsson, O. 2018. Landsbygd kontra stadsmiljö–gotländska avrättningsplatser som talar. Gustafsson, O. 2018. Countryside versus urban area–Gotlandic executions that reveals. This bachelor thesis covers two executional sites on Gotland, one on the east coast near Visby, called Galgberget and the second one on the southern part of Gotland called Grötlingbo. The focus of this bachelor thesis will be on separating the sites and comparing them with each other based on their executional marks found on the bones from each site. I examined the 29 boxes recovered remains, with 25 boxes from Galgberget and four boxes from Grötlingbo, excavated from these two sites and used different methods to determine what kind of weapon and crime can be linked to the executional marks on the remains. One of the four methods that was used for this examination was sharp force trauma, that revealed a similarity in cervical vertebra damage on the individuals from both sites. The second method was dismembering, which was only identified on the bone fragments from Galgberget. The third method that was used to examine the remains was penetration wounds, which only appears on the remains that had been through violence-related circumstances or torture with a 20-centimetre nail through the head, the remains with these kinds of wounds were only discovered at Galgberget. The fourth method that was used was bone fractures, which showed; after examining the 29 remains that it was only discovered at the Galgberget executional site. It can be concluded from this that even if the execution sites are near-by each other, they performed different kinds of executions, with different kinds of execution marks. For example, from Grötlingbo the only execution mark there was the cervical vertebra sharp force trauma. Meanwhile from Galgberget there were several execution marks, which are mentioned in the methods above. Keywords: Galgberget, Grötlingbo, execution marks, Gotland, execution.

This bachelor thesis covers two executional sites on the island of Gotland with focus on the palaepathology among the executed individuals. The aim is to see which pathological changes that occured most often and if they have any correlation between these and these individuals socioeconomic status. To achieve this the author has examined the bones from Galgberget to identify apparent pathological changes on long bones, vertebrates, maxillaries and mandibles. I have also compared the bones from Galgberget with previous analyses from the other executional site in Grötlingbo parish. The most common pathological change that became identified were osteophytes, arthritis and a couple of oral pathologies like calculus and cavities. Osteophytes and arthritis do share a comparability since they both are derived from osteoarthritis which is a denegerative joint disease. Calculus and cavities also share smiliarities, due to the fact that cavities is the first stage before it becomes calculus. No other pathological similarities were found among the two sites. Although the appearances of Schmorl’s nodes were significantly large among the bone assembly from Galgberget. Schmorl’s nodes is a vertebral lesion that may occur in all ages and have different causes. Other common pathological changes identified from Galgberget were skeletal anomalies and enthesopathies. Smiliar to Schmorls nodes, enthesopathy have different causes and often show in a relation to heavy physical work. It can be concluded that the presence of Schmorl’s nodes, skeletal anomalies, enthesopathy and osteophytes do share an equivalence with each other, when you think about how you get these pathological changes in life. With further studies regarding the material from Galgberget, the view of the people who were executed there may have a real potential to change.

This scientific essay contains an interpretation of injuries caused by weapons and traumas on the bones from the execution site Galgberget in Visby, Gotland. The site was used from about the 13th century to 1845 AD. The purpose is to examine the injuries and describe them, also to investigate what may have generated them. An important question is what bodily position the individuals had at the time of the injury. The methods presented in this essay can be associated with experimental osteology, also the basic methods such as sex- age- and stature- assessment has been applied where’s possible. Microscopic analysis, measurements and literature studies has been carried out. To supplement the visual analysis, X-ray has been performed by medical doctor Staffan Jennerholm at Visby Hospital.The individuals from the site has relatively few injuries that consistent with executions. Some of them show traces of what may come from some sort of battle, fractures has also been investigated. This essey primarily deals with the injuries from an execution approach, parallels are also drawn to the battle of 1361 on Gotland when Valdemar Atterdag marched into the island. The small number of decapitation injuries may be due to that hanging was the primary method of execution. The reason can also be that the affected bones are still buried at the site since only approximately 20 % of the area is excavated.