This thesis is based on the observation that in the Lake Mälaren region, places with the name Stenby ("stone village") tend to be located next to hillforts. I have researched the occurrence of the place name Stenby with medieval evidence for the name in eastern central Sweden and found sixteen that are located in the Mälaren Valley region. Of these, twelve had a hillfort within one kilometer and eleven were assessed as being from the Migration Period. There is one hilltop settlement in the material: Broborg in Uppland. Of the eleven Migration Period hillforts, ten were located close to Lake Mälaren or had a waterway to Lake Mälaren. Eight of the twelve Stenby places with a hillfort were located in areas that could constitute aristocratic central areas with many sacral placenames referring to Norse Gods and names containing -tuna and -lunda. They are in open landscapes with wide views. Two Stenby hillfort complexes were adjacent to a (nautical) fairway. These findings suggest a central organization within the region.  The only exception from the Migration Period hillfort pattern is in Riala Parish, which has an older bank enclosure. Riala is not situated in an Iron Age central district and lacks a water connection with Lake Mälaren. Of the four Stenby without a nearby hillfort, two lacked close Iron-Age burial grounds and are not certain to be Migration Period settlements. One may be associated with a smaller mountain called Onsberget ("Oden's mountain").

No / Following Wheeler's excavations at Maiden Castle, the multivallate hillforts of Wessex came to be seen as responses to a specific form of warfare based around the massed use of slings. As part of the wider post-processual 'rethink' of the British Iron Age during the late 1980s and 1990s, this traditional 'military' interpretation of hillforts was increasingly subject to criticism. Apparent weaknesses in hillfort design were identified and many of the most distinctive features of these sites (depth of enclosure, complexity of entrance arrangements, etc) were reinterpreted as symbols of social isolation. Yet this 'pacification' of hillforts is in many ways as unsatisfactory as the traditional vision. Both camps have tended to view warfare as a detached, functional, and disembedded activity which can be analysed in terms of essentially timeless concepts of military efficiency. Consideration of the use of analogous structures in the ethnographic record suggests that, far from being mutually exclusive, the military and symbolic dimensions are both essential to a more nuanced understanding of the wider social role of hillforts in Britain and beyond.

(in English): The diploma thesis focuses on the elaboration of the middle and late La Tène period archaeological finds from the hillfort of Karlovice (Semily District), which is situated on the top plateau of Čertova ruka, surrounded by sandstone towers and rock blocks, giving it a unique spatial position. At the same time, the site is on the periphery of the current La Tène settlement area. The aim of the thesis is to provide the first comprehensive elaboration of finds from the current La Tène period from this site and to interpret this exceptional position on the functional context of the current settlement structure.

In the spring of 2018, a prospection and subsequent research excavation of a previously unstudied area related to the rampart of the Viking age town of Birka, Sweden, was undertaken by students and professors from the archaeological science department affiliated with Stockholm University.The purpose of this paper is to examine and categorise the various excavated finds, the ensuing conservation and preservation of the metal objects as well as to investigate the context and possible function of the site regarding the spatial distribution of said finds.The main method used is that of metal conservation with the wet-chemical technique EDTA; a method that was deemed adequate for the treatment of the dry metal finds from the rampart excavation.The conservation and categorisation suggest that the metal posts consist of assorted metal objects, predominately rivets and nails as well as unidentified fragmented objects; the occasional slag fragment was evident. The material category of clay and ceramics contains assorted burnt clay and ceramic sherd fragments, some with decoration. Whetstone (or hone stone) and flint fragments make up most of the stone finds while the category of glass consists of a few bead fragments. The bulk of the osteological material consists of burnt and unburnt animal bones, some with slaughter marks in the form of cuts and hacks. Two human bone fragments were found; a humerus- and cranial fragment.Post holes and charcoal in the context of the rampart suggests the possibility of wooden supports and/or a superimposed wooden structure on the rampart itself that likely burnt at some point in time. The interpretation of the excavated area, based on the distribution of the finds and material categories, is that of a dumping site for discarded town refuse, most likely set against or near a walled construction; the rampart. The dating of the site is based on object similarities as well as stratigraphy and set to; Early to Late Viking Period, c. A.D. 820-1000(1150).The analyses, materials and the stratigraphy of the site together with a contextual analysis of the objects in question furthers the knowledge of Birka’s rampart and will enable future scientific inquiries into this specific rampart as well as similar fortification structures.

For the better part of the 20th century, Swedish hillforts were seen strictly as an iron age phenomenon, and it was not until the mid-1980’s that we had reliable evidence that hillforts were already constructed during the Bronze Age. At the same time, archaeologists were moving away from the old militaristic studies to make way for studies based on the symbolical aspects of these monumental structures. Unfortunately, as we reached the end of the millennium, the general archaeological interest for hillforts dramatically dropped, causing hillfort research to miss out on the digital revolution as the new GIS technology cemented itself as a powerful tool in archaeological research. Today, nine hillforts have received a Bronze Age dating, why it is now possible to preform high quality research on the material without having to include structures from other time periods. However, the lack of GIS-based hillfort research leads us to seek inspiration from British hillfort research where the incorporation of GIS-methodology has proven successful in analyzing the relationship between hillforts and their landscapes. The purpose of this paper is therefore to continue investigating the symbolical aspects of the Swedish Bronze Age hillforts by investigating how GIS can help us locate and understand visual relationship between hillfort morphology and the surrounding landscape.       The analysis is based on a viewshed-method developed by Jessica Murray in her attempts to analyze if hillforts were constructed to visually relate to certain features of the landscape or the local topography. The resulting viewshed rasters are interpreted from a phenomenological theoretical standpoint since phenomenological aspects give us the possibility to bridge the gap between digital and analogue sensory analysis. The results show that viewshed-based analyses can be successfully complimented by phenomenological theory and that the method has successfully replicated previously observed landscape relationships while also exposing previously unknown visual relationships.

The subject of this work is the study of the position of Levý Hradec in the process of the formation of the development of the early medieval Přemyslid domain. The description of the current state of the art of the study of written and archaeological sources leads to a new specification of the settlement area of Levý Hradec. The core of this thesis critically evaluates the cemeteries of Žalov-Na Panenské, Žalov-cihelna A and Žalov-cihelna B, Žalov-Levý Hradec and Levý Hradec-St Clement's Church with regard to other burials in the cadastre of Žalov. The analysis of the burial rite and the material culture aims to specify the cultural and chronological frames, which it will be possible to utilise in the study of early medieval burial grounds not only in Bohemia but in Central Europe in general. The study of the social aspects of burying allows to track the differences in the dating and social setting of various communities, to deal with correspondences and differences between the inhabitants of Levý Hradec, of the Prague agglomeration and of the Mělník District, as well as the differences between individual hillforts. This way it is possible to prove that the cemeteries turn out to be a valuable source for the study of the development of the Central Bohemian Přemyslid domain. The introductory part...

Det finns två huvudområden för hällristningar i Västmanlands län med nära relation till de forntida strandlinjerna. I båda dessa områden finns det fornborgar som hittills inte har daterats. Syftet är att datera Näsborgen och Kastena Skans i östra och västra Västmanland genom att använda geografiska informationssystemet QGIS och forntida strandlinjedata hämtad från Sveriges Geologiska Undersökning (SGU). Dessutom betraktas fornborgarna ur ett landskapsperspektiv och deras relation till hällristningar och skärvstenshögar som styrker en bronsåldersdatering för dessa fornborgar. Analysen använder tidigare bekräftade bronsåldersdateringar av tre fornborgar i Uppland som referens för Västmanlands fornborgar och överblickar andra närliggande fornborgar. Både Näsborgen och Kastena Skans konstateras vara konstruerade under bronsåldern. / There are two main areas of rock art in Västmanland county with a close relation to the ancient shorelines. In both areas, there are hillforts that have not yet been dated. The aim is to date Näsborgen and Kastena Skans in eastern and western Västmanland by using the geographic information system QGIS and ancient shoreline data obtained from Geological Survey of Sweden (SGU). Additionally, the hillforts are considered from a landscape perspective and their relation to rock art sites and heaps of fire-cracked stones, which support Bronze Age datings for these hillforts. The analysis uses previously confirmed Bronze Age datings of three hillforts in Uppland as a reference for the hillforts in Västmanland and provides an overview of other nearby hillforts. Both Näsborgen and Kastena Skans are determined to have been constructed during the Bronze Age.

A materiality approach is developed in this thesis in order to understand social-material relationships during the south-east Scottish Iron Age. The focus is on everyday objects, traditionally lesser studied in terms of cosmological value, made of bone and antler, stone, clay/pottery and metal (copper alloy and iron) from the Broxmouth Hillfort assemblage and other excavated Iron Age sites in East Lothian. This study sets out to move away from typology to examine the connections between these materials through their sourcing, affordances (signative and pragmatic), design, manufacture, use and deposition. In addition to the archaeological evidence, a range of analytical methods are employed; including laser scanning confocal microscopy, raman spectroscopy, and residue and isotopic analysis. It becomes evident that the materials studied, despite their predominantly local availability, were invested with meaning in appropriation, making, and were deliberately curated and maintained in use, assembling rich personal biographies. Identities were tied up with making, using and depositing of materials in turn embodying beliefs of fertility, renewal and productivity which were central to Iron Age cosmology, continuing into the Roman Iron Age. These results contribute to our understanding of the construction and practice of society in the Iron Age of Britain, with implications for how we may design our own 21st Century material worlds. It is proposed that social relations in the Iron Age of south-east Scotland were heterarchical.

West Wales in the Iron Age contained a diverse range of settlement types, from hill-forts to unenclosed farmsteads, with the dominant type of settlement the enclosed farmstead. However, a recent review of information available for the British Iron Age identified a relative lack of systematised information for Wales and consequently there is a pressing need to re-examine the settlement record for this area, as the belief in a single Iron Age "culture" gives way to recognition of regional difference in material cultures, social institutions and life-ways. This thesis examines the settlements and landscape of West Wales in an attempt to contribute to our understanding of this region in the Iron Age. In order to make a regionally synthesised investigation of the social, I conducted a survey of excavation and survey information for Iron Age settlements in West Wales. Analysis centred on examining the spatial patterning of settlements by considering the morphology, distribution, placement and structure of settlements, their place in the landscape and regional trends in the structuring of space and artefacts. The investigation was contextualised within the wider body of material for the Iron Age in Britain. The use of landscape theory as an interpretive framework in examining the spatial patterning of the material culture in the Iron Age proved an effective method for interpreting domestic settlements within the lived landscape. Social and cosmological relations within settlements and within the referential structuring of a landscape, particularly with respect to pre-existing monuments, were suggested by the analysis. By comparing these trends in the structuring of settlements within the landscape to settlements elsewhere in Britain, a distinct and regional culture for the Iron Age of West Wales was identified.

West Wales in the Iron Age contained a diverse range of settlement types, from hill-forts to unenclosed farmsteads, with the dominant type of settlement the enclosed farmstead. However, a recent review of information available for the British Iron Age identified a relative lack of systematised information for Wales and consequently there is a pressing need to re-examine the settlement record for this area, as the belief in a single Iron Age "culture" gives way to recognition of regional difference in material cultures, social institutions and life-ways. This thesis examines the settlements and landscape of West Wales in an attempt to contribute to our understanding of this region in the Iron Age. In order to make a regionally synthesised investigation of the social, I conducted a survey of excavation and survey information for Iron Age settlements in West Wales. Analysis centred on examining the spatial patterning of settlements by considering the morphology, distribution, placement and structure of settlements, their place in the landscape and regional trends in the structuring of space and artefacts. The investigation was contextualised within the wider body of material for the Iron Age in Britain. The use of landscape theory as an interpretive framework in examining the spatial patterning of the material culture in the Iron Age proved an effective method for interpreting domestic settlements within the lived landscape. Social and cosmological relations within settlements and within the referential structuring of a landscape, particularly with respect to pre-existing monuments, were suggested by the analysis. By comparing these trends in the structuring of settlements within the landscape to settlements elsewhere in Britain, a distinct and regional culture for the Iron Age of West Wales was identified.