This text is dealing with the question on the two real big Viking age burial sites on the Tumbo Ridge, and their invisible corresponding settlement. How to decide the expected size of a Viking settlement? What does the findings and the landscape say about a possible settlement’s placement and activities? Hypothetical harbor sites for a settlement with trade and crafts as its business activity, is presented. / Denna text avhandlar frågan om bakgrunden till de två verkligt stora vikingatida gravfälten på Tumboåsen och dess motsvarande bebyggelses osynlighet. Hur avgör man förväntad storleken på en bebyggelse och tätort? Vad säger fynd och landskap om en eventuell tätorts läge och verksamhet? Hypotetiska hamnlägen för en tätort med hantverk och handel som huvudnäring presenteras.

Accompanying the rich and highly individualized Swedish Late Iron age graves are often charred remains of plants and food together with the other grave-goods. These remains have long been known but often overlooked, mainly due to low preservation. Some relatively well preserved finds are cultivated cereal grains, which have become a common archeobotanical find in Iron Age cremation graves and are a massive source of information regarding agriculture and food culture. But what do they say of the buried individual? This thesis aims to investigate the cereal grains, plants and food remains by treating the archaeobotanical remains as grave-goods in a statistical study made on macrofossil remains from Bådstorpsgravfältet, a vendel and viking age burial ground in Östergötland, Sweden. With the results from 79 graves it is researched if plant remains can be linked to certain demographics and the changings of its role in the burial practices over time.

This essay aims to understand and analyse earlier research concerning women’s roles in the Late Iron Age through a gender perspective. This will be done by analysing the Volva theory in relation to ancient medicine in Scandinavia with the primary focus on the medicinal herb henbane. The volva theory and the interpretation of grave 4 at the fortification of Fyrkat as a “Volva grave” had an immense impact on contemporary scientific research and popular science. The essay will examine the volva grave, at Fyrkat in Jylland, Denmark because it’s unique finding of henbane seeds. For comparison the essay will look at other archeological contexts containing henbane. The Oseberg grave will also be included in this essay because of its relevance for the volva interpretation and gender discourse in earlier research.

Today, despite monumental walls and solid construction, the deserted graveyard in Kinne-Kleva seems to fade away as an old Christian memory. However, if you just stop for a moment and take a closer look, rethink, and challenge your thought. You might realize that the place may have served another function than Christianity. by studying 99 burial sites in Västergötland, 9 categories such as wall constructions and cult has been revealed. With an analysis, refining categories through new research and adding them toghether, the monumental construction suddenly seems to might have had another function in the Iron Age.

This paper deals with hill-forts located on and directly south of Selaön, in the center of Mälardalen, Södermanland, dated to the late roman period and the migration period. Of special interest is differences and similarities between the forts when it comes to their morphology and the hills where they were built. Furthermore, their landscape has been examined and I have tried to put the hill-forts in relation to any iron age settlements.

Late Iron Age burials in Courland have primarily been used as signifiers of ethnical identity for larger groups of people, mainly based on later written sources. Based on gender theoretical perspectives, the burials can be understood as communicating different and varying, socially constructed identities. Dress pins are discussed as markers for a female identity among people of higher social standing. After the introduction of cremation burials, the need to communicate this identity through dress pins seems to disappear and women, as well as men, are buried with penannular brooches. A child’s grave indicates that this identity might have been adopted when the child reached a certain age and was considered to have reached social adulthood. / Vēlā dzelzs laikmeta Kurzemes apbedījumi galvenokārt tika izmantoti, lai izsekotu etnisko piederību lielākām cilvēku grupām, un balstās galvenokārt uz vēlākiem teksta avotiem. No dzimumu teorētiskā viedokļa apbedījumus var analizēt arī no dažādu un atšķirīgu sociāli konstruētu identitāšu skatu viedokļa. Rotadatas tiek apspriestas kā sieviešu identitātes izpausme no sabiedrības augstākajiem slāņiem. Pēc ugunskapu ieviešanas šīs identitātes izpausme ar rotadatām izskatās, ka pamazām izzūd, un gan sieviešu, gan vīriešu apbedījumos tiek atrastas pakavsaktas. Bērna apbedījums analīzes materiālā uzrāda, ka indivīda identitāte tika iegūta, kad bērns sasniedza noteiktu vecumu, kas tika pieņemts par sociāli pieaugušo vecumu.

A test of combining retrogressive analysis of historic maps of the Sigtuna area villages Billby, Bärmö, Eneby, Til and Venngarn from the seventeenth century with archaeobotanical results pertaining to the tenth, eleventh and twelfth century. The study examines meadow distribution and character while aiming to determine to what extent retrogressive and archaeobotanical methods can compliment each other. Through the combination of methods, landscape change is discussed.  I explore how these meadows changed from the eleventh century to the seventeenth, which meadows could reasonably be presumed to have originated in prehistoric or early historic times and whether the hypothetical habitats produced by a previous archaeobotanical study of Sigtuna macrofossils could be tied to the meadows. The study shows that the grassland was generally wetter in the eleventh century, and that thirteen out of twenty meadows may have originated already in prehistoric time and been more or less continually mowed until at least late seventeenth century. Wet meadows, calcareous wet meadows, water meadows and potentially calcareous fens could be detected in the investigated area. The study shows that the multi-disciplinary approach as well as source pluralism indeed results in a beneficial analysis synergy and that the meadows in question are possible points of origin for the macrofossils from some of Sigtuna’s oldest strata.

This paper deals with iron objects found in the 2015 excavation in Birkas Black Earth harbour on the Island of Björkö, in Adelsö parish. The purpose is to through EDTA -conservation and x-rays identify which objects they derived from, and how they can be linked to activities associated with a harbour environment.

It is a well known archaeological concern that the remains of human bones left from the bronze age and early iron age Scandinavia are not nearly enough to represent the estimated population of the time. Furthermore the bones of each find rarely represent a whole individual. The majority of the bones must have been disposed of somewhere else, possibly scattered in running waters or in the fields, where they have evaporated or are securely hidden from archaeological excavations. This thesis deals with the grave concept and the problem in using a word that is so very clouded by its modern, western meaning. It also offers an alternative explanation to why the bones are handled the way they are and why they are found in such awkward contexts.

The woodlands in the north of Blekinge are traditionally seen as an zone without traces of prehistory. Literature discussing the pre-history and early medieval times in Blekinge usually describes the north of the county as a thick unfriendly and impenetrable forest. This is with certainty very easy to believe for someone walking in the thick spruce. Only, in the iron age the forests primarily consisted of beech. It could, naturally, still have been hard to penetrate but a forest consisting of deciduous, gives another basis. The woodlands contains a lot of remains from our history, as ruins from small cottages and cairns who was created during the time when even the woods where an agricultural place. Finds from the pre-history though, are scarce. Though there are some indications that a closer look could pay of.With the neighbouring county's as references there are some features worth checking up on. For one, the thousands of cairns residing in the woods, could, according to investigations performed in Småland, have been started as early as the stone age, though more often in the iron age or the medieval period. There are also interesting finds as "eldslagningsstenar", stones assumed to have been used to get a fire going. Some have been found in Blekinges woodland area and they could indicate that there were human presence during the iron age. To make conclusions in the matter of "were there people living in the northern regions of Blekinge during pre-history?" is not a simple task, but I think there is reasons to stay open minded and to take care to investigate even areas that have got no pre-historical remains previously recorded.