The late medieval agrarian crisis is characterized by a sharp decline in population which caused farm abandonment and mass death. The crisis arose due to a lack of access to arable land and insufficient food production in relation to the growing population. However, there is evidence of villages and farms surviving the crisis by adapting to new conditions through the development of sustainable structures. Studying the literature from a resilience theoretical perspective, this paper discusses existing opportunities to study the agrarian crisis, opening avenues for future research. More specifically, this study contributes to the literature by examining studies on abandoned and surviving farms from Jämtland, Östergötland, Småland, Värmland and Skåne, concerning the interpretive possibilities of the farm's survival. The results suggest that Medieval archaeology excels in increasing knowledge about human behaviour and the relationship to the environment from a long-term perspective. Resilience theory can provide an interdisciplinary framework, increasing the understanding of social-ecological systems, therefore ensuring the sustainability of ecosystem services. Moreover, the findings of this thesis suggest that pollen analysis and dendrochronology are commonly used in research on the agrarian crisis. The methods reveal that common survival strategies consisted of introducing less labour-intensive farming methods or taking over the lands of desolate farms. Additionally, farms that had access to natural resources, cooperated with other farms on open land and had larger households most often survived the crisis.

This study examines how the archaeological finds from the medieval fortress Aranæs in Västergötland can confirm, change, add to, or contradict written sources regarding Aranæs and medieval fortresses in general. The study will focus on comparing medieval archaeological finds from Aranæs with written sources concerning medieval fortresses and Aranæs in order to find similarities or differences in the materials. The purpose of this essay is primarily to find out how archaeological finds can be linked to written sources to confirm potential events that may have taken place at Aranæs. This study also focuses on the role of archaeology in relation to written sources in order to study the everyday lives of our previous generations at medieval fortresses through the field of Medieval Archaeology. The primary historical written sources regarding Aranæs are the chronicle of Duke Erik and History of the Nordic peoples by Olaus Magnus which will be compared to three available archaeological reports concerning Aranæs. The various finds from Aranæs can together with written sources contribute with knowledge regarding a potential fire, military functions, care of animals, diet, religion, trade and economy, as well as remains of a previous fortress on the site.