The migration period was played out during 400-550 AD. This period has also been called the Norths golden era. This is because of the substantial number of gold and jewellery finds from this period. Archaeologists has since the 1930s been debating if the migration period was a time of crisis. This is because of all the discoveries that has been made and interpret as a crisis in Europe. Both the abandonment of the stone settlements and the ring-forts in Öland and Gotland has been used as evidence of a catastrophic crisis. The purpose of this essay is to present the most debated interpretations of the migration period. The questions for this essay is: How does the debate look like from it´s beginning to our present day? Has the debate had any changes? Could the archaeologists have been influenced by their own society? The essay is based on literature studies and presents the different scientists thoughts in the debate. Both the ring-fort and the abandonment of the settlements have had a significant role in the debate and therefore will be presented in this essay. This essay shows that the debate has taken a lot of changes through the years. The conclusion is that archaeologists have been influenced by both their present times and the existing archaeological theory.   Keywords: Migration period, iron age, debate, crisis, climate change, stone-house settlements, ring-fort.

The aim for this bachelor thesis is to find an answer for the placement of Migration and Vendel period graves on preexisting house constructions in Sweden. The reason behind these graves being built on their respective places will be analyzed, discussed and compared with similar finds in Scandinavia, where a wide contact net had been established during this time. Different kinds of social and religious meanings and functions with the grave mounds will also be taken into consideration during the discussion and analysis. The actual findings in the graves will be not be a part of this thesis, as the aim is to focus more on the grave itself as a cultural and social symbol for the people, and the values it had, during the time period it was built.

This essay is a comparative study on Migration period ring forts, centered on Sandbyborg, a ringfort situated on the southeastern shore of the Baltic island of Öland.Furthermore this essay focuses on the contemporary Iron Age society, and thestrategical implications of the ringforts in their function as fortifications. Certaininternational comparisons are made, in particular regarding the fortifications in theRoman empire.

No / The adventus Saxonum is a crucial event in English protohistory. Scholars from a range of disciplines dispute the scale and demographic profile of the purported colonizing population. The 5th-7th century burial ground at West Heslerton, North Yorkshire, is one of the few Anglian cemeteries where an associated settlement site has been identified and subjected to extensive multidisciplinary postexcavation study. Skeletal and grave good evidence has been used to indicate the presence of Scandinavian settlers. A small, preliminary study using lead and strontium isotope analysis of tooth enamel, mineralized in early childhood, from Neolithic/Early Bronze Age (n = 8), Iron Age (n = 2), and Early Anglo-Saxon (n = 32) skeletons, was carried out to directly investigate this hypothesis. Results suggest that lead provides dissimilar types of information in different time periods. In post-Roman England, it appears to reflect the level of exposure to circulated anthropogenic rather than natural geological lead, thus being a cultural rather than geographical marker. Consequently, only strontium provides mobility evidence among the Anglian population, whereas both isotope systems do so in pre-Roman periods. Strontium data imply the presence of two groups: one of local and one of nonlocal origin, but more work is required to define the limits of local variation and identify immigrants with confidence. Correlations with traditional archaeological evidence are inconclusive. While the majority of juveniles and prehistoric individuals fall within the local group, both groups contain juveniles, and adults of both sexes. There is thus no clear support for the exclusively male, military-elite invasion model at this site.

The master's thesis summarizes existing knowledge of both post houses and sunken floor buildings in the Roman Age and Migration Period in Bohemia. It analyzes a collection of 131 sunken floor houses and available records about the post houses. The sunken floor building were divided in several groups according to preserved traces of their contruction which enables a comparison of the situation in Bohemia with that of neighboring areas. Using statistical methods helped to determine mutual relations between features and to identify certain regional differences. Both kinds of buildings were evaluated from the construction and functional point of view. The knowledge of post houses served as the basis for analyzing a season of an excavation of 1959 in Zalužany, dist. Příbram. Key words Bohemia - Roman Age - Migration Period - settlements - prehistoric construction

<p>The aim of this work is to take the first step into a development process, with the intention to find a way of making prehistoric soil fertility a variable in archaeological landscape analysis. A pilot study is performed on the Mälar basin area, where four topographical and geological factors are reclassified and then combined, resulting in a map which expresses a relative indication of agriculture potential. The map is then compared to the distribution of Migration Period graves and gold finds. This, however, does not mean that the technique is tied to a certain prehistoric period. Because the work is intrinsically experimental, the technique as a whole is finally discussed and evaluated, and suggestions of improvements and further studies are made.</p>

The aim of this work is to take the first step into a development process, with the intention to find a way of making prehistoric soil fertility a variable in archaeological landscape analysis. A pilot study is performed on the Mälar basin area, where four topographical and geological factors are reclassified and then combined, resulting in a map which expresses a relative indication of agriculture potential. The map is then compared to the distribution of Migration Period graves and gold finds. This, however, does not mean that the technique is tied to a certain prehistoric period. Because the work is intrinsically experimental, the technique as a whole is finally discussed and evaluated, and suggestions of improvements and further studies are made.

Archaeologists have long noted the striking monumentality and large-scale efforts behind the Iron Age hilltop settlements. Yet, because of limited excavations, they represent a controversial part of the Migration Period society and much of their function remains hidden. This paper deals with questions concerning the inner organization and activities that took place within the Iron Age hilltop settlement at Runsa. The study is linked to the ongoing project ”Runsa fornborg –En befast centralplats i ostra Malardalen under folkvandringstid” which aims to investigate the socio-political functions of Runsa. In an attempt to establish a nuanced picture and distinguish space use within the hilltop settlement, a multi-variable approach is used. Alongside more traditional methods, element analysis by atomic absorption spectrophotometer (AAS) and lipid analysis by gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) is emphasized.

This essay studies the runic inscriptions from the Migration period in Sweden and their connection to central places. The essays main focus is to identify the find location of the runic inscriptions and through that investigate if they appear in or nearby a central place from the same time period. The essay is divided into three different parts, in the first part I locate the runic inscriptions location of discovery. The second part contains locating defined central places or central areas in or nearby the location of the runic inscriptions. In the last part I separate the runic inscriptions and the objects material on which it is found upon, in order to identify if it is the inscription itself, or the object itself, which can be linked to centrality in the landscape. The result of the study shows that 10 % of the treated runic inscriptions are found in a defined central place during the Migration period in Sweden. 67 % of the runic inscriptions has been found in defined central areas, which all together means that 77 % of the treated runic inscriptions are connected to centrality in the landscape during the Migration period in Sweden. Furthermore, 15 % of the inscriptions can possibly be linked to central areas and the last 8 % show no connection to any sort of centrality in the landscape.

Bohemia in the Merovingian age - end of the 5th - 6th century AD Rastislav Korený Mining Museum Příbram Abstract The following objectives have been pursued in the dissertation: 1. A new commented inventory of sites from the end of the 5th and 6th century (excluding coin finds) which should become a reliable basis for an analysis of the collected material. The last inventory of such kind was created by Bedřich Svoboda approximately sixty years ago, i.e. in the 1940-1950s, and it was not published until 1965. The need for a new revised inventory became apparent over the recent years. During the physical re-evaluation of earlier finds and related primary visual and textual documentation, which was carried out in the years 1996- 2013 (30 museum and non-museum collections, 4 separate archival collections and other information sources were revised), there was a striking discrepancy between the published data contained in the catalogue of the above mentioned monograph and reality. The excavations carried out after 1965 also, naturally, resulted in the expansion of the amount of available source material. 2. Because the material currently available from settlements was published by Ivana Pleinerová in 2007, the analysis of the collected data concentrated, in addition to the identification of chronologically more...