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The background of the study is that humans’ relationship to the nature and animals is not universal and is based on critical archeology and reflexive thinking. Previous researchers have interpreted the animals in graves as food offerings or a communication meal, where the horse is highlighted as a prominent symbol of power, prosperity, alliances, and aristocracy. Researchers have also compared animal style ornaments with Icelandic Sagas, and they connect humans and animals to transformation, metamorphoses, and hybridity. The interpretations in this context are based on the animals´ contemporary function and modern views. By studying the materials more closely, it turned out that the bones of humans and animals have been mixed in the graves. In the animal style ornamentation, there are often mixtures between humans and animals, and so also in the Icelandic Sagas. This indicates that the ancient humans intended to recreate mixtures between humans and animals in the materials. The study also links to the anthropological terms totenism and animism, to show that humans’ relationship to animals differs, and that it is not always the same as the modern view.

The present study explores the role of interlingual identification in contact between speakers of Old Norse and Old English. The study focuses on the word get as it occurred throughout a selection of texts in the Middle English period. The Old English and Old Norse words for get were cognate, which meant that some phonological and morphological characteristics of the word were similar when the contact between the two speaker communities occurred. A Construction Morphology framework is applied where inflecting features of words are treated as constructions. Interlingually identifiable constructions in Old English and Old Norse are identified by comparing forms, such as vowel alternations or affixes, with the function (i.e., meaning) which they denote. The Middle English dialectal forms were furthermore compared synchronically, and a sociohistorical perspective was considered to establish whether the areas where the Vikings settled and that came under Scandinavian rule in the Danelaw displayed more advanced leveling and/or conformation with the Old Norse system of conjugation. Additionally, the present study sought to explore cognitive processes involved in letting specific forms remain in a contact situation. It was concluded that there were two interlingually identifiable constructions: the past tense vowel alternation from  in the present tense, to  in the 1st preterite, and the past participle -en suffix. These constructions had survived in all the Middle English dialects, and they are furthermore what is left in the contemporary modern paradigm of get. Moreover, it is plausible that these constructions survived the morphological leveling because interlingual identification allowed the same form to trigger the same intended cognitive representation in both speaker groups in the contact situation. The results concludingly suggest that morphological constructions that were not interlingually identifiable were discarded in the morphological leveling that resulted from contact between speakers of Old English and Old Norse.

The orthography of Östergötland’s 11th century runic inscriptions varies widely, in part due to the lack of spelling norms at the time. This thesis seeks to identify other causes for the observed variation, based on the frequency and distribution of aspects of inscription orthography. The Old Norse words ræisa and stæin in the phrase “raised the stone” were analyzed based on the main vowel and its status as a monograph or digraph. The presence or absence of þ in inflected ræisa was also included as an indicator of age. All runic inscriptions in Östergötland with definite key word orthography were included, 169 in total. The analysis reveals that most inscriptions are clustered in three regions, each with a dominant vowel. By region, these are ei (west), i (central) and ai (east), with vowel consistency between ræisa and stæin the norm. The consonant þ in inflected ræisa is most common in the west and east. The vowel orthography together with the distribution of þ implies a relative chronology for Östergötland’s runic inscriptions, where the ongoing monophthongization is reflected in digraphs and monographs. The detailed orthography distribution of these variables shows that the main clusters align with the known 11th century quarries at Borghamn (west) and Vreta (central). Stoneworking at a shared site resulted in a transfer of knowledge, including runestone design and orthography which became a local norm as it spread. The lack of a unifying quarry in eastern Östergötland resulted in a more diverse local orthography, and possibly hampered the building of the first stone churches during the early 12th century. / Östergötlands runinskrifter från 1000-talet varierar stort i sin ortografi, delvis på grund av bristen på stavningsnormer när de ristades. Uppsatsen eftersträvar att identifiera andra orsaker för denna variation, baserat på frekvensen och distributionen av vissa aspekter i inskrifternas ortografi. De fornnordiska orden ræisa och stæin i inskriftsfrasen “reste sten” analyserades baserat på huvudvokalen samt om den var en monograf eller digraf. Användning av þ i böjda former av ræisa inkluderades som ett tecken på inskriftens ålder. Samtliga runinskrifter i Östergötland med en säker nyckelordsortografi analyserades, totalt 169 stycken. Resultaten visar att de flesta inskrifterna är grupperade i tre regioner som har varsin dominant vokal. Vanligast i väster är ei, i den centrala regionen råder i och i öster råder ai, med normen att samma vokal används i både ræisa och stæin. Konsonanten þ i böjd ræisa är vanligast i väster och i öster. Vokalortografin tillsammans med þ-distributionen indikerar en relativ kronologi för Östergötlands runinskrifter, där vokalernas monoftongering under 1000-talet återspeglas i digrafer och monografer. De analyserade variablernas distribution visar att huvudgrupperingarna sammanfaller med de kända stenbrotten från 1000-talet vid Borghamn (i väster) och Vreta (centrala regionen). Att stenarbetet skedde vid en gemensam site ledde till en omedveten kunskapsöverlämning mellan ristare. Inskriftsortografi kopierades och blev lokala normer allt efter att den spreds. Bristen på ett större stenbrott som informell, gemensam arbetsplats i östra Östergötland ledde till en mer varierad lokalortografi. Detta kan ha hindrat stenkyrkobygget lokalt under tidigt 1100-tal.

A methodology for ageing foetal and neonatal cattle is developed, involving radiographic examination of infant mandibles for early developmental stages in molariform teeth; tooth-wear methodologies are imprecise at this stage before wear commences. Known-age modern bovine foetal and neonate material are collected as a control assemblage for method development (n=73); six Neolithic to Norse era assemblages from Orkney are examined using the modified technique together with standard tooth-wear analysis and other methodologies. Foetal and died-at-birth material is diagnosed at most sites using the new technique, together with a range of other peri-natal age-groups. Ageing at this early stage is highly relevant in the diagnosis of milking as a palaeoeconomy: the accepted view is that unwanted (male) calves were slaughtered to maximise milk for human consumption, hence a surfeit of neonate calf remains, as at the study sites. The diagnosis of foetal and died-at-birth material challenges this view, suggesting that attritional causes may have contributed to deaths at this stage. Although milking was probably carried out at most of the study sites, this may have been combined with slaughter of cattle for meat in a pragmatic exploitation strategy. Literary research shows possible attritional causes of abortion and early death in calves, in particular dietary insufficiency in pregnant cows, microbial infections, and also inadequate colostrum uptake. Additionally, research is used to consider the challenges to health that early milking might have posed, to the calf as mentioned, but also to the cow, where three main health issues are highlighted: infertility, mastitis and lameness. / The attached files include the Landscape pages and appendices V and VI. Not included are the jpeg Mandible files. A cover sheet was not available.

This essay analyses the songs from Den poetiska Eddan (The Poetic Edda) with a queer perspective through a queer reading. I use Tiina Rosenberg’s concept of queer leakage along with historical contextualization to figure out how to approach an older text through a modern perspective. Throughout the essay, I discuss how queer leakages appear throughout the text either in representations of gender and norm-breaking behavior, or through an analysis of the use of insults. The analysis establishes that there are queer leakages to be found in The Poetic Edda and that the conclusion avoids being anachronistic through the historical context that the evidence is tried against. The essay concludes that identities our society views as static are rather dynamic and in constant need of assertive actions for their own enforcement. / Den här uppsatsen analyserar tre kväden ur Den poetiska Eddan genom ett queerteoretiskt perspektiv. Uppsatsen använder Tiina Rosenbergs begrepp queera läckage tillsammans med en historisk kontext. Detta för att pröva hur en kan möta äldre texter genom ett modernt perspektiv. Under analysen diskuterar jag hur queera läckage ter sig genom texten, antingen genom olika typer av könsroller eller normbrytande beteende, samt genom en analys av förolämpningar. Analysen påvisar att det finns queera läckage i Den poetiska Eddan, och att slutsatsen undviker att bli anakronistisk på grund av den historiska kontext som textexemplen prövas gentemot. Uppsatsens slutsats är att de identiteter som vårt samhälle ser som statiska i själva verket är dynamiska, samt att de ständigt behöver hävdas för att fortsätta existera.

A large database of domestic mammal bone measurements from sites across Greenland, Iceland, the Faroe Islands, and the Northern and Western Isles of Scotland is presented. The reasons for variations in bone growth of domestic ungulates are examined in detail; nutrition is identified as a key factor in the determination of adult bone size and shape. Possible sources of variation in bone size in both time and space in the North Atlantic region are identified. Four hypotheses are proposed; firstly that bone dimensions, particularly breadth, will decrease with increasing latitude in the study region; secondly that higher status sites will raise larger livestock than lower status sites within the same time period and region; thirdly the size of domestic mammals in the Northern and Western Isles of Scotland will increase in the Later Iron Age, possibly in relation to increased fodder supply; finally at times of environmental degradation (climatic and/or landscape) domestic mammal size will decrease. The latitude hypothesis could only be partly upheld; there is no evidence for increased size with site status; a small increase in size is noted at some Scottish Iron Age sites and varying results are found for the environmental degradation hypothesis. The results are discussed with particular reference to how changes in the skeletal proportions of domestic mammals affect their human carers and beneficiaries. The potential of further expanding the dataset and integrating biometrical data with other forms of evidence to create a powerful tool for the examination of economic and environmental changes at archaeological sites is discussed. / The Division of AGES (University of Bradford), the Andy Jagger Fund (University of Bradford), the Francis Raymond Hudson Fund (University of Bradford), the Viking Society, the Prehistoric Society, SYNTHESIS and the Paddy Coker Research Fund (Biogeographical Society)

This project uses corpus linguistics and geostatistics to test the sociolinguistic typological theory put forward by Peter Trudgill on the history of Norwegian. The theory includes several effects of societal factors on language change. Most discussed is the proposal that ‘intensive’ language contact causes simplification of language grammar. In the Norwegian case, the claim is that simplificatory changes which affected all of the Continental North Germanic languages (Danish, Swedish, Norwegian) but not the Insular North Germanic Languages were the result of contact with Middle Low German through the Hanseatic League. This suggests that those simplificatory changes arose in the centres of contact with the Hanseatic League: cities with Hansa trading posts and kontors. The size of the dataset required would have made it impossible for previous scholars to test this prediction, but digital approaches render the problem tractable. I have designed a 3.5m word corpus containing nearly all extant Middle Norwegian, and developed statistical methods for examining the spread of language phenomena in time and space. The project is made up of a series of case studies of changes. Three examine simplifying phonological changes: the rise of svarabhakti (epenthetic) vowels, the change of /hv/ > /kv/ and the loss of the voiceless dental fricative. A further three look at simplifying morphological changes: the loss of 1.sg. verbal agreement, the loss of lexical genitives and the loss of 1.pl. verbal agreement. In each case study a large dataset from many documents is collected and used to map the progression of the change in space and time. The social background of document signatories is also used to map the progression of the change through different social groups. A variety of different patterns emerge for the different changes examined. Some changes spread by contagious diffusion, but many spread by hierarchical diffusion, jumping first between cities before spreading to the country at large. One common theme which runs through much of the findings is that dialect contact within the North Germanic language area seems to have played a major role: many of the different simplificatory changes may first have spread into Norwegian from Swedish or Danish. Although these findings do not exactly match the simple predictions originally proposed from the sociolinguistic typological theory, they are potentially consistent with a more nuanced account in which the major centres of contact and so simplifying change were in Sweden and Denmark rather than Norway.

The study is focused on the Old Norse "contemporary sagas" (texts composed with a short time distance from the events of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries that are recorded in them) and some of the bishops' sagas as images of the thirteenth- and fourteenth-century Icelanders' identity and their relationship to other lands, especially Norway. It aims at analysing the roles and meanings of various identity bearers portrayed in these sources - chieftains, royal representatives, ecclesiastical dignitaries, and saintly bishops. The approach to the sources is based on an analysis of how recent historical events were transformed into a narrative discourse, in which they were connected to the more distant past that formed the medieval Icelandic society's cultural memory. That way, these events themselves became a part of this society's cultural memory, and the given historical knowledge was endowed with specific meanings, which were not inherently present in the knowledge itself, but were based on its contextualization. The study shows how the narrativization of the recent events and their integration into the cultural memory creates a meaningful relationship between the past and the present. The objective of the study is to show how the narrative sources reflect the society's perception of its recent...

The aim of the thesis is to theoretically and empirically describe and explain the phenomenon of place-name adaptation which does not necessarily end with the borrowing or replication of place-names but can continue further. 48 Wendish place-names in Knýtlinga saga, including their attestations and variants in a selection of the saga’s text carriers and corresponding text witnesses, constitute the primary material for the investigation. The thesis seeks to combine place-name research, contact linguistics and philology with the theory of name adaptation in contact onomastics as its overall framework. The most important contribution of the thesis is the proposed demarcation between place-name replication and adaptation. In discussing the factors that can influence adaptation and its results, the focus is on the decisive role of the language user in contact-induced change. It is argued that the choice of adaptation strategy is primarily dependent upon the needs, competence and attitudes of the name user. The resulting form of adaptation is in most cases governed by the linguistic system of the target language, which is reflected in the model employed in the thesis to describe the results of the adaptation process. Two studies, one etymological and one philological, have been undertaken. Phonological, morphological, lexical, onomastic and semantic adaptations with and without epexegetic additions can be discerned in the toponymic material, which comprises 29 names of Slavic origin. Phonological adaptation dominates, which confirms the observations on place-name adaptation in previous research. Further adaptation of the replicated names in the post-medieval copies of Knýtlinga saga is admittedly insignificant; nevertheless scribes here make greatest use of lexical and onomastic adaptation in copying. The lack of transparency, which has been pointed out as the trigger for these types of adaptation, seems to create only the possibility of adaptation, but it is the name user who determines whether adaptation will occur and which strategy should then be employed.