The purpose of this essay is to investigate two different cases of reburial of Sámi human remains in Sweden, these being the reburial of Soejvengeele “the shadow man” in Tärnaby 2002, whose grave was excavated in 1950 by ethnologist Ernst Manker. The second case consist of the reburial in Lycksele 2019 of human remains of about 25 individuals which were excavated in 1950-51 by Västerbottens museum under the guidance of Karl Cajmatz. The essay aims to recognize the differences and similarities in how the cases have been handled by the authorities, museums and organisations involved. Another aim of this paper is to navigate the discourse regarding questions of ethical research of indigenous human remains, and what role archaeology has played in the historical context of power imbalance between the Sámi indigenous society and the Swedish State.

Cup marks are often described in historical records as belonging to the fairies of Swedish folklore, hence going under the name “fairy mills” or “elf mills” (in Swedish älvkvarn). The name derives from the belief that the fairies used the cups as their mills for grinding seed. There are many different theories as to what the original purpose behind the creation of the cup marks are, but the only thing that we know is that humans began creating them during the Stone Age and continued doing so throughout the Bronze Age and maybe even during the earlier years of the Iron Age. The purpose of this paper is to compare the theories concerning the creation of the cup marks with the later traditions surrounding the fairy/elf mills to see if there are any connections. The fairies were small, underground humanlike creatures who, if disturbed by humans, would “blow” a sickness upon them. To get rid of the sickness one method was to visit a fairymill and sacrifice a small item, usually a coin or needle, and to grease the fairy mill in order to become friendly with the fairies again so that they would lift the sickness. One theory is that the use and meaning of the cup marks went through a change between the Neolithic era and the Bronze Age, going from having a more ritual and ceremonial meaning to a more common one where they would be used by the ordinary people as well. This theory, along with others, has proven insightful in the discussion and may very well be a piece in the overall picture concerning the cup marks and their possibly different meanings through time. Dalarna in Sweden represents the line between the cup mark rich lands to the south, and the northern parts where cup marks barely exist. Dalarna itself does only contain about 20 cup mark locations and yet the fairy traditions are described as strong there. It has been shown that naturally formed rocks and potholes (“giant's kettle” if translated directly from Swedish) could have played a big role, presenting the conclusion that not only the cup marks were associated with fairies, widening the definition of a fairy mill.

In this thesis, material of recent hop from different locations in Sweden have been analyzed with EA-IRMS for carbon-, nitrogen- and sulfur isotopes. The aim has been to find a method to distinguish between cultivated and wild hops, and whether it is a useful method for provenancing of hop. Furthermore, hop fruit from archaeological sites have been analyzed with the same method. An experimental water immersion of recent hop fruits has also been carried out, to investigate how this would affect the isotopic values.

The matter of placing Russia in a cultural and historical context has ever since Peter the Great´s reforms in the 17th century permeated the country´s philosophical and historiographical evolution. Nowhere has this been as clear cut and caustic as the question of Norse influence in Viking-age Russia. In tandem with every major historiographical and political transition in Russia, archaeologists, philosophers and politicians alike have been forced to reassess the role of the Norse seafarers, Varangians, in the wider cultural and political development of the Russian state. Previous research has in this regard predominantly focused on the archaeology of the Varangians without considering the consequences of Russia´s political upheavals and its direct impact on the archaeological research itself. Thus, rooted in the ambition to examine the reciprocity between archaeology and politics, this essay explores how Russia´s political history has influenced the archaeological research regarding the Varangians. What his essay has tried to demonstrate, by investigating Russia's political development from the late 17th century to the modern-day in conjunction with the politically entrenched archaeology, is thus the occurrence of an ever-shifting archaeological attitude towards the Varangians.

It is decidedly rare to come across evidence of primary or secondary malignant tumours in the archaeological record, both in the excavatory stage as well as the laboratory stage. However, the statistical absence of cancer in the archaeological record may not be representative of actual prevalence, geographical distribution, or severity. Despite the scarcity, there are some documented cases of suspected and hypothesised malignant skeletal neoplasms, of varying severity and disease progression. Some of these cases have been examined and put through a posthumous or presumptive diagnostic process, in which macroscopic analysis is followed by close microscopic examination, as well as the consideration and exclusion of differential diagnoses. This bachelor’s thesis will investigate 5 cases of such examination, with the help of three palaeopathological and paleo-oncological case studies. With an interdisciplinary approach encompassing contemporary medical science as well as palaeopathological osteoarchaeology, this thesis project will consider the clinical manifestations presented by the case studies in relation to their final hypothesised diagnosis. The results indicate that these individuals may have suffered from metastatic carcinoma with a soft tissue origin, a result which is significant to both contemporary medicine as well as osteoarchaeology. / Det är avgjort sällsynt att stöta på tecken på primära eller sekundära maligna tumörer i det arkeologiska förflutna, både i utgrävningsstadiet såväl som i laboratoriestadiet. Den statistiska frånvaron av cancer i det arkeologiska förflutna kanske inte är representativt för faktisk prevalens, geografisk spridning eller svårighetsgrad. Trots bristen finns det några dokumenterade fall av misstänkta och hypotetiska maligna skelettneoplasmer, av varierande svårighetsgrad och sjukdomsprogression. En del av dessa fall har undersökts och genomgått en postum eller presumtiv diagnostisk process, där makroskopisk analys följs av noggrann mikroskopisk undersökning, samt beaktande och uteslutning av differentialdiagnoser. Denna kandidatuppsats kommer att undersöka 5 fall av sådan undersökning, med hjälp av tre paleopatologiska och paleo-onkologiska fallstudier. Med ett tvärvetenskapligt tillvägagångssätt som omfattar samtida medicinsk vetenskap såväl som paleopatologisk osteoarkeologi kommer detta examensarbete att överväga de kliniska manifestationerna av fallstudierna i relation till deras slutgiltiga preliminära diagnos. Resultaten tyder på att dessa individer kan ha lidit av metastaserande karcinom med ursprung i mjukvävnad, ett resultat som är signifikant för såväl modern medicin som osteoarkeologi.

Vapengravar associeras vanligtvis med att de innehåller vuxna män, möjligen en krigare. Detta gör barn i vapengravar till ett undantag från denna norm och något problematiskt i denna gravkontext, ett hinder för arkeologer att handskas med då gravarna ifrågasätter tidigare normer och tolkningar av vapengravar. Syftet med denna uppsats är att studera och jämföra tre vikingatida vapengravar innehållande anmärkningsvärt unga individer, barn enligt modernt synsätt. Uppsatsen tar hänsyn till motiven för en grav, hur man tolkar vapengravar och den sociala konstruktionen av barndomen. Med detta i åtanke jämförs tolkningar av tre olika vapengravar med särskilt unga individer med varandra genom en litteraturstudie baserad på arkeologiska vetenskapliga texter. De tre huvudsakliga texterna är ”En ryttargrav på Ihrefältet” av Stenberger (1942), ”A Princely Child in Birka” av Gräslund (1998), samt ”A Viking Burial at Balnakeil, Sutherland” av Batey och Paterson (2012). Tolkningar av forskare jämförs med varandra för att synliggöra mönster, avvikelser och det obemärkta inom denna mycket sällsynta kategori av gravar. / Weapon graves are typically associated with containing adult males, perhaps a warrior. Which makes children in weapon graves an exception to this norm and somewhat problematic in this grave context, an obstacle for archeologists to deal with as the graves challenge previous norms and interpretations of weapon graves. The purpose of this thesis is to study and compare three Viking Age weapon graves containing distinguishable young individuals, children in the modern view. The essay considers the motifs of a grave, how to interpret weapon graves and the social construction of childhood. With this in mind, interpretations of three different weapon graves with particularly young individuals are compared to each other through a literature study based on archeological scientific texts. The three main texts are ”En ryttargrav på Ihrefältet” by Stenberger (1942), ”A Princely Child in Birka” by Gräslund (1998), and ”A Viking Burial at Balnakeil, Sutherland” by Batey and Paterson (2012). Interpretations of researchers are compared with each other in order to reveal patterns, deviations and things unnoticed within this very rare category of graves.

This thesis deals with the famous Ulfberhtswords ​​that were created in Europe during the 9–12th century. In the thesis, several researchers' own research on Ulfberhtswords  ​​and their results is addressed. The focus of the thesis is put on the swords that has been found in northern Europe and how the manufacturing technology for Ulfberhtswords ​​came to northern Europe. The result in the thesis is that Ulfberht sword has a long history of forgery and crushed blades. The falsification of Ulfberhtsword was widely spread across the north and almost all the swords found in Nordic graves are fakes. The Nordic smiths began to manufacture Ulfberhtswords at about the same time as the genuine Ulfberhtswords ​gained a reputation.

This essay investigates the archaeological sites at Överveda, Nordingrå parish, in Ångermanland, through the lens of modern GIS technology and spatial analysis. The objective is to contextualize the Överveda sites by comparing their characteristics with other nearby sites, both spatial and chronological. This research involves spatial analyses, artifact distribution studies, and evaluations of the sites' relationships to ancient shorelines. The essay seeks to understand the typology of Överveda, proposed by previous research as a seasonal gathering site, and to assess its classification within the broader spectrum of settlement types. By integrating new cartographic data and employing GIS modeling, this essay aims to provide a more coherent and comprehensive understanding of the archaeological significance of the Överveda sites and their historical context. The findings are based on archaeological excavations and surveys, with results presented in tables, diagrams, and distribution maps generated from the analyses.

This research concerns the digitalisation of archaeology, with a focus on Swedish contract archaeology. The aim is to understand how the archaeological discipline relates to the change that digitalisation brings and human involvement in these processes. The thesis is a study of its impact on processes connected to archaeological knowledge production and communication. The work problematises how digital data might be understood within these contexts but also illustrates where the potential of the digitalisation lies and how archaeology can make use of it. The theoretical approach re-actualises the concept of reflexivity in a digital context, combining it with various communication theories aiming to challenge the archaeological workflow and connect it more closely to present-day society. The digitalisation of archaeology can be seen across the whole discipline withan emphasis on academia. This digital development has greater opportunities in larger research projects which have sufficient funding than in contract archaeology. In those projects leading the digital development, the reflexive approach has been re-discovered and the digital enabled for new processes of knowledge production to take place. In case studies of Swedish contract archaeology several observations are made where it becomes clear that the digitalisation already shows positive effects at a government level, in organisations and projects within the sector. But there are also issues regarding digital infrastructure, knowledge production, archiving, accessibility and transparency. The biggest challenge is not technical but in attitudes towards digitalisation. The research concludes that digital communication based on archaeological source material can be something more than mediation of results. With digital interactive storytelling there are ways to create emotional virtual connections with the user, relating to the present and the surrounding society. By interlinking the processes of interpretation and communication an archaeological knowledge production might become an archaeological knowledge development. / Den här forskningen har studerat digitaliseringen av arkeologin med fokus på svensk uppdragsarkeologi. Målet har varit att öka förståelsen kring hur disciplinen förhåller sig till de förändringar som digitaliseringens innebär och människans roll i dessa processer. Avhandlingen är en studie av digitaliseringens betydelse för de arkeologiska processer som berör kunskapsproduktion och kommunikation. Arbetet problematiserar förståelsen av digitala data inom dessa kontexter men visar också på digitaliseringenspotential och hur arkeologin kan dra nytta av den. Forskningen aktualiserar på nytt det teoretiska angreppssättet reflexivitet i ett digitalt sammanhang och kombinerar detta med kommunikationsteorier i syfte att utmana det arkeologiska arbetsflödet och knyta det närmare dagens samhälle. Resultatet av denna forskning visar på att digital kommunikation baserad på arkeologiskt källmaterial kan vara något mer än förmedling av resultat. Med interaktivt historieberättande finns vägar att skapa emotionella virtuella kopplingar mellan användare och arkeologi som relaterar till nuet och detomgivande samhället. Genom att länka ihop den arkeologiska tolkningsprocessen med kommunikation, skapas möjligheten för kunskapsproduktion att bli kunskapsutveckling.

<p>Genom att titta på utvalda kategorier av fasta fornlämningar, fornfynd och platsnamn lokaliserar uppsatsen centralplatser på Öland under folkvandringstid. Kategorierna som har studerats närmre är fynd av guld, glas, bronsstatyetter, svärd och svärdsdetaljer, fornborgar, storgårdar samt platsnamn indikerande gudanamn och kultplatser. Centralplatsindikatorer från romersk järnålder har också gåtts igenom i syftet att få en bild av även denna periods centralområden på Öland. Resultaten har sedan jämförts och kontinuitet respektive diskontinuitet diskuterats. Resultaten har även jämförts med tidigare studier av centralområden och sett om dessa har gått att vidimera eller falsifiera.</p> / <p>This study has located central places from the Migration Period on Öland by studying chosen categories of ancient monuments, archaeological finds and place names. The chosen categories are gold, glass, bronze statuettes, swords and sword details, hillforts, large farms and place names indicating names from the gods and places of worship. I have also studied indications of central places from the Roman Iron Age, to get a picture of the central areas from this period too. The results from the two periods have then been compared and continuity and discontinuity is discussed. The results has also been compared with earlier research and watched if their theories have been possible to certify or falsify.</p>