<p>The subject for this essay considers the trade with amber and how it was organized in Scandinavia during the early Nordic Bronze age. There is very little written about this subject. One of the few scholars that have done this is the archeologist Timothy Earle. He has done this generally from a material that comes from the world of the living, mostly settlements. I will compare his view with a grave material that are based on Aner & Kersten Die Ältere Bronzezeit (2001, band 11). My own conclusion is that Timothy Earls view corresponds well with the grave material</p>

<p>This paper deals with the relations between landscape rooms and monuments in an area north of Mönsterås in Kalmar län. After archaeological excavations had been carried out in the area 1991, an article promote it to the “Bronze Age district of Mönsterås” (Källström 1993). There are two main problems that I deal with in this paper. First: The relations between the natural places and the monuments or memorials. Secondly: The patterns with respect to the spread of certain monuments in the landscapes. My studies starts from the British landscape archaeology of Christopher Tilley and Richard Bradley, but also from a Scandinavian point of view with Terje Gansum et al.</p>

<p>This essay consider ritual death during the ironage, and through a presentation of historical and archaeological sources. Considered ritual death I think we should study both historical and archaeological sources, to get a vider view and a new perspective. To make the essay easier to understand I have split up the early and the late Iron Age in the discussion. In order to study the ritual death I have shown archaeological examples like bogsacrifices in the early ironage, and decapitated victims in the Viking society. The victims have been considered as slaves by some archaeologist. An example of this is the grave in Bollstanäs, Uppland, when archaeologist found a cremated male with personal equipment. They also found two beheaded males. Ove Hemmendorff imply that they were slaves, buried as gravegoods, and he based this opinion of drawing parallels with other similar graves, and to literary sources like Ibn Fadlans story.</p>

This study concerns three necklaces, found in three women’s graves in the Viking age city Birka, placed on the island Björkö in the lake Mälaren. The necklaces are well ornate with pearls of carnelian, rock crystal, glass and amber, as well as silver pendants in the shape of for example animals, chairs and crosses.                                                                                    The aim is to examine what purpose the necklaces and their pendants had in its contemporary time, as well as to examine the purpose and possible religious role of the women who owned the necklaces. In order to examine this the graves with the necklaces will also be compared with so called “völvegraves”, which are graves meant for völvor, vǫlur, women who were fortune-tellers. The graves are compared since a hypothesis have been formed, and through a hypothethico-deduction method I hope to see if the aim of this study can be answered. Delimitations are that not all pendants from the necklaces will be used, only categories that will bring forth an analysis as well a discussion. Only two of three völvegraves will take part in the study, since one of them needs more interpretation and analysis.                The study showed similarities between the graves with the necklaces and the völvegraves, which supports a positive outcome of the method. The major differences between the graves were the objects interpreted as ritual, the staff and the necklaces. However, since a hypothethico-deduction theory can be limited, the discussion also focused on the pendants of the necklaces, and what they can say about function and worth. Since the pendants show a connection to the god Oden, I concluded that the necklaces were used as religious objects, and that the women possibly could have had the role of a gydja, but that they had Oden as their main God. I also concluded that the women were connected to vǫlur through the connection to Oden as well as chair pendants, but that the women with the necklaces probably were not vǫlur.

The aim of this thesis is to examine female Viking burials during the Iron Age. Issues such as what is a grave and in what way gender studies have influenced Viking woman`s research are the focus issues in this study. How has the view of male and female in graves changed over time and how have the objects in these graves influenced the gender approach?  I will in this essay delineate myself to the Viking age during the 800-1050 AD. The geographical demarcation is Scandinavia and my intention is to focus on analyzing three excavated graves interpreted as female. In this way I will try to understand various researchers interpretation of gender. This study is a qualitative research overview through literature studies.  The result showed that the objects in the graves were previously interpreted as typically female or male, but that earlier view must now go through a paradigm shift. The archaeologist must now interpret the graves in a completely new way, where you can use genus archaeology along with other analyzes to broaden the previous approach, and not interpret the subjects as typically male and female according to old standards.

A human is entitled to two different identities: one biological and one personal. The methods used in creating a biological profile and identification are under constant development. Methods used in creating a biological profile of an individual are: sex, age, ethnicity and stature. A large variation of bone elements can be used to determine these parameters, some with better results than others. Traces of skeletal trauma and disease should, in those cases they are present, be included in the biological profile. That is because they might be a vital clue in a possible identification. Methods like DNA has been a vital element in identifications on a personal level, because it is possible to determine family relations with its help. DNA has been used in a variety of identifications for example missing soldiers. Identification and creating a biological profile is an important work that will be even more precise in the future.

The purpose of this essay, is to investigate a grave phenomenon with earthen graves, located at the graveyard north of the preindustrial mining village in Sala, Sweden. It was during an excavation by Societas Archaeologica Upsaliensis of the graveyard, which has been dated to been in use during the 16th and beginning of the 17th century, that the earthen graves were discovered. The earthen graves stood out in the report since most of the graves excavated turned out to be coffin graves. Coffin graves is also seen to be the norm during this period of time. I have delimited my research to analyse the four theories that are mentioned in the excavation report from SAU, regarding the earthen graves. I will also present a theory of my own. The main source material of this essay will be the earthen graves, and I will work on the basis that a grave can reflect the individual's position in society. As a result, I found that the“prisoner of war” theory gives the best answers to the questions that arise with the earthengraves.

The main purpose of this dissertation is to investigate the range of small finds and other materials often found deposited in the fills and stone settings above later Iron Age graves in the Mälar region of central Sweden. This study investigates how this material, especially potsherds, burnt clay, burnt and unburnt bones and teeth, flint, ice crampons, nails, rivets and knives, were distributed in eight different grave fields in the Mälar valley. The results shows that most of this material was indeed deliberately placed on or in the graves, with different object types added to particular areas of burial monuments.

The metal detector as an archaeological tool: good or bad? Over the past six decades, the metal-detector has taken both the public as the archaeology by storm. The amount of people that has started to use it both as a hobby and in their jobs, is consistently growing, and the finds that it has provided has been of great value to the archaeologists. This paper examines how the metal-detector has been used and what kind of information it has provided for archaeologists. Firstly, there will be a short presentation of the metal-detector as a tool where its history and function get depicted. Thereafter a short summary around the legislation concerning metal-detectors follows of both Sweden and Denmark, which will end with a comparison. Then, the archaeological excavations with metal-detectors that has taken place in Uppåkra and Gudme during the last 40 years gets presented. There will be a short historical comprehension around both places which is followed by the surveys that has been conducted with metal-detectors and some of the finds that has been made. Finally, there will be a short summary around the debate in Sweden whether the legislation concerning metal-detectors should be liberalized or not. The text will end with a discussion where the author talks about his thoughts of metal-detectors in archaeology.

The Swedish mental health care system underwent a reconstruction during the 17th century. Mentally sick people who were enclosed and hidden from the society were now moved to newly built hospitals, with a specialization in mental rehabilitation, due to the number of mentally sick people in Sweden rising during the 17thcentury. In 1923, a new way of treating and rehabilitating patients was enforced, called occupational therapy. Occupational therapy meant that the patients would be assigned jobs or other occupations, instead of being bedridden, which was often the way patients were previously treated at the beginning of the 18th century. Occupational therapy became highly popular in Sweden, due to the new hospitals that were built being very expensive for the Swedish tax-payers. The new way of treating patients with occupational therapy became an economic priority for the hospitals. Mariebergs Hospital in Kristinehamn was also, at the time, using other new was of treating patients like lobotomy and electroshock therapy. In this essay, we will get in contact with the patients that underwent lobotomy treatment and were sterilized without their consent. The purpose of this essay is to focus on what kind of people were hospitalized in the mental hospitals during the 18thcentury and how they were cared for in various ways. This essay will be based on two thesis statements that were crafted by sociologist Bengt Sjöström in order to interpret the material that appears in this enquiry.