The Social Democratic Women’s Club in Grängesberg, Sweden, was founded by male mine workers in January 1901. Not until 19 years later, the Social Democratic Women’s Organization was founded on a national level. The aim of this case study is to take a closer look at how this local club in Grängesberg grew and developed during the time span of 1901 and the outbreak of the Second World War in 1939. This, by using sources from the club’s own archives in Falun. Historian and gender researcher Yvonne Hirdman’s theories on gender serve as guiding tools for this study. Key concepts of this study are organization, ideals, ideology, and policy.  Key words: Grängesberg, S-kvinnor, gender, working class movement, women’s movement, industrial society / Grängesbergs socialdemokratiska kvinnoklubb bildades av manliga gruvarbetare i januari 1901. Först 19 år senare formades ett socialdemokratiskt kvinnoförbund på riksnivå. Syftet med den här fallstudien är att titta närmre på hur Grängesbergs kvinnoklubb växte fram och utvecklades från dess bildande fram till andra världskrigets utbrott 1939. Källmaterialet som används är klubbens egna, som finns på Dalarnas Folkrörelsearkiv i Falun. Analys genomförs med hjälp av Yvonne Hirdmans genusteori, med särskilt fokus på begreppen genuskontrakt samt utvidgning och isärhållande. Undersökningen fokuserar på frågor som rör organisation, ideal, ideologi och politik.    Nyckelord: Grängesberg, S-kvinnor, genus, arbetarrörelsen, kvinnorörelse, industrisamhälle

In this work, I have mainly aimed to show how the results of previous field surveysin Misterhult parish, Småland province, Sweden have influenced past andcurrent research. Targeted surveys may in fact still change the picture radically.Our state of knowledge may also change through reviews of previous fieldworkand new excavations targeted at knowledge gaps. I have discussed Misterhult’sBronze Age and problems in that field. I have emphasised our current state ofknowledge and made a call for further fieldwork in the area. There is still muchto be done, and this study pinpoints what, in order to approach an answer towhat attracted people to the area 3000 years ago. Misterhult is one of NorthernEurope’s most extensive and best preserved Bronze Age settled landscapes, andconditions for research are good.In addition to surveys and the spatial site distribution, my focus has been on theunderlying economy, i.e. the economy behind the burial-cairn environments. Ihave tried to show that the economy was crucial to the design and ritualisationof those environments. / <p>Seminarieupplaga</p>

This master thesis comprises an assemblage theoretical approach to a Viking Age burial mound. Traditionally assemblages in archaeology are static and homogenous arrangements. Recent research though looks to assemblages as constantly transforming and in flux. These vibrant matters consistent of different components neatly tucked together and intertwined always becoming and changing at the same time. With this approach of assemblage theory to a material of the burial mound “Gullhögen” the main focus will be to recognize which possibilities and what restrictions this kind of perspective has to offer to burial archaeology. Also, the aim of this study is to try and see how relations can become when human and non-human entities interact with the mound. Also, how the mounds inner and outer burial forms effect can have caused an affect in the past and still causes an affect today. This is done through different examples and a case study. With support in earlier interpretations it is argued here what the assemblage theoretical approach “intrinsic assemblage” has to offer in ways of a more vivid and nuanced way to interpret the burial mound and its monumentality as an arrangement with its own intentions and true capabilities to affect its surroundings and the humans and non-humans entities that interact with it.

Archaeologists excavate to find out more about our prehistory. The more artifacts we dig up and preserve the more the potential to extract knowledge about the past from them grows. But some people are starting to get worried how we are going to be able to keep all the things we excavate. The museums are already filled to the brim, but the stream of new objects does not stop.  We are, according to those people, in a curation crisis. This study aims to investigate how the laws and regulations of disposal of the archaeological artifacts in museums collections translate to practice. Through interviews and analyzing laws and guidelines I aim to study how those in charge of disposal navigate between the need of more archaeological material versus the need to make more room in the collections, and how the guidelines over disposal gets implemented in practice. The conclusions of this paper is that Swedish museums employees generally thinks that the guidelines are easy to work with, however they rarely dispose of archaeological artifacts, instead they rely on it being done in the field.

This paper studies the perception of the Christian body during the second and third centuries CE. It engages with this question with the aid of early Christian literature from this time period, additionally containing a particular focus on how the Pauline theology of the body influenced later Christian bodily conceptions. By subjecting these works to a close reading and with the aid of an intertextual theory, this thesis attempts to ascertain whether this early Christian perception of the body was fractured in nature, and whether aspects of this division – if evident – can be derived from and ascribed to a Pauline influence. This thesis argues that corporeality was a particularly complex component within the early Christian faith, the fractured nature of which could be derived from the contrasting influences of prior Graeco-Roman and Jewish theologies. / Den här uppsatsen studerar den kristna uppfattningen av kroppen under 100- och 200-talet e.v.t. Den behandlar denna fråga med hjälp av tidig kristen litteratur från denna tidsperiod, och inbegriper utöver detta även ett särskilt fokus på hur den Paulinska teologin om kroppen påverkade senare kristna uppfattningar av det kroppsliga. Genom att utsätta dessa verk för en närläsning och med hjälp av en intertextuell teori  så försöker den här uppsatsen därmed att avgöra om denna tidiga kristna uppfattning av kroppen var motsägelsefull i sin natur, och huruvida aspekter av denna splittring – om synlig – kan härstamma från eller tillskrivas Paulinsk influens. Den här uppsatsen argumenterar för att kroppslighet var en särskilt komplex komponent inom den tidiga kristna tron, vars splittrade natur kan härstamma från de kontrasterande influenserna av tidigare grekisk-romerska och judiska teologier.

Sigtuna is one of the first settlements in Sweden considered to be a proper town. Taking over Birka´s function as a central trading hub when it was founded in the late 10th century AD, Sigtuna was characterized by its early connection to Christianity, and many churches were built there. The foundations of one of these medieval stone churches and its churchyard lie beneath Sigtuna museum’s plot on the block S: t Gertrud 3. However, the full extent of this church and churchyard as well as its foundation date and function is not fully known. The over-arching purpose of this study is to achieve a better understanding of this church’s function. This will be done by geochemically analysing soil samples taken from the museum plot under which the churchyard is located. The first aim of this study is to establish the extent of the churchyard. During excavations carried out between 1990- 1991 in the neighbouring block Urmakaren, archaeologists discovered the remains of King Olof Skötkonung’s minting house along with various finds, notably two lead pieces with imprints of coin stamps. The second aim of this study is to see if traces of these metalworking activities can be detected on the museum plot. The third aim is to see how the church and churchyard related to the minting house on a spatial plane.

Previous research on the funerary practices of the Viking Age has found evidence to suggest that people were sometimes executed for the purpose of following others into death. There are several well-known examples of this practice from around Scandinavia, including graves from Birka, Bollstanäs, and Gerdrup, where men appear to have been executed using brutal methods. Written sources such as Ibn Fadlān's travelogue and Sigurdskvädet, however, often place an emphasis on the killing of women during funerary rites – a practice that is inconsistent with the archaeological evidence. Where women have been suggested to have been executed as part of a funerary ritual, their skeletons often show no evidence for violence. This study was therefore conceived in order to critically compare the archaeological and textual evidence with a view to establishing the potential reasons for this discrepancy. By applying a theoretical framework that focused on the funeral as a ‘mortuary drama,’ the study has identified different potential causes for the absence of skeletal injuries on female individuals. It is possible, for example, that while women were killed they were often subjected to other types of fatal violence that do not leave injuries on the bone. It is also possible that women who were executed were more often cremated, rather than buried. Finally, it is possible that both men and women could be killed as part of these rites, and that the identity and the gender of the victim was of less symbolic importance than the act itself. The study shows that although the graves are scattered over vast geographical areas, they appear to have some certain commonalities, nevertheless the graves are interpreted differently. Variations, when comparing graves and the historical sources, appear natural, as Viking culture as well as their graves carry great variations. This study has shown that the types of fatal violence described in historical sources differ from the archaeological evidence presented in modern excavations.

This paper is a case study of the Viking Age ship burial from Oseberg, Norway. The aim of this paper is to use the concept of persona developed within rhetoric’s, and to investigate if it is possible to apply it on archaeological materials such as the Oseberg burial. The concept of persona as developed by Birgitte Mral is to identify strategies used by individuals to change their personality in order to enable themselves as a part of the public sphere. It is argued here that applying persona is a complement method to use in archeological research with a focus on gender. Although gender theory has previously been implemented on the Oseberg find, the history of its interpretations is still deeply influenced by the original interpretations put forward after the excavation in 1904. Therefore, a discussion based on analogies is conducted to evaluate the use of persona in gender archaeology in relation to other archeological interpretations of the Oseberg burial. The case study has introduced persona in an archeological context and used persona as a method and theoretical framework to gain new perspectives on how archaeologists can study the people in a grave rather than larger cultural events. The analysis based on analogies showed how persona can be used as a reflective tool as well as a theoretical framework.

Xipe Totec is an Aztec god often associated with agriculture and fertility. It is a deity type that is common in ancient societies dependent on agriculture but what sets him apart is his link to a rather brutal set of rituals. Known as ‘Our Lord, the Flayed One’ he is depicted in a flayed skin from a sacrificed victim, and the act of flaying is a central part of his mythology and worship. The study aims to investigate the reasoning behind the symbolism that connects brutal acts such as flaying with agriculture and fertility; and what the symbolism can tell us about the Aztecs’ mindset and worldview. To bring a successful conclusion to the study, Xipe Totec’s functions and roles are analysed from a social context. The study hopes to contribute to the study and interpretation of Aztec society and culture, especially concerning religion.

In the southern part of the county of Jämtland seven rich finds of iron artefacts from the Vendel Period have been found. These finds contain similar sets of hunting weapons and tools of iron and they are all found close to lakes or river banks in the hunting ground area. In most cases no human bones or grave structures have been found in connection with the finds. The combination of artefacts is similar to combinations found in hunting ground graves in Dalarna and Norway. Therefore, archaeologists have discussed whether the finds in Jämtland should be classified as graves or hoards. The purpose of this thesis is to widen the discussion. An important point of departure has been to refrain from classifying the archaeological material in advance as graves or hoards, as sacred or profane, or as anything else, since such assumptions risk leading to circular reasoning. The analysis and discussion in the thesis are inspired by practice theory and focus on how actions performed can reflect people's relationships. Symbolism and beliefs, or what people thought, are of secondary importance. The results suggest that the finds of iron artefacts discussed in this thesis can be considered remains of ritualised activities. These activities may have been performed for a variety of reasons. For the moment, it may be fruitful to shift the focus from the classification problem to a discussion where these rich finds of iron artefacts are considered in a broader context. The results also suggest that these iron artefacts were deposited in the ground during a time when there was an increase in the construction of trapping pit systems in Jämtland. The rich finds of iron artefacts may well reflect changes taking place in the organisation of the surrounding community as a result of the increasing importance of hunting.