This bachelor thesis is a compilation of previous master and bachelor theses written by osteology students at Högskolan på Gotland and Uppsala University Campus Gotland, with a focus on palaeopathology in individuals from the island of Gotland, from the Stone Age through the Middle Ages. The purpose of this thesis is to shed light on the history of disease on the island of Gotland on a bigger scale than previous theses have done. Most master and bachelor theses have typically focused on one site or settlement, set in a particular time period in their study, whereas I chose to combine all of the studies into one cohesive examination of all disease surveyable in the skeleton of these individuals. This, in order to see if there are differences to be found in the various time periods, or even differences among the population within a specific time period. And there are some differences to be seen, indeed; most notably perhaps between the Iron Age and the Middle Ages, where a difference in the dental health can clearly be seen. When comparing the other time periods however, caution must be advised; the skeletal material is lacking in most eras other than the Iron Age and the Middle Ages.

The cup marks are the most common form of rock art in Scandinavia and they have been dated from the Mesolithic to the Migration period. In Sweden they are mostly found in the southern parts of the country. They are believed to generally have been made by permanently resident agrarian people from the Bronze age. The question about the cup marks origin and purpose is one of the unanswered questions in Scandinavian rock art research, which this essay has had the goal to answer with a holistic, statistical analysis based on all the registered cup marks in Sweden. Furthermore, the cup marks have been investigated in correlation with other ancient remains to see if there are patterns in the landscape that could indicate the cup marks purpose. The analysis confirmed that most of the cup marks probably where made by a permanent resident agrarian people on land mostly close to water, and that there seems to have been central places in the south of Sweden where different ancient remains have been made in clusters. No uniform meaning about the cup marks could be found with this method, but the research showed that with more detailed research about cup mark sites combined with a wider perspective about the entire cup marks placings in the landscape, new research will probably be able to get closer to an answer about the cup marks purpose and use in the Norse landscape.

Female warriors from the Viking Age is a subject that has been debated and interpreted in many different ways. The modern view on the binary gender roles is one of the reasons why it has been hard for archaeologists to interpret the female warrior graves. The graves are often interpreted in other ways then that the weapons in the graves would belong to the female individuals. Archaeologists rather explain the graves existence because of other reasons than that the female individuals would have been warriors. The issue of the study is whether the female warrior graves from the Viking Age differ from a female gender role, or if the warrior role possibly could be a part of a female gender? Also, why are there so few female warrior graves? The study will be based around three graves, Bj 581 from Birka in Sweden, Mound 50 from Heath Wood in England and T20248 from Nord-Trøndelag in Norway. The analysis and discussion are based on a gender perspective, new ideas will be added to the discussion based on age, gender roles, gender expression and social status. The results may indicate that female gender rolls might be changeable depending on the female individual’s social status, age and life stage.

This paper deals with two women who wore relief brooches from Häste and Brunflo during the Migration period in Jämtland. The purpose of the essay is to investigate similarities and differences in the women’s relief brooches, graves and places in order to understand the women’s relations to each other and their time. The essay has implemented gender theory and a comparative method, complemented by a landscape analysis. The conclusion is that the women from Häste and Brunflo were leaders during their time.

Egyptology is a discipline in which new research and new approaches are continuously necessary and – in most cases – provided. In this constant flow of new research, some subject areas are left untouched. The lemmas aA and wr have continuously had a very homogenous translation although the morphological and syntactical differences are quite visible. The generally accepted translation of both lemmas as ‘great’ is very singular and raises the question of whether aA and wr should be considered synonyms or not. The study consists of two combined parts; a morpho-syntactical analysis of aA and wr and their conjugations and distributions as well as a semantic analysis on different expressions and sentences where both aA and wr occur with the same, or similar, syntactical structure. The aim is to give clarification to the correlation between the lemmas aA and wr and their interpretation. The study is not restricted to a specific time period, but regards linguistic developments as an important factor in the analysis. An important conclusion from this study is the clear, preferred use of wr as a qualifier for physical greatness, as opposed to aA which appears in contexts more related to metaphorical greatness. During Late Egyptian the opacity of the different uses of aA and wr increases and the differentiation becomes quite fuzzy.

An osteological study on human skeletal remains from Maassara in Egypt. The goal of the study was to get a good picture of the health of the individuals buried in the graves at Maassara. The study was combined of nine individuals. Two from the Early Dynastic period and six individuals from the Old Kingdom. All the adult individuals have some form of pathological change. Most pathological changes are in the spine. Most pathological changes were age-related. Some of the individuals were very poorly kept and the bones were very fragile.

This paper looks to examine the relationship between the church buildings and archaeological finds from under the church floor in Silte parish on the baltic isle, Gotland. The material was excavated in 1971-1972, after evidence of an older wooden church was uncovered during restoration work. This older structure, revealed to have consisted of a chancel and choir, had evidently been connected to the present stone choir for some time. The well preserved foundation was excavated along with a rich archeological material consisting of, amongst other things, some 1700 coins and 18 graves along with skeletal material indicating an additional 25 individuals. In this thesis the material and the buildings are put into context and an attempt is made to link it to different phases of christianization. One connecting to the timbered stave church, and one to the later stone church. The results are then used to make a connection between this development and the formation of the parish system on the island and the increased stratification of church and society during the early Middle Ages in Sweden and Scandinavia.

Abstract. The goal of this case study is to further the understanding of the social and economic structure, such as trade routes and/or prehistoric man’s movement, during prehistory in the inland of Västerbotten, Sweden. This is achieved by studying the sets of lithic tools found in six archaeological sites (RAÄ 977:1 Vilhelmina, RAÄ 553:1 Vilhelmina, RAÄ 132:1 Vilhelmina, RAÄ 519:1 Vilhelmina, RAÄ 399:1 Vilhelmina och RAÄ 129:1 Åsele) using NIR-spectroscopic (Near InfraRed-spectroscopy), statistical and archaeological methods. By using PCA-models (Principal Component Analysis-models) and the classification method SIMCA (Soft Independent Modelling of Class Analogies) on NIR-spectroscopic data collected over the course of this study, it was possible to show signs that prehistoric man in the studied area, might have deposited quartzite materials, not naturally occurring at the RAÄ 519:1 Vilhelmina, Sweden, site. Four geographic areas (the vicinity of the sea Vojm, the North and South part of the sea Malgomaj and the vicinity of the Southwest part of the Ångerman river in the studied area) could also be shown to display distinct patterns in the PCA-models, related to the use of particular combinations of quartzites. These findings lead to the conclusion that prehistoric man in this area, typically used locally available materials for toolmaking. Furthermore, this study resulted in a large NIR-spectroscopic dataset from the archaeological sites that makes up the main material for this study, that may be beneficial to future NIR-spectroscopic studies in archaeology and/or further studies of NIR-spectroscopy applied to lithic materials.

This study is a continuation of my previous essay, which performed a catalogue and interpretation of stone cists from the late Neolithic - early Bronze Age. This essay will develop that study through a analysis of the land use during the same period. The material will be analyzed through ArcGIS where five main analysis will be used to study this, watershed, viewshed, hillshade, buffer/density and nearest neighbor. The goal of these analysis will be to create a better view of the landscape and together with the archaeological material create a deeper understanding for the land use during the late Neolithic - early Bronze Age. The archaeological material that will be used consists of stone cists, which were identified in my previous essay, as well as stray finds, namely flint daggers and simple shaft hole axes. The stone cists and their position in the landscape will be studied closer as these are the only stationary monuments in the landscape during this period. These will be compared with the stray finds and ArcGIS analysis with the goal of identifying land use, for example potential settlements, something which is rarely found during this period. / Denna studie är en fortsättning på min föregående uppsats som  utförde en sammanställning och tolkning av hällkistor från Senneolitikum - äldre Bronsålder på Gotland. Denna uppsats utvecklar detta genom en analys av landskapsanvändningen under samma period. Materialet kommer analyseras genom ArcGIS där fem huvudsakliga analyser kommer användas för att studera detta, watershed, viewshed, hillshade, buffer/density samt nearest neighbor. Dessa har som mål att skapa en bättre bild av landskapet och tillsammans med det arkeologiska materialet skapa en förståelse för landskapsanvändningen under Senneolitikum - äldre Bronsålder. Det arkeologiska materialet som kommer användas består av hällkistor som identifierats i föregående uppsats samt lösfynd i form av flintdolkar och enkla skafthålsyxor. Hällkistorna och deras position i landskapet kommer studeras i  närmare då dessa är de ända fasta monumenten från denna period. Dessa kommer sedan jämföras med lösfynden och förhållas till ArcGIS analyserna som utförts med målet att identifiera landskapsanvändning. Utifrån dessa analyser kan eventuella viktiga områden i landskapet identifieras, exempelvis potentiella bosättningar, något som sällan hittas under denna period.

This paper is about food culture in Uppland under early iron age in Upplans, Sverige. Gas chromatography–mass spectrometry (GC-MS) was used to analysis the lipids that were extracted from archaeological potsherds from Påtåker Raä 62, Sollentuna, Uppland. The result of the lipid analysis shows content of aquatic animal products, terrestrial animal products, vegetables and indication of being heated. Based on these results and what is considered to be a normal diet during the Iron Age, it is possible to say that there are similarities. These results are also compared with three sites from Late Iron Age – Vendel 1:1, Vendel 28 and Tuna, to see if there are any similarities. The reason to choose three sites from Late Iron Age, and not Early Iron Age, is because there haven’t been done studies like this on material from the early Iron Age. Vendel 28 was the site that was most similar to Påtåker, when it comes to its enviorment with meadows and woods, and the ceramics application areas. / This study is part of the on going research of Påtåker Raä 62, Sollentuna, Oppland.