<p>Following paper deals with the questions about prehistorian and medieval settlements in the Mälar Valley and their relations to the historically known hamlets or single farmsteads from the 17^th- and 18^th-century cadastral maps. Models over settlement development through the period A.D 200 to 1700 done by geographers Ulf Sporrong and Dan Carlsson are tested and compared to the knowledge won by recent archaeological excavations. Is there a connection between the older settlements linked together by dry-stone walls and the late Iron Age settlements? Does the picture differ from the one presented for the Gotland region? How well are the general theories about different settlement development depending on basic natural conditions as for the potentials for cultivation and topography, corresponding to the physical remains?  Are there other factors involved when the settlement structure takes its form?</p><p>The methods that are used here constitutes mainly of a comparison between different locations in the Mälar Valley that has got a well known prehistory thanks to extensive archaeological excavations. Cadastral maps, soilmaps, topography maps and maps over ancient monuments are intertwined to the same map and analyzed through works in Geographical information systems.</p><p>The results of this study reveal an interesting suspicion in the continuity-question through the Iron Age. Certain settlements seem to be more stable than what was earlier assumed in the general models. This occurrence of continuous use of sites must also be seen in a spatial context and not only a pattern formed by randomly chosen locations. The research has shown that it may be connected to the local political power in the Iron Age community. Related to this are also the different settlement forms where more than one unit occurs on a site. Concerning the different natural landscapes both disparities and similarities are found when it comes to the development that precedes the given situation on the cadastral maps. The conclusion is that the recent archaeological excavations definitely have shown us a more complex situation than what was once outlined in the early years of landscape archaeology.</p>

Following paper deals with the questions about prehistorian and medieval settlements in the Mälar Valley and their relations to the historically known hamlets or single farmsteads from the 17th- and 18th-century cadastral maps. Models over settlement development through the period A.D 200 to 1700 done by geographers Ulf Sporrong and Dan Carlsson are tested and compared to the knowledge won by recent archaeological excavations. Is there a connection between the older settlements linked together by dry-stone walls and the late Iron Age settlements? Does the picture differ from the one presented for the Gotland region? How well are the general theories about different settlement development depending on basic natural conditions as for the potentials for cultivation and topography, corresponding to the physical remains?  Are there other factors involved when the settlement structure takes its form? The methods that are used here constitutes mainly of a comparison between different locations in the Mälar Valley that has got a well known prehistory thanks to extensive archaeological excavations. Cadastral maps, soilmaps, topography maps and maps over ancient monuments are intertwined to the same map and analyzed through works in Geographical information systems. The results of this study reveal an interesting suspicion in the continuity-question through the Iron Age. Certain settlements seem to be more stable than what was earlier assumed in the general models. This occurrence of continuous use of sites must also be seen in a spatial context and not only a pattern formed by randomly chosen locations. The research has shown that it may be connected to the local political power in the Iron Age community. Related to this are also the different settlement forms where more than one unit occurs on a site. Concerning the different natural landscapes both disparities and similarities are found when it comes to the development that precedes the given situation on the cadastral maps. The conclusion is that the recent archaeological excavations definitely have shown us a more complex situation than what was once outlined in the early years of landscape archaeology.

This dissertation deals with the long-term dynamics and fluctuations of settlements on Gotland for the period from AD 200 up until early modern times. The settlement structure on Gotland is most often described as very stable and consisting of solitary farms, established in the Iron Age. A contrasting view is presented by analyses of a vast source material from different periods. The source material consists of both physical remains, noted in the Swedish national Archaeological Sites Information System, FMIS and large scale historical maps, as well as other written sources. For the first studied period, the locations of some 2 000 houses are known, since they were constructed with sturdy stone walls and are thus preserved. The source material for the following periods is scarcer, but some hundred Viking Age sites are identified, mainly by the find places of silver hoards. By retrogressive analyses of historical maps, from the decades around the year 1700, and other written sources, later periods are analysed. All available data are gathered in geodatabases, which enables both generalised and detailed spatial and statistical analyses. The results of the analyses show a more varied picture, with great fluctuations in the number of farms; the existence of villages is also clearly indicated in a large part of the settlements. The villages are centred on kinship and the lack of strong royal power or landed gentry meant they were not fixed in cadastres, as fiscal units, as villages were on the Swedish mainland. Two peaks, followed by major dips, were identified in the number of settlements and thus in the population. The first peak occurred during the late Roman Iron Age/Migration period, which was followed by a reduction in the Vendel period of possibly up to 30-50%. After this, a recovery started in the Viking Age, which culminated during the heydays of Gotland in the High Middle Ages, with population numbers most probably not surpassed until late in history. This upward trend was broken by the diminishing trade of Gotland, the Medieval agrarian crisis, The Danish invasion and later events. All this resulted in a decline, probably as great as after the Migration period.