Discribes different houses in  use  during the Swedish Iron Age.

This is a work about the relationship between cult houses and halls. In my essay I will go through four different places were cult houses and halls both exist. I will look at the findings and the landscapes were the settlements are located in. The places I have chosen are Lunda in Södermanland, Slöinge in Halland, Uppåkra in western Skåne and Järrestad in southeast Skåne. Because of that the cult houses and halls are occurring during the late Iron Age, it is during this time period that I will work in. As a ground when I look at this, I'll use interpretations from four archaeologists who have been through and dug out the places that I have chosen.

The existence of the prehistoric cult buildings is a highly controversial subject in archeology. Perhaps the most interesting thing about the discussion is that it is not certain that these buildings existed. Most of the recent excavations have contributed to an increased interest in central places, cult centers and the discovered material associated with mansion-like settlements. Various exclusive discoveries link relevant interpretations and terms to kings and aristocracy. In some cultural contexts the larger magnate complexes during the Iron Age have had a significant importance. The buildings that are considered to have received a great ritual significance are special houses that have been interpreted as cult houses, but also the hall buildings had a significant role in the context of cult. In the interpretation of the Iron Age cult house, there are a number of aspects that should be taken into consideration, and not merely the material findings at the cult houses. The surrounding nature of the buildings is important, since the cult houses were built on settlements, where powerful chiefs of importance to the community lived and worked. Unlike the bronze ages cult houses, the iron age is more easily interpreted, due to several aspects. On the one hand, iron age cult houses are considerably more resourceful, on the other hand, pre-Christian scriptures have contributed to various aspects of the interpretation of the buildings. These interpretations can be questioned as they are not scientific.

This paper discusses the approximately twenty Middle Iron Age hillforts located in Östra and Västra Rekarne härad in Södermanland.  "Härad", an administrative division, is likely to be derived from the earlier hundred division, which was based on equipping and manning ships at a time when society was hierarchical and the elite, through travel, had contact with the Roman Empire, inspiring new gods (such as Thor and Odin) to worship. The Tuna and Berga settlements are part of the hundred division but may also have played a role in organization of the earlier travels. There is a connection between Tuna and Berga and hillforts suggesting hillforts could be part of an early organization for equipping and manning ships. Some of the hillforts have house-terraces and possibly had textile production for the travels, some were possibly built for cult.

Denna uppsats är en kvalitativ empirisk jämförande studie av gravhögar och gravtradition under yngre järnåldern i Västergötland. Syftet med uppsatsen är att undersöka hur gravhögarnas struktur förändrades och utvecklades för att observera övergången av gravtraditionen till kristendomen. Frågan som uppsatsen bygger på att besvara är att observera hur gravhögarna förändrades och mottagligheten för kristendomen. Material som undersöks i denna uppsats är utgrävda gravhögar i Västergötland mellan 500- och 1100-talen. Resultaten visar att gravhögarna blev mindre i storlek under vikingatiden. Under vikingatiden gjorde den sociala eliten inga utmärkande gravar och ingen hierarkisk skillnad kan observeras från gravarnas exteriör. Den invändiga konstruktionen blev mindre varierad. Man får intrycket att byggandet av gravhögar börjar stagnera och pressas ut under vikingatiden i Västergötland. I mitten av 900-talet slutade man bygga gravhögar och övergav de hedniska gravfälten. De började begrava sina döda på en annan plats i ett kristet gravskick. / This essay is a qualitative empirical comparative study of burial mounds and burial tradition during the Late Iron Age in the Swedish province of Västergötland. The purpose of the thesis is to investigate how the structure of the burial mounds was changed and developed to observe the transition of the burial tradition to Christianity. The question that the essay is based on answering is to observe how the burial mounds changed and the susceptibility to Christianity. Material that is examined in this essay are excavated burial mounds in Västergötland between the 500s and 1100s. The results show that the burial mounds became smaller in size during the Viking Age. During the Viking Age the social elite did not make any distinctive tombs and no hierarchical difference can be observed from the exterior of the tombs. Internal construction became less varied. You get the impression that the building of burial mounds is starting to stagnate and be pushed out during the Viking Age in Västergötland. In the middle of the 10th century, they stopped building burial mounds and abandoned the pagan burial grounds. They began to bury their dead in another place in a Christian burial ground.

This paper studies continuity and discontinuity in the eastern Mälaren valley during the transition between the middle and late periods of the Swedish Iron Age. Historically this period has been seen as a period of population decline and turbulence but newer research has questioned this premise. In the areas studied in this paper one showed signs of discontinuity whereas the other seemed to have expanded. The discontinuity could possibly be explained with tectonic uplift causing the waterways over time to become non-traversable. Furthermore I could show a potential link between high status settlements and control over important paths for communication over water.

Picture stones were produced on the island of Gotland during the Iron Age, about 100-1150 AD. In this dissertation it has been made clear that biographical- and pre-iconographic perspectives enables new understandings of the stones. The wave-shaped cist stones, about 30 of the nearly 500 picture stones, were clearly produced as different from the axe- or mushroom-shaped large- and dwarf stones. This has been shown by their difference in shape, size and the frequency and placement of motifs. Reuses of cist stones does however concur with the other stones and suggest they were used for the same reasons and purposes. In this dissertation it has also been made clear that there is no concrete evidence that the cist stones were erected as cists constructions, especially for women or used for offerings. The term “small wave-shaped” picture stones has therefore been introduced as a substitute.

In this essay I analyze the stone circles known as domarringar in northern Småland. In order to understand the stone circles, one must understand the society that built them, I argue. Therefore I first date them so I can put them in a context. After dating them to late Roman Iron Age and Migration period, I discuss hill forts, gold bracteates and rotary querns as a starting point for understanding the society and ideology that built the stone circles. I argue that the stone circles are a product of the midgård-ideology and that they have to be understood in that light. The stone circles are always found close to a road and often relatively high in the landscape. They manifest boundaries in the landscape.

This thesis analyses inhumations in Late Viking Age and Early Middle Ages in Sweden and brings recognition to a material previously not delt with in a comprehensive study. The graves of the first Christians have long interested scholars. Some general characteristics are generally agreed upon, such as inhumations withan east-west orientation of the dead and fewer grave goods in relation to earlier periods. Some deviant materials are also found in the graves but have not been thoroughly analyzed. This thesis deals with this recurrent deviant material, arguing that it is an essential part of Conversion Era graves in southern Scandinavia. Furthermore, this recurrent deviant material is key for our understanding of the burial tradition during the Late Viking Age and Early Middle Ages. Parallels in both France and Britain put the material in perspective. / <p>Examinatorerna bestod av en grupp anställda vid institutionen.</p>

Vi lever i en värld där globala förflyttningar av olika anledningar är vanliga. Dagens klassrum är allt som oftast mångkulturella i den mening att sammansättningen av individer bland eleverna representerar flera olika kulturer. Mångfalden innebär att den traditionella historieundervisningen där majoritetskulturen står i centrum för de beskrivna historiska händelserna inte längre är bruklig. För att alla ska kunna känna sig inkluderade i historieundervisningen krävs det att undervisningen visar på interkulturella perspektiv där alla elever får sin historia bekräftad och satt i ett gemensamt sammanhang. Tidigare forskning visar att läroböcker i historia ofta saknar de interkulturella perspektiven. Då få av de studier som finns gällande interkulturell historieundervisning gäller de yngre åldrarna ämnar vi bidra med kunskaper om hur läroböcker i historia för årskurs 1 - 6 framställer olika kulturer i läroböckernas texter, vilka perspektiv som visas i texten och om interkulturalitet främjas genom läroböckernas texter. I vår studie kommer vi att kritiskt granska kapitlen som gäller järnåldern och vikingatiden i fem svenska läroböcker utgivna mellan 1992 och 2015.  Metoden vi använt oss av i vår granskning är en ideologikritisk analys. Metoden är kvalitativ och analysen används för att kritiskt granska de ideologier som implicit eller explicit framgår i en text, i vårt fall läroböcker. Resultatet av studien visar att läroböcker i historia tenderar att visa fler interkulturella perspektiv ju senare den är skriven. Med anledning av hur Lgr 80 (Läroplan för grundskolan 1980, Skolöverstyrelsen 1980–1986), Lpo 94 (Läroplan för det obligatoriska skolväsendet, Utbildningsdepartementet 1994) och Lgr 11 (Läroplan för grundskolan, förskoleklassen och fritidshemmet) definierar interkulturalitet så är detta resultat helt i linje med de antaganden vi hade innan utförd forskning. Vad som kom att förvåna oss var att de historiska texterna i så stor utsträckning antog religiösa, särskilt kristna perspektiv. Det finns även formuleringar i texten i de analyserade läroböckerna som försvårar inkludering för de elever som har en annan kultur än den svenska.