During the three first centuries A.D the cult to roman emperor was practiced over the absolute majority of the known world. It was based on the idea of the deified ruler, where religion was used as a way of legitimizing a social position of an absolute few. It arrived from below but was promoted and spread from above as a way of governmental control. During the same period of time did a new aristocratic social group emerge in remote Scandinavia that eagerly sought new ways to identify themselves and their newly found social standing. With a base consisting of an economic surplus they wanted to create an acceptance for their new way of life and thus in doing so change the very foundation and core beliefs of their own society.The central theme of this study is the cultural exchange that took place between these two cultural spheres and mainly of the effect that the cult to the roman emperor had on the emergence and identification process of the Scandinavian aristocracy.

Beyond the vicinity A study of swords in the mountain region of Jämtland County during the LateIron Age and a discussion of their interpretation. This bachelor thesis discusses the function of swords found in the mountain region of Jämtland County during the Late Iron Age. It focuses on the discussion whether the swords found in the mountain region can reflect on resource utilization in the mountain region during the Late Iron Age from a socioeconomical perspective. The thesis also brings up difficulties in the intrepretations whether or not the swords in the mountain region should be defined as a grave, because of the lack of human remains in some of the sites in the mountain region containing swords. The data used in the thesis is mainly processed in GISand Microsoft Excel and is discussed on a critical basis. The results are presented as maps showing spatial relations between the collected data. The presence of swords in the mountain region can be seen as evidence of more widespread resource utilization of the mountain region in Jämtland County.

This paper is a study of the Swedish fornborg Torsburgen on Östergarnslandet, Gotland. This is the largest fornborg on Gotland and it has an area of 112 hectares. The northern, eastern and western parts of the plateau, on which Torsburgen is lying, has natural cliffs of up to 30 meters, while there in the southern part is a two-kilometer-long wall. During the 1980´s a part of the wall was excavated in an attempt to date the construction. The conclusion was, that it had many different building stages. The earliest find was dated to the later Roman Iron Age (AD 200-400) and that period is therefore also the focus of this paper.  The aim of this paper is to explain different hypotheses of why this wall was built (for what reason) and what purpose did it fulfill in society. Archaeological finds from Gotland, dated to the period of the later Roman Iron Age, often show connections to the Roman Empire and therefore the construction could be a result of influences from that part of the world.  It is however, with today’s knowledge, not possible to point out one specific reason why the wall of Torsburgen was built and for what reason they needed to fortify the area of 112 hectares. It could have been an invading force, but it could just as likely have been a need of a hideout to protect the inhabitants on the island from an invading force. Other hypotheses are that it could have been a place for religious practice or a hideout for exiled people, which some people claim that an episode in the Gotlandic legend Gutasagan is about. Hopefully archaeological finds in the future could lead to new knowledge and maybe result in an answer of why this monument is standing there.

This text is dealing with the question on the two real big Viking age burial sites on the Tumbo Ridge, and their invisible corresponding settlement. How to decide the expected size of a Viking settlement? What does the findings and the landscape say about a possible settlement’s placement and activities? Hypothetical harbor sites for a settlement with trade and crafts as its business activity, is presented. / Denna text avhandlar frågan om bakgrunden till de två verkligt stora vikingatida gravfälten på Tumboåsen och dess motsvarande bebyggelses osynlighet. Hur avgör man förväntad storleken på en bebyggelse och tätort? Vad säger fynd och landskap om en eventuell tätorts läge och verksamhet? Hypotetiska hamnlägen för en tätort med hantverk och handel som huvudnäring presenteras.

Accompanying the rich and highly individualized Swedish Late Iron age graves are often charred remains of plants and food together with the other grave-goods. These remains have long been known but often overlooked, mainly due to low preservation. Some relatively well preserved finds are cultivated cereal grains, which have become a common archeobotanical find in Iron Age cremation graves and are a massive source of information regarding agriculture and food culture. But what do they say of the buried individual? This thesis aims to investigate the cereal grains, plants and food remains by treating the archaeobotanical remains as grave-goods in a statistical study made on macrofossil remains from Bådstorpsgravfältet, a vendel and viking age burial ground in Östergötland, Sweden. With the results from 79 graves it is researched if plant remains can be linked to certain demographics and the changings of its role in the burial practices over time.

Jugs with tubular handles are a special type of ceramics, which is rarely discussed in the literature. The jugs has a beautiful decor and a handle with a channel. The vessels have been interpreted as puzzle vessels, mugs for kids or vessels for libation. The sites where these jugs have been found are very exclusive and the decoration on the vessels can be related to ideas from the Nordic mythology. In some cases, the decor is telling the story about Suttung’s mead. Two places are of special interest namely the ringfort at Sandby borg, Öland and the settlement on the island of Helgö in Lake Mälaren, central Sweden.

The purpose of this thesis is to address key questions concerning the status and roles of enslaved groups (thralls) in Viking-Age Scandinavia. The thesis focuses on the lives of thralls at two levels; first within the local context of the household and farm (described here as the ‘microenvironment’), and second within the wider ‘macroenvironment’ of Scandinavian society. In particular, the study seeks to uncover the different practical and economic roles that were fulfilled by thralls within these contexts, and in doing so to explore how slaveholding communities benefitted from the exploitation of these people. In order to address these issues, the thesis critically examines the archeological material associated with thralls and discusses the various issues associated with the interpretation of this evidence. Given the inherent difficulty of identifying thralls in the archaeological record, this study also utilizes a range of contemporaneous and later medieval textual sources, including the Icelandic sagas and the earliest surviving Scandinavian law codes, as a means of contextualizing the discussion of material evidence. In exploring the diverse range of archaeological evidence and textual sources available to us, the author concludes that thralls played a significant role among Scandinavian communities as a source of both domestic and economic labor. Through this, they also involuntarily helped Scandinavian communities to mount and sustain trading, raiding and settlement activity in Europe and beyond. In reaching this conclusion, the author draws upon a number of sources pointing to a significant need for (unfree?) labor, for example in tasks such as textile production. When combined with a high-level of access to slaves through raiding and trading activity, it seems logical that Viking-Age communities would have exploited thralls in this way. Given the regular appearance of thralls in both the early Scandinavian law codes and sagas, furthermore, it is likely that these people represented a prominent social group within both social and labor-related contexts.

Genom arkeologins historia har skepp studerats som symboler för makt, status och krig. Även om skeppen studerats väldigt mycket inom dessa aspekter har relationerna och nätverken runt skeppens produktion och underhåll fallit i skymundan. Målet med uppsatsen är därför att studera dessa relationer ur ett holistiskt perspektiv, och att försöka tolka hur dessa relationer i sin tur påverkat skeppets roll i gravsammanhang genom att använda Osebergsskeppet som grund för studien. Tidsramen som satts är yngre järnålder, detta för att kunna tolka skeppens symboliska värde effektivt. För att göra det immateriella greppbart används entanglement-teori, och kvantitativa uträkningar för naturliga- och mänskliga resurser används som hjälpmedel för detta. Studien visar att allt rörande skeppet är intrasslade med varandra, och att en kollektiv agens av samhället var nödvändig för produktion och senare underhåll av skeppen. Skeppens symboliska värde är också format av dessa relationer, och det är möjligt att det är dessa relationer som lett till skeppens roll i gravseden under perioden. / For much of the history of archaeology ships have been studied as symbols for power, wealth, and warfare. Even though viking-age ships have been studied immensely in these regards the relationships and the network of organization around the construction and maintenance have not received as much attention from archaeologists. The aim of this essay is therefore to study these relationships in a holistic view, and to try to interpret how these relationships affected the ships’ place in the funerary sphere using the Oseberg ship as the basis for this study. The timeframe for the study is set to late iron-age since the study of symbolism needs a longer timeframe to be interpreted effectively. To get the intangible to become tangible the entanglement theory is applied, and quantitative estimations on natural- and human resources are used as support to do so. The study shows that everything surrounding the ship is entangled, and that a collective agency of the communities was necessary for the production and maintenance of the ships. The symbolic meaning of the ship is also formed by these relationships, and that it might be these relationships that gave the ships a place in the funerary sphere during the period.

<p>This paper deals with archaeological prospecting for the purpose of finding a prehistoric settlement in Alsike hage, Alsike parish, Uppland. The methods being used are soil phosphate analysis, electromagnetic survey and settlement analysis. Two 20x20 meters areas have been prospected. As Alsike hage contains several late Iron Age burial fields, large splendid zones for settlement location, closeness to water as well as farmland there was a hope of locating remains of prehistoric settlement in the area. None of the prospected areas showed any distinct evidence of settlement remains. Still, the results showed anomalies in both areas, both in the electromagnetic survey as in the phosphate analysis. Therefore, the possibility of finding such remains in the two prospected areas cannot be ruled out.</p>

<p>Andersson, J. 2008. <em>Bildstenarna och den muntliga traditionen på Gotland under yngre järnålder</em>. <em>The Picture Stones and the Oral Tradition of Gotland During the Late Iron Age. </em>Högskolan i Kalmar ht 2008.</p><p>This is a study of the picture stones of Gotland and the oral tradition connected to them. This study consists of two main parts; in the main part the discussion focus on the oral tradition and the continuity of the same, where the memory plays a significant role. It also contains a discussion of the physical environment and its influences of the oral tradition. The second part concentrates around the picture stones, the variation of the scenes and the numerous of them. </p><p>Keywords: oral traditions, picture stones, late iron age, Gotland, Nordic mythology.</p><p> </p><p> </p>