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.

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 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>

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.

This essay concerns the relationship between humans and animals during the Late Iron Age, 450-1050 AD, in the Nordic region. The archaeological and osteological material studied is animal style ornamentation and inhumation and cremation graves. The essay is based on a human-animal perspective and is inspired by Human-Animal Studies (HAS). This perspective shows how an anthropocentric worldview and human exceptionalism have come to influence the previous research regarding humans and animals. From this perspective, the animal's agency becomes central, which means that the animal acts as its own subject that mutually affects people and each other. Several parallels between the animal style ornamentation and the osteological material are also apparent both within the previous research and within my own analysis. In the previous research, a secondary view of animals abounds, and the focus is on human agency. But in the study's analysis, it becomes clear how the animal's agency is present. In both materials examined, bodies are mixed and assimilated in different and unique ways. The interpretation of the material is that people during the Late Iron Age thought "with both people and animals" and that people wanted to be influenced by animals. There was a world view were all living beings were a transversal unit, a so-called zoe. Both humans and animals were becomings initiated in a process of eternal co-creation.