This paper reviews the osteological material from birds which are found in the boat graves from Valsgärde in Sweden. Based on my own work with boat grave number 13, I have studied the avian bone material to find out what kind of bird species there are in the grave. Birds have a significant meaning in many religions from all around the world and are symbolic for different kinds of beliefs. Although many written sources from the past indicate the cultural importance of birds, there is still little zooarchaeological research done in the subject of bird findings in graves. The boat graves from Valsgärde is from the Vendel period about 550–800 AD. My interest with the species analysis is that it furthermore will lead to discussions about interpretation of the graves. I want to examine questions like what birds of certain species can tell about the individual that the grave belongs to. For example, findings of predatory birds often refer to wealth, due to fact that it’s difficult to raise them in captivity. This is an interesting fact that should be consider when a grave is examined, because it reveals many more questions. Also, I want to examine how birds at that time were used in everyday life, and if there were any other practices concerning birds like for example hunting.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:uu-358446 |
| Date | January 2018 |
| Creators | Jordahl, Jane |
| Publisher | Uppsala universitet, Arkeologi |
| Source Sets | DiVA Archive at Upsalla University |
| Language | Swedish |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Student thesis, info:eu-repo/semantics/bachelorThesis, text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
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