Hunting ground graves were distinguished as a separate category during the 1930s. There is however no clear definition of what a hunting ground grave is. They have been constructed over a large area over a long period of time (200 BC-1200 AD) and their morphology varies. This paper investigates how the archaeologists have discussed the hunting ground graves since they were distinguished as a separate category until today. It investigates what concepts that have been used to define and categorize the graves as a group. It also investigates if the choices of concepts are depending on a broader societal perspective. To find the answers to these questions two surveys have been done. In the first one, texts about the hunting ground graves, written by scientists from 1931 to 2009, are analyzed. The second survey is a questionnaire sent to archaeologists working at museums and at the County Administrative Board in the regions of northern Svealand and Norrland. The source material in both surveys is mainly studied qualitatively, where phrases and choices of words are analyzed using the concepts and methods derived from the research tradition of conceptual history. In the second survey quantitative elements is also analyzed, which aims to show how different views on the hunting ground graves are spread over different counties. The results of the surveys show that the concepts used to define the graves contain locked dichotomies concerning location, economy and ethnicity. The research from the twenty-first century is however increasingly thinking about hunting ground graves as an expression of meetings and mixtures of cultures. The second survey shows that there is no clear consensus on the concept of lake graves (the concept lake graves was used in the questionnaire) among the archaeologists answering the questionnaire. On the contrary, they consider the concept unclear and difficult to use.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:uu-197245 |
| Date | January 2011 |
| Creators | Sundin, Lena |
| Publisher | Uppsala universitet, Institutionen för arkeologi och antik historia |
| 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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