Wood has been an integral part of the Scandinavians everyday life for thousands of years. There are still several substantial gaps in knowledge about their wood culture during the Late Iron Age since previous research has been focused on more common findings of inorganic materials like ceramics, metals and glass. Archaeologists rarely find wooden artifacts during excavations due to wood disintegrating a lot faster than metal in the ground. Valsgärde is one of Sweden’s most important Iron Age sites since several wooden remains were found there. They show parts of our distant past that we have yet to understand and gain knowledge about. The few preserved wooden artifacts from the Late Iron Age show a rich culture of wood carving. That is why this study focuses on those very few organic objects that are found. Wooden artifacts might potentially be used to determine the social status of the individuals in the graves. This is examined through a comparative analysis of the wooden remains from Valsgärde and other boat graves in Scandinavia. The analysis also reveals what type of wood the artifacts were made of, which makes it possible to determine if they could be from local trees or if they had to be imported. There seems to be a conscious choice of what kind of wood an object should be made of depending on the purpose at hand and social status. In some cases the choice of wood also seems to be based on the symbolic or mythological meaning of the artifact. This study uses previous microscopic wood analysis from the boat graves to give a more in-depth picture of the Scandinavian Late Iron Age wood culture as a whole.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:uu-355070 |
| Date | January 2018 |
| Creators | Hilbert, Amina |
| 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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