Riksantikvarieämbetet

The aim of the project: This report on the situation of urban archaeology in Eskilstuna and Torshälla is written as part of the project The Medieval Town: Implications of Early Urbanization for Modern Planning, under the auspices of Riksantikvarieämbetet och Statens historiska museer. The aim of the project is to make a detailed survey and documentation of the situation of urban archaeology and its implications for physical planning and make a scholarly evaluation of the uncovered material. The project deals mainly with those places which obtained town rights in the formal legal sense during the Middle Ages.

The arrangement of the report: Chapters 1, 2, and 3 give an account of a number of data which are in various ways important for the early development of the towns. The information is collected from available literature (mainly as regards documentary material) as well as from primary material in the archives (archaeological data). In the first mentioned case no attempt has been made to correct possible faults through independent research. As regards the archaeological material, the aim has been to include all archaeological observations, even if for different reasons this has not been possible.

One important aim during work on the report has been to appraise and evaluate the archaeological material and to what extent it throws light on essential problems concerning urban history. The basic idea is that archaeological material can provide information about chronology, function, social structure, and economic basis. The material has been arranged on the assumption that the form of settlement which took place and is reflected in the archaeological material is the result of a functional adaption to certain decisive prerequisites such as topography, graphical conditions.

The data have been chosen and structured on this basis. The selection gives both a general view of the available material concerning the development of the medieval town and a basis for further work on this material. This in turn will provide a foundation for the antiquarian evaluation in relation to future work.

The English summary gives a broad outline of the contents, mainly based on the maps of this report.

As this report deals with two independent towns, Eskilstuna and Torshälla, the contents of the chapters are arranged in a way which differs slightly from the other reports in the series. Chapter 1 deals with the common general background of the two places. Chapter 2 gives an account of the documentary and archaeological materials concerning Eskilstuna and chapter 3 contains the corresponding information about Torshälla. Finally, in chapter 4, an attempt is made to analyse the material from both towns. […]