Riksantikvarieämbetet

This paper discusses the medieval castle and town of Sölvesborg in Blekinge. It was a typical motte and bailey castle consisting of a huge brick tower built on an artificial mound surrounded by an inner moat and a large outer bailey. The castle, which was partly excavated in the 1940s, 1970s and 2010s, functioned as the royal Danish castle that controlled Blekinge in the Middle Ages. It has always been seen as a creation of the Danish Crown. The castle is however located on the inside of the town in relation to the Baltic, which raises questions regarding the relationship between the castle and the town, as does the size of the unusually large bailey that surrounds the motte. It is obvious that the castle could not defend the town from an attack from the sea or from the west. This raises questions about how this spatial pattern emerged and what came first, the castle or the town. The existing archaeological and historical and sources regarding the castle and the town are presented and summarized and new hypotheses regardingthe origin of the castle and the town are presented. Perhaps the intention was that commercial activities originally should have been located inside the bailey, and perhaps the builder was the Swedish king Magnus Eriksson, in the years of Danish dissolution in the 14th century.

During dredging in Limhamn harbour in 1891 and 1892, a number of flint artefacts were found. The majority of these are blades made from flint. The find has been known to archaeologists since the early 20th century. However, no detailed study of blades from the find has ever been published. In this text, we present the results of our analyses of the blades from Limhamn harbour. We discuss the archaeological-historical relevance of the find. We locate the site and show that the blades were once deposited on or close to the shore. With the help of analysesof flint types, production technology and functional analyses (use-wear), we show that the blades are from the Kongemose period. They were made from locally available flint types and likely represent a site where the blades were used, but not manufactured. Functional analyses show that the blades were used as butchering tools and as tools for working in wood and bone or antler. We conclude with adiscussion of our results in relation to future studies.

This article deals with a now lost runestone, which previously was known only from an unconvincing drawing from the 18th century, and therefore never accepted as genuine in the corpus edition Upplands runinskrifter. Some overlooked material in the archives show, however, that it was in fact a genuine runestone dating to the late Viking Age. It is also evident that the runestone fragment U520, which Richard Dybeck found at the settlement Björkholmen in 1870, originally formed a part of this stone. According to the fragmentary text the stone was erected by at least two brothers, Ingvarr and possibly Anundr, in memory oftheir father. This combination of names indicates that the stone was commissioned by the same magnate family known from a couple of runestones in the vicinity (U 513 and U 540) and which by some researchers have been connected to the Viking Age chieftain Ingvar the Far-Travelled. This connection is rejected by the present author, who suggests instead that another member of the same family might have played a role in some events in Swedish history after the death of king Stenkil in 1066.

The excavations of Birka’s Garrison in 1997–2004 produced a rich and varied findmaterial of unusual character. Most striking are the weapons, 400 in total. The warriors who lived in the Garrison seem from the finds to have been well trained in fighting techniques and to have been in contact with distant lands. Perhaps they were periodically in foreign service, such as the Byzantine Emperor’s Varangian guard. Apart from the great number of weapons, some objects were found that remind us of everyday life. Re-examination and analysis of the excavation finds has identified a number of these as linked to writing activities, namely, runic plate amulets, bone fragments incised with runes and an iron stylus. To these, the author also wishes to add apossible wax tablet in the form of a damaged decorated antler plate found during excavations in the Garrison in 1934. The runic amulets and rune bones belonged to the private sphere and bore magical-ritual formulae. These fit well within amartial environment where the warriors would have invoked protection. The stylus and the wax tablet on the other hand belonged to a different, clerical, sphere.

The two graves at Brotjärn and Vájgájávrre, the first just outside the city of Boden and the other in the vicinity of Jokkmokk, lie about 140 km from each other. However, the distance is the only thing separating them. The grave goods are nearly identical and their locations are similar, both being located directly on the strategic travelling route along the Lule River, at portages – places where travellers had to walk between navigable stretches of water. The graves are unique in Norrbotten in that they are inhumations with preserved remains. This is rare in these soil conditions. The carbon dating and analyses of the human remains indicate that these were adult individuals, one possibly of middle age, who died on their travels around AD 1000. The objects in the graves indicate contacts and trade with areas in modern-day Finland, the eastern Baltic and Russia, while the burial tradition indicates influences from what is today the southwest of Finland.The results are put into the context of the hypothesis of a trans-Arctic trade network based on the inland waterways that developed during the Iron Age. A likely interpretation is that the buried individuals were local traders in this extensive network, possibly birkarlar, the traders that are mentioned in Swedish literary sources in the 14th century, but have an even older origin.

Undersökningarna av en anläggning beskriven som en kåtalämning på Kåtudden vid Järvsjön i Söderala socken kunde visa att det rörde sig om en kolningsgrop från förromersk järnålder. Anläggningen kan sannolikt inte knytas till den samiska historien. Våra arkiv-, litteratur- och fältarbeten har visat på en mångfald belägg för samisk historia runt om i Gästrikland och Hälsingland från medeltiden till idag. Just anläggningarna i Söderala socken visade sig dock inte vara spår av samiska bosättningar. Sökandet fortsätter och de närmaste åren kommer att föra med sig ytterligare fördjupad kunskap om den långa och komplexa samiska historien i Mellansverige. Undersökningarna genomfördes inom ramen för projektet ”Det delade landet: Samisk historia och mångkulturalitet före det moderna”, bekostat av Riksantikvarieämbetets FoU-medel.

In this paper we present the results of an investigation where we try to date pottery from an Early to Middle Iron Age site in eastern middle Sweden. An overarching aim is to contribute to the discussion of the timing of a change inland-use and settlement structure that occurs in the middle of the first millennium CE. Selecting a well preserved site for excavation, we performed both plantmacrofossil analyses of soil-samples and lipid residue analyses on pottery. Both archaeobotanical materials as well as lipid extracts were subjected to radiocarbondating. The results show that the radiocarbon dating of purified lipid extractsfrom prehistoric pottery is possible.

Recently, a worn prehistoric ceramic sherd was found in a field outside the city of Borlänge in the province of Dalarna, central Sweden. The sherd has been identified as a fragment of a vessel belonging to the Battle Axe culture, the first one ever found in Dalarna. At the same time, the sherd is the youngest known Stone Age pottery in the province, and after that the craft seems to have disappeared.The first reappearance dates to the Early Iron Age, 500 BCE–400 CE. Both south and north of Dalarna, ceramic production carried on continuously from the time it was introduced during the Neolithic. With very few exceptions (including northernmost Norway), this applies to the entire northern circumpolar part oft he world despite difficulties in finding raw materials, fuel and suitable weather to perform the craft. Dalarna offers all the prerequisites for producing pottery, but despite this, and despite decades of contract archeology in the province, it seems from the current state of research that this was not done for about 2000 years. The main question is therefore: how may we understand why the ceramic tradition ceased in Dalarna at the end of the Stone Age?

During the University of Helsinki field school excavations in 2020 in Bartsgårda, Åland, a well-preserved, intricately decorated copper alloy pendant (ÅM 820:79) was discovered in the upper layers of the Late Iron Age house foundation (Ilves 2021). 

Hunting elk on crusted snow in late winter/early springmight, have been important when surplus was running low. The data we have about such hunt is to my knowledge a Stone Age panel from Vyg in Russia, a description from subarctic Canada in the 1770s, and a story from Sweden in 1848. In addition, there is as well another Stone Age panel that I find relevant, this one from Kanozero in Russia, showing a bear hunt.

In this article, runic and Latin monumental epigraphy from early medieval Västergötland is studied in order to answer three questions regarding the establishment and development of these two written traditions: 1. Which were the geographical domains of runic and Latin epigraphy, and to what extent did they overlap? 2. How did the two traditions’ geographical spread change during the period under scrutiny? 3. How do the two traditions compare with regard to sociocultural context, number and type of inscriptions, and the stonecutters’ literacy level? The study has yielded two main results. The first concerns the establishment, in the early 12th century, of a Latin epigraphic tradition in the area around Kinnekulle, which remained a hub of almost exclusively Latin epigraphy for the whole period, in contrast to – or as a continuation of – the late Viking-Age runic tradition attested there. The second result concerns the strong presence of both runic and Latin epigraphy in an area around today’s Falköping, close to the monasteries of Gudhem and Varnhem. Here, the two traditions seemto have flourished together, establishing a bilingual and biscriptal epigraphic culture. The considerable number of inscriptions and their high level of literacy, in particular on funerary monuments, indicate that this area was a sociocultural centre in early medieval Västergötland, where some individuals had the means, education and ambition necessary to take part in the literary and intellectual discourse of the time.

The article aims to summarise, synthesize and compare various aspects of two prehistoric territories: Fyrislund and Gamla Uppsala near Uppsala in eastern central Sweden. The article’s timeframe is based on the approximate phase division– from the Pre-Roman Iron Age to the Early Vendel period – that was established by the excavations of farms and settlements in and around Gamla Uppsala. These phases have also been applied to Fyrislund and the settlements surrounding Gamla Uppsala, albeit with minor modifications. The primary source material comprises the farmsteads and their main features: the buildings. The study’s principal analytical tool is the number and sizes of farms and their buildings, as well as the distances between the farms themselves. Taken as a whole, the material provides an opportunity to compare the territories of Fyrislund and Gamla Uppsala over time. The subjects touched upon include similarities and differences in farm development, various stages and strategies of village formation, signs of hierarchisation in each territory, and aspects of territorial expansion.

Vivallen is a Late Iron Age/Early Middle Ages South Saami site with a burialground as well as a large dwelling site in Härjedalen, Sweden, located in the borderland between Saami and Norse groups. As food can be used as an indicator of cultural affiliation, we investigated the relative importance of various foodstuffs at this site, performing δ13C and δ15N analysis of human and faunal skeletal remains. The site was located along the St Olaf pilgrimage route, implying that some of the buried individuals may not have been local to the site, and therefore we performed δ34S analysis to study mobility. We set out to investigate if there were any changes in diet and mobility over the lifespan of the people buried at Vivallen. The results showed that freshwater fish were an important part of the diet, whereas reindeer and big game do not seem to have been major proteinsources. We could not identify any substantial changes in diet in the individuals over time. Our results further demonstrated low mobility among the individuals,with one exception, a female who evidently grew up somewhere else.

In a medieval will written in 1443 a woman is referred to as a “chapel guardian” in one of the chapels in Strängnäs Cathedral. Only a few other examples can befound, all of them in Stockholm from the 15th and early 16th centuries. The paper shows that these women, in medieval Swedish written records called chapelwomen (kor-käringar), were not cleaning women as previously suggested, as they actually guarded valuable items in the chapels and helped catch thieves. These women seem to have had an informal income from their work, but they were not employed by the churches.

The aim of this article is to summarize and discuss the results of a recently published synthesis of cooking pits and cooking pit sites in the county of Västernorrland. Several syntheses have been produced in relation to the subject, but none covering the entire county. In total 282 cooking pits were compiled and analysed with regard to research methodology, dating, geographical distribution, contents, morphology, and context. The existence of larger cooking pit sites and their possible relations to the cooking pit fields in Norway and southern Scandinavia was investigated as well. The results indicate that several separate groups of cookingpits can be distinguished in the material with regard to dating, distribution, and context. The contents of the cooking pits vary over time and probably according to function as well. As for morphology, insufficient documentation is an ever present problem, and a homogeneous strategy of documentation is clearly needed. Thereis a need also to analyse and discuss the collective properties and capacities of larger cooking pit sites. The study has highlighted a problem of representativity as well, concerning the proportion of cooking pits that is carbondated relative to the total number on a site. Finally, the results indicate that the southern Scandinavian phenomenon of large cooking pit fields is not represented in Västernorrland. However, there are a small number of locales in Njurunda that in dating as wellas context show a certain similarity to the Norwegian cooking pit sites of the Roman Iron Age and the Migration Period.

This paper investigates the materiality and symbolic significance of a recently emerging group of Viking Age miniature pendants decorated with nine studs. Artefacts that make up this group, typically made of silver or copper alloy and known exclusively from Denmark and Norway, have all been discovered stray as a result of amateur metal detecting. Although their designs are varied and no two specimens are ever exactly the same, it appears that the number nine was of fundamental importance to their designers and users. Drawing on the ‘conceptof citation’ and theoretical approaches to miniaturisation, this study exploresthe conceptual correspondences between miniatures with nine studs and other Viking Age objects that creatively utilised the number nine motif. In creating a ‘web of citational relationships’ with a host of other artefacts, these finds can be interpreted in the context of textual sources that emphasise the importance of the number nine in the Norse worldview.

In ancient times, Scandinavia was a remote part of Europe. However, the Vikings travelled by boat as far as the Mediterranean Sea and brought home various pigments to paint their runic stones. The Middle Ages (around 1000–1500 AD) witnessed a large import of pigments for the Church, used to decorate murals, wood sculptures, baptismal fonts, and portals. The authors have analysed 993 samples of medieval pigments from Sweden. Most results have been published in Swedish, though. We now make an attempt to comprise the data and compare it with analytical results from Denmark, Norway and some European countries. Lead isotope data and secondary minerals have helped to attribute pigments to specific regions. Germany seems to have been the most important trading partner, in particular as regards pigments containing copper or lead. Rare mineral pigments from distant countries, such as cinnabar, orpiment, gold and even ultramarine, were probably obtained from trading companies within the Hanseatic League. This union was for many centuries active in the Baltic Sea and North Sea coastal areas, where Scandinavia was represented by towns like Copenhagen, Roskilde, Bergen, Kalmar, Visby and Stockholm.

The cemetery of Havor, Hablingbo parish, on Gotland was in use from the Pre-Roman Iron Age to the early Vendel Period. In the late Viking Age, the local community decided to return to the traditional cemetery. The most prominent feature of those later Viking Age burials was the regular re-use of older graves. Even though secondary burials are widely known from Viking Age Gotland and mainland Scandinavia, the proportion was extraordinarily high at Havor. Furthermore, the secondary burials show a rather divergent interaction with the human remains from the primary burials. In some graves the disturbance of the older burial was avoided, while in many other graves the primary burial was dislocated or destroyed. Thus, the burials illustrate an intensive use of the past and local traditions and exhibit at least two different strategies in the interaction with the past and memories as resources for the local identity, from an integrative linkage to local traditions and the ancestors buried at Havor to a confrontative dissociation. Yet it was important for all communities that laid their dead to restat Havor to link – and thus to legitimise – religious and socio-political transformationsand new cultural influences to the traditional cemetery which was regardedas manifestation of a collective identity. Through the ostentatious references to the past and local traditions, the burials from the late Viking Age are a fascinating case study for the understanding and the socio-cultural adoption of the past for the construction of local identities.

T. J. Arne (1879–1965) still stands out as the most important Scandinavian, perhaps Western European scholar working with the archaeology of early Russia. He was a person with a sharp and clear intellect, an impressive capacity to workwith rich archaeological collections and he was an outstanding linguist. He undertook three very ambitious research tours in Russia both before and after the revolutions. In connection with two of these tours he also excavated at important sites in Ukraine and in Russia. After the assumption of power of J. Stalin Arne became the leading scholar opposing the increasingly nationalistic and crude Marxist interpretations of what happened in the 9th and 10th centuries in Eastern Europe and more precisely in Russia. His scholarly achievements still today remain unchallenged and carry much weight.

The frequent use of the term laukaR (‘leek’/’onion’) in the oldest Nordic runictexts, and the context of laukr in the sagas, implies that this plant was central as a symbol and tool in Iron Age magic. Yet, our perception of the laukr, its function, use and meaning is dim. Moreover, the archaeobotanical record is scarce in leek and onion remains, and the few existing finds do not seem to cast any light on the problem. Obviously, different leeks and onions were cultivated, foraged andused, but we have not yet found traces of their strong connection to, or use in, magic and cult. A way around this problem might be to approach the term laukras a folk plant name, including a broad spectrum of plants with onion-like bulbs and tubers in general. New possibilities open up if bulbs and tubers of tuber oatgrass(Arrhenatherum elatius ssp. bulbosum) and dropwort (Filipendula vulgaris) are considered as some of the lost laukr, especially since those plants has a well-known record of being used in burials. This also creates possibilities for new ways of interpreting the role of those bulbs within the death cult.

An archaeological excavation was carried out in the city block Traktören in Enköping during 2017 and 2018. The occupation layers were dated to the 12th–18th centuries. During the excavation and the analysis of the faunal remains an unusually large quantity of wolf bones were identified. Wolf is rarely found in bonematerials dating to the medieval period, but according to written sources from the Middle Ages the wolf population was growing and becoming a problem during this time. Swedish medieval laws state that wolves had to be hunted each year to keep the population down. With the large number of bones of wolf found in Traktören it is possible to study the relationship between wolf and man. Age and sex distribution indicate the killing of whole packs of wolves in driven hunts in accordance with written sources, with the aim of exterminating the wolf. Analysis of strontium isotopes and osteological remains shows that the wolves were hunted in the close surroundings to Enköping and taken back to the city where the furs were removed and the bodies dismembered. Fur was a valuable income and during the 13th and 14th centuries Enköping was a junction for trade because of its port. The largescale trade in fur seems to have come to an end in the latter part of the 15th century. One reason for the disappearance of the wolf in the material could be that the tannery moved to another part of the town, but the main reason appearsto be the port being moved further from the city.

In the flood of metal artefacts received by the National Museum of Denmark due to private metal detecting, some stand out more than others due to their enigmatic appearance. One such item is a circular domed object of silver, almost 3 cm in diameter, height 1.5 cm (fig. 1), found 2018 in Tune, south of Copenhagen.

A large stone memorial cross with a partial inscription is situated at Grens, in Mästerby parish, central Gotland. According to oral tradition the termination of the 1361 Mästerby battle between Danes and Gotlanders was fought here. An inscription on it has been interpreted as containing the year 1550 but a recent ‘raking light’ survey now enables another interpretation. Through comparing the observed letters with medieval texts, including that on the Korsbetningen cross, at the mass graves in Visby, we suggest that the Grens cross is 1361 related. The Grens cross itself, as well as its engraving, might have been made by non-professionals, due to the evident lack of skilled manufacture, resulting in a somewhat misaligned cross and an abandoned inscription. The seven readable charactersare an “a” and following a gap, “do”, together interpreted as representing “Anno Domini”. After a wider gap, four letters might be interpreted as “ic:ob”. The first part is ambiguous, because of the shallow and incomplete nature of these letters.The “o” is the most certain letter in this part of the inscription. The “:” might represent a punctuation mark. Our interpretative suggestion for this section is “hic obiit”, that is, “here died”. The early erection of the Mästerby cross might suggest that the country dwellers were determined to be resourceful, albeit with small economical margins thus commemorating this important event with a lasting memorial.

This article is taking a critical view on the representativity of Swedish archaeometrical analyses of ceramics affected by the varying conditions under which this work has been undertaken during almost 50 years. The scrutiny has been done as part of the project VISEAD in order to prepare the ceramics data being made available in the Strategic Environmental Archaeology Database (SEAD). The result shows that the analytical coverage varies significantly from good to poor in different parts of Sweden and the possible reasons are discussed. Furthermore, this review has made it clear that a detailed, complete overview of the archaeological sites is quite difficult to establish for some parts of Sweden. Thus, the information stored in the open database SEAD will not only serve to make so far disparate archaeometric data accessible but will also help to complement the Swedish heritage overview.

Bengt  Bengtsson Oxenstierna’s travels in the Near East have not earned him the same kind of regard as other 16th, 17th  and 18th  century travellers have been accorded, yet his story is unusually interesting in light of documentary evidence, collected by later writers, that allows us to identify, often with great precision, some of the places he visited. Beginning with his stay in the Holy Land in 1613, this study examines the evidence documenting the sacred sites he saw there, before turning to his second journey of 1617–1618, when he visited Iran and Iraq. His presence in Isfahan, Shiraz and Khoshkrud is documented by multiple, later witnesses, whereas his visits to the archaeological sites of Persepolis and Naqš-e Rustam are doubtful. In Iraq, his visit to the archaeological sites of ‘Aqar Qūf and Tell Ibrahim al-Khalil can be confirmed. Oxenstierna is a unique figure in the history of European travellers who visited the Near East during the 17th century, but a modern assessment of his travels is needed. The purpose of the present communication is to offer a critical appreciation of his achievement through a detailed analysis of places mentioned in his text, several of which are identified for the first time and several of which are exposed as fictitious.

During the Late Bronze Age in the eastern parts of Central Sweden, the remains of the deceased were treated in many different ways. In addition to cairns and stone settings (which are usually regarded as graves), human bones, cremated as well as not cremated, have also been found in settlements, in heaps of fired crackedstones, wells, pits and in water. These “bone deposits” are made up of parts of people rather than complete bodies, and show a complex treatment of the dead (see, for example, Thedéen 2004; Eriksson 2005; Fredengren 2011). The purpose of this article is to study and discuss the highly varied practice of treating the remains of the deceased in eastern Central Sweden during the Late Bronze Age.This issue is discussed through two very well-known Bronze Age sites: Hallunda, Botkyrka parish in Södermanland and Broby, Börje parish in Uppland. In the article we argue that the bone deposits found in the area must partly be seen in a different way than a “grave” in the sense of a place for the deceased’s last restingplace. We highlight circumstances which indicate that the human bones that are found are the result of ritual processes with different phases, rather than individual “burials” with the grave as a last resting place for the dead. We also argue that a distinctive feature in the treatment of the remains of the dead in eastern Central Sweden is that the link between the dead individual and the “grave monument”(which is central to the concept of the grave) is weak.

Det var i utkanten av undersökningsområdet till Vikstads gamla tomt (L2005:7055/RAÄ 191, Stora Kils sn), som den aktuella lämningen, A47, påträffades och undersöktes. Platsen ligger i den norra utkanten av tätorten Kil, strax söder om Nedre Fryken i de södra delarna av Värmland.