Papers include: "Scandinavian 'Central Places' in a Cosmological Setting", by Lotte Hedeager; "Upparka in the Migration and Merovingian Periods", by Birgitta Hardh; "A Tall Iron Age Lady with Magnificent jewelry", by Berta Stjernquist; "The Origins and Growths of Lundenwick, a Mart of Many Nations", by Lyn Blackmore; and "Cemeteries as Central Places, Place and Identity in Migration Period Eastern England", by Howard Williams
The study of Old Norse Religion is a truly multidisciplinary and international field of research. The rituals, myths and narratives of pre-Christian Scandinavia are investigated and interpreted by archaeologists, historians, art historians, historians of religion as well as scholars of literature, onomastics and Scandinavian studies. For obvious reasons, these studies belong to the main curricula in Scandinavia but are also carried out at many other universities in Europe, the United States and Australia a fact that is evident to any reader of this book. In order to bring this broad and varied field of research together, an international conference on Old Norse religion was held in Lund in June 2004. About two hundred delegates from more than fifteen countries took part. The intention was to gather researchers to encourage and improve scholarly exchange and dialogue, and Old Norse religion in long-term perspectives presents a selection of the proceedings from that conference. The 75 contributions elucidate topics such as worldview and cosmology, ritual and religious practice, myth and memory as well as the reception and present-day use of Old Norse religion. The main editors of this volume have directed the multidisciplinary research project Roads to Midgard since 2000. The project is based at Lund University and funded by the Bank of Sweden Tercentenary Foundation.
This collection of studies is the result of a six-year interdisciplinary research project undertaken by an international team, and constitutes a completely new approach to environmental, cultural and settlement changes around the mid-first millennium AD in Central Europe.
This volume examines the applicability of central place theory in contemporary archaeological practice and thought in light of ongoing developments in landscape archaeology, by bringing together ‘central places’ and ‘un-central landscapes’ and by grasping diachronically the complex relation between town and country, as shaped by political economies and the availability of natural resources. Moving away from model-bounded approaches, central place theory is used more flexibly to include all the places that may have functioned as loci of economic or ideological centrality (even in a local context) in the past. Fourteen chapters examine centrality and un-central landscapes from Prehistory to the late Middle Ages in different geographical contexts, from Cyprus and the Levant, through Greece and the Balkans to Italy, France, and Germany.
A comprehensive overview, by period and region, of the archaeology of ritual and religion. The coverage is global, and extends from the earliest prehistory to modern times. Written by over sixty renowned specialists, the Handbook presents the very best in current scholarship, and will also stimulate further research.
Gudme: The Iron Age Settlement and Central Halls presents, describes and interprets the many finds and structures that have been comprised during the extended excavations at the central parts of the Gudme locality on southeast Funen, Denmark. Head of excavation Palle Østergaard Sørensen extracts, combines, classifies, dates and temporalizes the many finds and houses from the excavations Gudmehallerne, Gudme III, Gudme IV. Since the 19th century the Gudme area has been known as one of the richest prehistoric localities in Scandinavia, and more than 1,000 roman coins, close to 600 fibulas as well as several small mask and animal figurines form part of the Gudme find assemblage. From AD 200 to AD 600 the site expanded rapidly and covered as much as one square kilometer comprising up to 50 farmsteads. At the individual farms, specialized craftsmanship can be found and the debris and tools of gold- and silversmiths as well as bronze casting is abundant here, bronze fragments, often from statues, imported from the Roman Empire form a distinct category of finds bearing witness to a flourishing and innovative world of craftsmanship, as well as an extensive trade network. During this period the unique and monumental halls, with the largest being 47 m long and 10 m wide, dominated the hilltops east of Gudme lake. Just to the south a smaller building accompanied the large hall, and had been purposely demolished and rebuilt several times at the exact same spot. The unusually large entrances to the two adjoined buildings lead straight from one to the other, thus witnessing a duality of buildings that came to define the aristocratic localities throughout Scandinavia in the following 800 years. Hence, Gudme represents a starting point for a significant type of architectural ideal as well as a first generation of central places.
How can we study the impact of rules on the lives of past people using archaeological evidence? To answer this question, Archaeologies of Rules and Regulation presents case studies drawn from across Europe and the United States. Covering areas as diverse as the use of space in a nineteenth-century U.S. Army camp, the deposition of waste in medieval towns, the experiences of Swedish migrants to North America, the relationship between people and animals in Anglo-Saxon England, these case studies explore the use of archaeological evidence in understanding the relationship between rules, lived experience, and social identity.
Fourteen papers explore a variety of inter-disciplinary approaches to understanding the Viking past, both in Scandinavia and in the Viking diaspora. Contributions employ both traditional inter- or multi-disciplinarian perspectives such as using historical sources, Icelandic sagas and Eddic poetry and also specialised methodologies and/or empirical studies, place-name research, the history of religion and technological advancements, such as isotope analysis. Together these generate new insights into the technology, social organisation and mentality of the worlds of the Vikings. Geographically, contributions range from Iceland through Scandinavia to the Continent. Scandinavian, British and Continental Viking scholars come together to challenge established truths, present new definitions and discuss old themes from new angles. Topics discussed include personal and communal identity; gender relations between people, artefacts, and places/spaces; rules and regulations within different social arenas; processes of production, trade and exchange, and transmission of knowledge within both past Viking-age societies and present-day research. Displaying thematic breadth as well as geographic and academic diversity, the articles may foreshadow up-and-coming themes for Viking Age research. Rooted in different traditions, using diverse methods and exploring eclectic material – Viking Worlds will provide the reader with a sense of current and forthcoming issues, debates and topics in Viking studies, and give insight into a new generation of ideas and approaches which will mark the years to come.
How did Roman Britain end? This new study draws on fresh archaeological discoveries to argue that the end of Roman Britain was not the product of either a violent cataclysm or an economic collapse. Instead, the structure of late antique society, based on the civilian ideology of paideia, was forced to change by the disappearance of the Roman state. By the fifth century elite power had shifted to the warband and the edges of their swords. In this book Dr Gerrard describes and explains that process of transformation and explores the role of the 'Anglo-Saxons' in this time of change. This profound ideological shift returned Britain to a series of 'small worlds', the existence of which had been hidden by the globalizing structures of Roman imperialism. Highly illustrated, the book includes two appendices, which detail Roman cemetery sites and weapon trauma, and pottery assemblages from the period.
Throughout the centuries of its existence, Anglo-Saxon society was highly, if not widely, literate: it was a society the functioning of which depended very largely on the written word. All the essays in this volume throw light on the literacy of Anglo-Saxon England, from the writs which were used as the instruments of government from the eleventh century onwards, to the normative texts which regulated the lives of Benedictine monks and nuns, to the runes stamped on an Anglo-Saxon coin, to the pseudorunes which deliver the coded message of a man to his lover in a well-known Old English poem, to the mysterious writing on an amulet which was apparently worn by a religious for a personal protection from the devil. The usual comprehensive bibliography of the previous year's publications in all branches of Anglo-Saxon studies rounds off the book.
