Half a year ago I gave a talk about sacrificial sites to a Bronze Age seminar at the Stockholm County Museum. Now the contributions have appeared in a fine little volume in Swedish that can be read on-line for free or mail-ordered from the museum. Thanks, editors, for swift and accurate work!
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I'm giving a talk at the Stockholm County Museum in Sickla, Saturday at two o'clock, as part of a day seminar. The subject will be my on-going research into Bronze Age sacrificial sites, where I collaborate with the museum on fieldwork. Aard readers are welcome: just tell the organisers that I'm…
Last week an anthology I've edited was delivered from the printers.
Scholarly Journals Between the Past and the Future. The Fornvännen Centenary Round-Table Seminar. Stockholm, 21 April 2006. Kungliga Vitterhets Historie och Antikvitets Akademien, Konferenser 65. Stockholm 2007. 109 pp. ISBN 978-91…
Since the autumn of 2009, I've spent most of my research efforts studying sacrificial finds in the Bronze Age local landscape. I was thus pleasantly surprised (though a little disappointed because I missed the whole thing) when I learned that there had been a symposium on the theme "Sacrificial…
I've got a lot of fun stuff going on right now. Yesterday I drove to Uppsala, talked to the County Archaeologist about a site for almost two hours on an empty stomach, was fed cake by my friend and colleague Ãsa of Ting & Tankar, spoke about Bronze Age sacrificial sites to her staff at the SAU…
Would it be possible to restore the burial mounds to the (presumed) orignal look -with an outer shell of peat-like topsoil stacked around the stone structure [at least, that is how I was taught the originals looked like]?
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A news item to drive the Americans insane with the Clovis/pre-Clovis debate:
"Paleo-Indians settled North America earlier than thought: study"
http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-03-paleo-indians-north-america-earlier…
The rule for Early Bronze Age burial is basically turf mounds in Medieval Denmark, Småland and Götaland; rock cairns in Svealand, Gotland and Norrland.
The cairn on the book cover is at Smara near Norrtälje.
One question I have wondered much about is, did the northern limit for farming oscillate much, as indicated by large communal works like the cairns? The pre-pastoralism lapps were few and far between, they would not have had much manpower for hauling stone (pollen in peat bogs might help tracking domesticated plants, *if* you have the resources...). The reach of prehistorical farming in North America is probably better known than in northern Europe.
We have a big rock cairn at Ãnäset*, between UmeÃ¥ and SkellefteÃ¥. Are there any large cairns further north, indicating (relatively) high population density? Unlike Norway or north-west USA, this coast does not provide a cornucopia of fish, apart from salmon migration. Bronze-age Stockholm county must have been much more hospitable.
(* home of the quite strong Västerbotten cheese)
did the northern limit for farming oscillate much
Define "much". First the agricultural Funnel Beaker Culture rapidly covered Sweden up to River Dalälven. Then it backed off and much of Götaland & Svealand was taken over by the non-agricultural Pitted Ware Culture for the 500 years of the Middle Neolithic A. From the Middle Neolithic B onward it's pretty much been steady advance northwards from Scania.
I haven't got the book with the cairn distribution map here right now, but I'll get back to you.