chronology
aardvarchaeology | November 28, 2016Professors tend to have a few pet issues that they emphasise time and again over their careers as researchers and supervisors. This is quite clear with two 1960s-70s professors in my field. In Bertil Almgren's case, one such pet issue was the source-critical quality of archaeological information. In Mats Malmer's case, one was clear and exact verbal definitions of terms.
I agree with both of these imperatives. But there's one case where an adherence to Almgren's priorities over Malmer's was clearly not the right way to go.
Birger Nerman's monumental folio-format work Die Vendelzeit Gotlands,…
aardvarchaeology | January 23, 2013When I was an undergrad in 1990 we were taught that all six periods of the Scandinavian Bronze Age were 200 (or in one case 300) years long. The most recent radiocarbon work shows that they all had different lengths and were more likely 130-280 years long. And the periods with the most abundant metalwork finds, II and V, are the two shortest. So their previously known status as metal-rich eras looks even more pronounced now, and the intervening periods look even poorer.
Per. I. 1700-1500 cal BC (200 yrs)
Per. II. 1500-1330 (170 yrs)
Per. III. 1330-1100 (230 yrs)
Per. IV. 1100-950/20 (165 yrs…