Europe: Northern Europe (Geographic Keyword)
51-73 (73 Records)
Islands are both understudied and spatially constrained, with often turbulent colonial histories. This paper reconsiders the conceptual basis of intra- and inter-island relationships in the context of archaeology. We argue that islands need not be isolated as geographic, ecologic or cultural entities and have not been so during the proto-historic and prehistoric periods. Using 21st century equilibrium theory and gateway theory we suggest that islands may be in some contexts central places. We...
The Strange Attraction of Viking-Age Urbanism: The Predicament of Emporia (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Ephemeral Aggregated Settlements: Fluidity, Failure or Resilience?" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Maritime trading emporia were nodal points of social networks and economic interactions in Viking-age Scandinavia. Despite their social centrality, archaeology shows that such places were rather small, unassuming, and sometimes short-lived settlement. This contrasts with a wealth of evidence pointing to communities...
Stylistic Inconsistency and Artistic Intent in Viking Age Oval Brooches (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This study examines stylistic and thematic variation as seen in a sample of P51 type Viking Age (approx. AD 700-1100) oval brooches excavated mostly from burial contexts in central Sweden. As examples of applied art heavily reproduced through casting and imitation, paired oval brooches have the potential to reveal a great deal about how artisans perceived...
Surviving Violence: Healthcare in the Danish Viking Age (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Systems of Care in Times of Violence" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Viking Era has been characterized as a time of great violence in both modern and historical accounts, however, little work has been done to analyze the cultural norms and practical considerations surrounding healthcare during the Viking Age. If Viking Age society was as violent as purported, it would have needed to have well-honed systems of care...
Sværholt, World War II History, and Archaeology (2021)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. What difference does an archaeological approach make to a period saturated by historical documents, photographic archives, and recordings of eyewitness accounts? Since 2011 a group of archaeologists have undertaken fieldwork at a World War II prisoner of war camp at Sværholt in Norway’s far north. The labor camp for Soviet prisoners was established in 1942 as...
Tales of Bronze Age People: A Transdisciplinary Look at the Mobility of Persons, Materials and Ideas in Nordic Bronze Age Denmark (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Tales of Bronze Age People is a three-year (2018-2021) interdisciplinary research project supported by a Carlsberg Foundation Semper Ardens grant (CF18-0005) led by Karin Margarita Frei, Research Professor in Archaeometry at the National Museum of Denmark. The project investigates the dynamic ways in which people navigated social lives in the Early Nordic...
Taskscapes of Reindeer Herding: Changes in the Land-Use Dynamics and Campsite Organization of the Sámi Pastoralists of Northern Fennoscandia c. 700–1800 AD (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Empirical Approaches to Mobile Pastoralist Households" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Domestication of reindeer commenced amongst the Sámi of northern Fennoscandia in the 8th century AD, and was accompanied by significant cultural changes. This presentation focuses on diachronic changes in the land-use, inter- and intra-site settlement patterns and human-environmental relations. I focus especially on two pivotal...
Though we walk through the valley of the shadow of death: Co-Burials and Identity in Pre-Modern Northern Finland (2018)
This paper specifically addresses the cultural construction of children’s age and identity by examining the textiles and burial clothing from a series of pre-Modern mummified children’s burials recovered from beneath church floors in northern Finland. During the pre-modern era, children’s burials in pre-modern Finland take one of three forms: (1) alone, in individual coffins (2) in association with other burials but still in their own coffin (3) co-burial, in the same coffin as others. This...
Towards an Archaeology of Prows - An Ontological Approach to Geoglyphs and Petroglyphs in the North European Bronze Age (2018)
This paper will explore the relationship between animated boat prows in different stone media - petroglyphs and geoglyphs - from an ontological perspective. It explores chronological changes in these media and argues for both similarities and differences in how stones participated in unfolding peoples' life-worlds or worldings during the north European Bronze Age.
Transdisciplinary Analysis of Marine Mammal Use in the Norse North Atlantic and Subarctic (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Celebrating Anna Kerttula's Contributions to Northern Research" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This ongoing project, funded in 2015 by Anna Kerttula and the Arctic Social Sciences Program, uses historical, literary, aDNA, ZooMS, and archaeological data to identify patterns in marine mammal exploitation across the North Atlantic and Subarctic from ca. 800 -1800 CE. With over 230 samples of archaeological whale bone...
Traversing the Great Forest: Work and Mobility in Sweden’s Premodern Farmscape (2019)
This is an abstract from the "The State of the Art in Medieval European Archaeology: New Discoveries, Future Directions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Most of pre-modem Sweden comprised wooded uplands lying outside more densely populated 'civilized' regions. Often collectively called The Great Forest, this territory stretched from south-central to the high north, where Scandinavian, Finnish, and Sami people often lived in close proximity....
Two Valleys Archaeology in an Environmental Humanities Context (2023)
This is an abstract from the "Climate and Heritage in the North Atlantic: Burning Libraries" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This talk discusses the challenges of connecting the currently ongoing Two Valleys Project in Iceland to various scales of research on human ecodynamics of the past and global challenges we face in our time. This interdisciplinary project expands on previous research into human-nature interactions within various marine and...
Understanding the “Local Scale” in Pictish Landscape Research (Northern Scotland, 300–900 CE) (2023)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The material record of Late Antique and Early Medieval northeastern Britain (ca. 300–900 CE) consists largely of monuments and obtrusive settlements attributed to the people known as the Picts. While features of the landscape from this period, such as the distinctive Pictish symbol stones, have been studied both in isolation and with respect to their...
The UpNorth Project: Environment Context of Late and Final Palaeolithic Dispersals (2018)
Human mobility and environmental interactions at the end of the Palaeolithic were undoubtedly influenced by large-scale and rapid climate change. With the melting of ice sheets and expansion/contraction of ecosystems, new landscapes and resources became available to late and final Palaeolithic hunter-gatherers. The UP-NORTH project is examining the dispersal of people and animals into Northern Europe after the Last Glacial Maximum. Using a range of techniques, including stable isotopes,...
The Use and Benefit of Integrated Geophysical Survey in the Study of an Irish Early Medieval Site Rath Maol (2019)
This is an abstract from the "The State of the Art in Medieval European Archaeology: New Discoveries, Future Directions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This paper addresses the value of an integrated geophysical survey approach, which includes the application of GPR, DGPS, and magnetic gradiometry, to identify archaeological areas of occupation non-invasively. This approach was applied to RathMaol, as part of a larger ongoing research project,...
Using Compound Specific Isotope Analysis of Amino Acids to Distinguish Aquatic and Terrestrial Diets of Early Holocene Hunter-Gatherers in Southern Sweden (2023)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In this study, we present the results of compound specific carbon and nitrogen isotope analysis on amino acids from bone collagen of Early Holocene humans and contemporaneous terrestrial and marine fauna recovered from multiple sites in southern Sweden. These analyses were aimed at individuals spanning the Early Mesolithic to the Middle Neolithic Pitted...
Using Zooarchaeology to Study Urban Origins in Antwerp, Belgium: Evidence from the Burcht and Gorterstraat Sites (2019)
This is an abstract from the "The State of the Art in Medieval European Archaeology: New Discoveries, Future Directions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The development of urbanism in northwestern Europe has been of interest to medieval archaeologists and historians since the days of Henry Pirenne, and these questions have been central to anthropological archaeology throughout the 20th and 21st centuries. One of the critical features of early...
Vasagård Archaeological Project: A Causewayed Enclosure and Timber Circles in the Island of Bornholm, Denmark (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Vasagård site is located on the southern side of the island of Bornholm, Denmark. Vasagård is separated by the 100m Læså valley from two nearly identical Neolithic sites and consists of a tomb system where a dolmen and a passage grave can be found close to the settlement. The grave system and causewayed enclosures are dated from 3500 BC., and constitute the...
Viking Age Port of Trade in Gotland, Sweden: Understanding Inter- and Intra-site Logistics through Faunal Analysis (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This study examines human-animal relations in the context of a Viking Age (9th to 11th century) port of trade and farming settlement of Ridanäs located in Gotland, Sweden. The objective is to gain an understanding of inter- and intra-site interactions through the faunal data. The primary questions focus on subsistence strategies, trade connections,...
The Viking Age Settlement of Iceland: The Change from Migrant Society to Settled Society (2018)
The rapid settlement of Iceland has a distinct beginning, but defining the end of the settlement turns out to be difficult. While there are anecdotal stories of earlier settlers, the beginning of large-scale migration to Iceland seems to happen in about AD 870, at the start of Harald Fairhair’s reign, and the time of a distinct volcanic ash layer. The landnám, or land-grab is an important template for our understanding of movements into new landscapes, from the Neolithic Revolution, to the...
Vows and Violence: Identities Enacted through Diet and Trauma at the Late Medieval Tintern Abbey, Ireland (2021)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Diet, mobility, and trauma are key factors in the performance of social identities and the maintenance of social boundaries between groups. In medieval Ireland, burial at monasteries also provided an opportunity for both lay and ecclesiastical communities to represent the religious identities of deceased individuals. In this study, mobility, trauma, and diet...
"Wars are good for the economy": Warfare and Industrialization in Sweden (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Industrial archaeology has been defined in the anthropological literature of the last several decades to analyze the period, related archaeological record, and resultant and surrounding socioeconomic changes of western industrialization—the establishment of large-scale manufacturing—from 1800 CE to the present. In considering a "movement" such as...
Where Are the Brewers? Feasting and Operational Chains in Anglo-Saxon England (2018)
The importance of alcohol in the landscape of feasting has been well documented across cultures, and early medieval Europe is no exception. The mead-hall in Anglo-Saxon Britain functioned as a location where social bonds were strengthened both vertically and horizontally; Vikings in Iceland relied on barley beer to demonstrate the power and generosity of chieftains. Production of alcohol in the large quantities required for feasting necessitates some degree of specialization, but to what degree...