Colonial Scandinavia and Scandinavian Colonialism: Archaeological aspects of a forgotten past

DOCUMENT Citation Only Douglas Armstrong. Christian Williamson. Alan Armstrong. Lauren Silverstein.

Archaeology at a Danish colonial merchant's residence in Charlotte Amalie projects the complex yet distinct array of consumer goods available in a 19th century Danish Caribbean port town.  The walled compound housed a series of 19th and early 20th merchants/bankers and their household servants.  This study explores the intersection of micro and macro history as it assesses the material and documentary record of the site.  The house and its furnishings were selected for commemorative photo...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Craig Lukezic.

  The remains of Fort Elfsborg may be in a modern marshland, and the remains of Fort Christina may lie underneath 150 years worth of heavy industrial occupation.  While the lore of these centers of New Sweden are currnetly alive in the people of the Delaware Valley, no remains have yet been found.  This paper is an update in the ongoing search for both structures, and the special challenges the severla teams have encountered. 

DOCUMENT Citation Only Gavin Lucas. Angelos Parigoris.

This paper revolves around a central dilemma: whether to see Iceland as colonizer or colonized. On the one hand, it was linked to the Danish project of colonialism outside Europe, benefitting from access to exotic goods and influenced by ideologies of race and whiteness. On the other hand, Iceland was itself a dependency of Denmark, and from the nineteenth century, developed a discourse of nationalism and independence. This paper will examine the tensions of Iceland as colonizer/colonized...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Timo Ylimaunu. Risto Nurmi. Timo Sironen. Paul R. Mullins. Titta Kallio-Seppä.

Images, pictures and urban poems were important tools in the production and reproduction of early modern Swedish colonialism and the Age of Great Power. Urban images of Erik Dahlberg in the volume Svecia Antiqua et Hodierna and poems of Olof Hermelin in Hecatompolis Suionum, for example, were productions of the period when Sweden was at its most powerful. We will discuss how these images reflect the archaeological record of northern towns in the coastal area of the northern Baltic Sea. We will...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Carl-Gösta Ojala.

Throughout the history of archaeology, the Sámi - the indigenous people in northernmost Norway, Sweden, Finland and the Kola Peninsula in Russia - have been treated as the "Others", in relation to the national identities and histories. In recent decades, however, a field of Sámi archaeology has emerged, parallel with Sámi ethnic and cultural revitalization movements. Today, archaeologists in Sápmi face many ethical and political challenges, including conflicts over land and cultural...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jonas Nordin.

This paper deals with expressions of colonialism and colonial ideology in 17th-century Sweden in the light of the New Sweden Colony in the Delaware Valley 1638–55 and contacts between Native Americans and Swedes and their exchange of material culture. Furthermore, the paper traces some of the objects in Sweden and discusses their meaning and use in the new context. An object-biographical approach underlines the complexity and relevance of material things in a colonial situation, in the colonies...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Lu Ann De Cunzo.

Swedish imperialism in North America began in 1638.  Although the colony survived only 17 years, I argue that memory events and places keep Swedish colonialism alive in the U.S.  Landscapes and landmarks illuminate the extenuated processes of defining, defending, traversing, and sustanining New Sweden physically, emotionally, and ideologically for 375 years (and counting). Patricia Seed (1995:2) argued that "colonial rule over the New World was initiated through largely ceremonial...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Wade Catts. Peter Leach. Craig Lukezic.

Fort Casimir, also known as Fort Trefaldighet, was a seventeenth-century fortification situated along the Delaware River. The fort changed hands four times in its short career – built by the Dutch in 1651, captured by the Swedes in 1654, retaken by the Dutch in 1655, and finally seized by the English in 1664. Serving as a focal point of early colonial settlement in the Delaware River valley, its precise location remains both elusive and intriguing to Delaware archeologists. The first attempt to...