This book is the first of hopefully two eventually to be produced within the project "The Late Iron Age in South Scandinavia – A Historical Anthropology", sponsored by The Swedish Research Council. As a point of departure for such a project, it may seem odd to start by writing a book about the seven or eight centuries that took society to the second part of the first millennium CE and the period focussed by the project. Nevertheless, so great is the need for synthesis in Scandinavian Archaeology that only on the basis of an overall understanding of EIA society can that of LIA and VA be properly understood.
In order to be able to draw what I believe to be the essential conclusion about the change in society during the middle of the first millennium CE, I have focussed on the understanding of the landscape, and the way landscape was used in prehistoric times. These conclusions are cardinal because the second book is supposed to discuss the mentality of the LIA and the way it brought acculturation and Christianity into society before the arrival of the Church, i.e. before the renaissance period of the Viking Age that brought back Roman influence to South Scandinavia. In my opinion, as well as in that of many others, understanding the mid millennium holds the key to understanding LIA and VA.
Visiting Egypt 2002 with a number of junior researchers in Egyptology Dr. Sofia Häggman introduced me to the Siwa oasis and the Director of Schools and Chairman of the Heritage Committee Abdallah Baghi. When showed around in the Siwan landscape by Sofia Häggman its sites and the structural similarities between peripheral Roman Period Siwa and the equally peripheral Roman Iron Age Öland became apparent. Eventually, thanks to Siwan hospitality this similarity structured an essential part of the research project behind this book.
Author(s): Frands Herschend
Series: Occasional Papers in Archaeology, 46
Publisher: Uppsala University
Year: 2009
Language: English
Pages: 450
Foreword 9
Chapter I. The Human Landscape 11
Introduction 13
Once a Lasting Relation 18
The Arbitrary Date 20
Notes 23
Chapter II. The Use of Graves 31
Introduction 33
A Grøntoft Case 44
Graves as a Predicament 48
In-Depth Examples 57
First Conclusion: Why are Graves Needed? 117
Second Conclusion: (1) Cemetery Themes 120
Second Conclusion: (2) The Decked-Out 125
Notes 128
Chapter III. Ordering House and Settlement 137
Introduction 139
The House as Remains 142
The House as a Life Span 156
Understanding Tacitus 160
The House as a Balance 171
Balance as a Common Notion 183
Summing up "Landscape" and the Changing Settlement Order 187
Notes 193
Chapter IV. Building Permanent Villages and Farms 199
Introduction 201
In the Beginning of the Common Era 202
Emancipation and the Economic Turn 222
Vendehøj 229
The New Dwelling Quarters, NDQ 236
The Hall 251
Præstestien 260
The Eketorp Ringfort 271
Conclusion 278
Notes 280
Chapter V. Ordinary Communities 285
Introduction — the Ölandic Example 287
The Siwan Example 298
Qureishet-Zaitun 303
Öland and Siwa 322
Notes 325
Chapter VI. The Landscape of Warfare 329
Introduction 331
Warfare Offerings and Central Places 331
A Close-up of Fyn 340
The Geography of Conflict 348
Maritime Warfare 353
War on Land 361
Battlefield Preserved 364
The Hall at Uppåkra 369
Conclusion 377
Notes 381
Chapter VII. Synthesis 387
Introduction — Two Settlement Landscapes 389
The Loss of Dynamics 399
Landscapes of War 404
The Progress Made 406
Notes 411
Bibliography 413
