Early Bronze Age Houses at Højgård, Southern Jutland

Early Bronze Age Houses at Højgård, Southern Jutlan

Two more House Groups with Three-aisled Long-houses from the Early Bronze Age at Højgård, South Jutland

Two more House Groups with Three-aisled Long-houses from the Early Bronze Age at Højgård, South Jutlan

The Chieftains' Farms of the Over Jerstal Group

The Chieftains' Farms of the Over Jerstal Grou

A matter of months: High precision migration chronology of a Bronze Age female.

Establishing the age at which prehistoric individuals move away from their childhood residential location holds crucial information about the socio dynamics and mobility patterns in ancient societies. We present a novel combination of strontium isotope analyses performed on the over 3000 year old "Skrydstrup Woman" from Denmark, for whom we compiled a highly detailed month-scale model of her migration timeline. When combined with physical anthropological analyses this timeline can be related to the chronological age at which the residential location changed. We conducted a series of high-resolution strontium isotope analyses of hard and soft human tissues and combined these with anthropological investigations including CT-scanning and 3D visualizations. The Skrydstrup Woman lived during a pan-European period characterized by technical innovation and great social transformations stimulated by long-distance connections; consequently she represents an important part of both Danish and European prehistory. Our multidisciplinary study involves complementary biochemical, biomolecular and microscopy analyses of her scalp hair. Our results reveal that the Skrydstrup Woman was between 17-18 years old when she died, and that she moved from her place of origin -outside present day Denmark- to the Skrydstrup area in Denmark 47 to 42 months before she died. Hence, she was between 13 to 14 years old when she migrated to and resided in the area around Skrydstrup for the rest of her life. From an archaeological standpoint, this one-time and one-way movement of an elite female during the possible "age of marriageability" might suggest that she migrated with the aim of establishing an alliance between chiefdoms. Consequently, this detailed multidisciplinary investigation provides a novel tool to reconstruct high resolution chronology of individual mobility with the perspective of studying complex patterns of social and economic interaction in prehistory

To grave fra Højvang, Sønderjylland. Dendrodatering og absolut kronologi

                              Two graves from Højvang in southern Jutland Dendrodating and absolute chronology This articles presents the re-examination of a south Jutland grave from the later Roman period, which was originally published by H. Neumann in Kuml 1953. More recently it has been possible both through a re-assessment of the pottery from the grave and through a dendrochronological examination of the surviving parts of the grave chamber's oak planks to arrive at a closer dating of grave 1. In this grave was found among other things an imported glass beaker which was probably made near Cologne. It was possible to arrive at a dendrochronological dating because in the last ten years and relevant to the South Group as defined by J. Ringtved, there have been found several structures in which oak wood survives, particularly at the Hjemsted settlement site, but also the marine obstructions in Haderslev Fjord and at the settlement at Store Emmerske. Grave 1 is pottery-dated to to period C2 and grave 2 to period C1b/C2. From the dendrochronology the dating of grave 1 can be narrowed down to the time around the year 300, or the final part of period C2. Grave 1 is the first later Roman grave to be dendrochronologically dated in Denmark, and the earliest north of the limes that has been dated dendrochronologically. The dating applies to the time of burial. This means that the pottery must have been produced in the third century. This dating does not alter the relative chronology of the period's finds, but is of great importance for establishing absolute chronology and for estimating the length of the individual phases. Per Ethelber

Nogle teoretiske overvejelser omkring anvendelsen af 14C-dateringer til datering af forhistoriske hustomter

Since 2002, the Museum Sønderjylland– Arkæologi Haderslev, the 14C-laboratoryat Aarhus University, and theDept. of natural sciences at the MoesgårdMuseum have been working together on aproject aiming at establishing a house typologybased on the 14C-dating of houses.During the last fifteen years, a large numberof houses have been dated accordingto the guide lines established at the beginningof this project. Chronologically,the dates range from the Neolithic to theMedieval Period. Based on a number ofspecific 14C-dates from the Roman andEarly Germanic Iron Ages, this articlediscusses some methodological aspectsregarding the use of 14C-analyses to datebuildings. In addition, this article presentsthe most important results so farand finally, the question what still needsto be done for the period 50 BC – AD 550is addressed

Mellem angler og jyder ved Kassø

After 150 km of trial trenches and two yearsof excavations, we can now begin to seethe contours of the settlement pattern inthe Roman Iron Age at Kassø. Three mainphases may be recognised in the habitationeach dominated by different types of housesas well as different burialcustoms. Takentogether, they present a significantly morenuanced picture than we might otherwiserecognise when our studies are based onsmall-scale excavations only covering a minorpart of the whole

Strontium isotope ratios of tooth enamel and hair from the Skrydstrup Woman.

<p>Strontium isotope ratios of tooth enamel and hair from the Skrydstrup Woman.</p

Map of Denmark indicating the Skrydstrup and the Egtved sites.

<p>Map of Denmark indicating the Skrydstrup and the Egtved sites.</p